Benefits Of Website Maintenance

Taking care of your website can be a tedious task for some, but the work is well worth it.  A well maintained website will attract and keep visitors better, perform better in search, and represent your cause  in a more professional light.

Attract New Visitors
People who visit your website need to see something new or eventually they will stop visiting.  A website is not like a favorite song that should be on repeat year after year.  Instead, it should be updated with new content, fresh products, and great information that are relevant to your subject.  Make sure your visitors know that each time they come to your website they will find something new and exciting.

Perform Better In Search
Search engines use a number of factors in ranking your site, but two biggies are frequency of updates and keywords in the content.  That means that search engines look at how often you are updating your site and with what content.  So it is not only the act of updating that will help, but making sure the content is valid for your subject.  A site about fishing lures should not have articles about the hottest new shoes from Europe.

Represent Your Cause
To make sure people know you are alive, you need to keep your website current.  There is nothing that says, “Dead Company Here.” more than a website with three year old information.  Keep it current.

In Closing
Maintenance is necessary, but don’t think dollar signs when you think maintenance.  We build a number of websites on content systems to help business owners update and maintain their own sites.  We have even converted a number of sites built by others onto content systems for owner updates.  You can do this yourself – and be successful at it.  If you would rather not, we can certainly do it for you.  Either way, a maintained website is a better website.  Don’t waste any more time, start this month by adding something new.

 

Monthly Special: Website Starter

The March Special is a perfect starting point for that new website you have been thinking about.  Our Website Starter will work for any small business, start-up, or organization.  You get three content pages with a custom design and geared to perform well on search for only $449.  This is the lowest price we have ever had for a website like this.  Don’t miss out!

There has never been a better time to start a new website!

 

Monthly Maintenance Tip

Add or edit your content this month.  A well maintained website will perform better, so start with this.  Choose any page or the whole site and add something new that your visitors will enjoy.  Nothing new going on?  That’s sad, but consider just changing the existing content around to make it a little different.  You might be surprised at the effect that can have.

 

Proverbs 13:10-11

Pride only breeds quarrels, but wisdom is found in those who seek advice.

Dishonest money dwindles away, but he who gathers money little by little makes it grow.

 

It’s Back!

After a long break (way too long) the email newsletter is back. We took some time while we reorganized the schedule for these to make them more useful to you and functional for us. The weekly newsletter is moving to a once-a-month release. Hopefully this will be a better cycle for all of us. As always, send us your comments or post them on either the YWP blog or Facebook Page…
Blog: http://www.yourwebpro.biz/blog
Facebook: http://facebook.yourwebpro.biz

 

Website Content: For Search and Beyond

When it comes time to write the content portion of your website, there are some very important things to keep in mind:

  1. Where do I want people to find my website?
  2. How important will search traffic be for the success of my website?
  3. What is the most important subject concerning my website?

Answering these three questions will help guide the direction you take in writing your content. If you are not at all concerned about the need for people to find your website, then following these steps will be primary for you:

  1. Use a single column, think the opposite of your newspaper layout. One short column is key for web content.
  2. Use short paragraphs with great headlines. Believe it or not, visitors have a very short attention span. You must catch their eye and convey the information they are looking for quick – generally in less than 30 seconds. Fail that and you will lose them.
  3. Use bullet points anytime these is something to list. Never, ever go with a comma list inside a paragraph when you can use a bullet list. This helps someone find points and move quickly. It will also go a long way toward helping search engines find your key points.

Speaking of search, adding a the search engine indexing dynamic can make your content writing more complex. The above rules still apply, but there are a few more things to consider:

  1. Where do you want your website to show up?
  2. What is the most important keyword or phrase to promote your website?
  3. How good can your keywords be incorporated into your content for human eyes?

Where To Show Up

When you consider your geographic market, it is obviously easier to target your site to the local area over the whole globe. This is true for both organic and sponsored search listings. If you can narrow your target to a specific area, the content of your site should reflect that. If not, go to question two.

What Is Most Important

Find the most important keyword, or top few and focus your content on those. When doing this, think of the most likely way a common man will look for you. While I can describe my business as e-commerce design and development firm, the common may might look for a website designer or website builder in Lubbock.

Including Keywords In Content

As the developer, it is my job to focus the key areas of your website code to be search engine friendly, but the content is very important too. Write your content to include the area and keywords you have chosen. When doing this, however, it still has to be readable by humans or all is lost. Don’t make the content awkward or hard to understand, just balanced.

Final Thoughts

One final thing to consider is the inclusion of images, flash and video. While those cannot be read directly by search engines, they are extremely useful for people. When they are used correctly that can boost search rankings, but incorrectly they will kill you. Think of these as a spice in your meal. You don’t want a while plate of garlic, but a little mixed in is yummy. More on video below from my friend and video guru Apollo HD Video.

 

Video Offer From Apollo HD

Note From Your Web Pro: We are not selling ad space in the newsletter. Apollo has been our choice for video production and our sole reference to clients looking at video work. If you have considered video production for your website, this is a great offer we could not pass up sharing with you.

We are giving small businesses a chance to try video on their web site without ANY costs or commitment. Small businesses don’t have a lot of extra money to spend on new marketing ideas. This free trial lets small businesses see if video makes sense for them before buying. We’re so confident that once small business owners see how video can help their business on the Web they’ll want to purchase the video at an affordable price.

WHAT DO YOU GET?

A high-quality custom 1-minute video of your business

VIDEO GETS RESULTS:

You are 50 times more likely to rank on top in a Google search

50% of viewers take action after watching

30% of viewers visit a store

30-40% increase in clicks for more information

16-20% increase in phone calls

*(Sources: Forrester Study and November 2008 Kelsey Group Study)

WHAT’S THE CATCH?

No catch, truly. If you are happy with the video keep it for a low cost of $399. Included with this is a free upload and embed code to your favorite video content provider. If you don’t want to keep your video, no problem. There are no commitments and we don’t ask for your payment information up
front.

Call us now to schedule a consultation.
469.360.6494
www.apollohd.com

 

YWP Monthly Special: Keyword Starter

Let us run through your website this month to see how search engines and visitors are looking at you. We look at the code and content, compare your site to your top search competitor, then rewrite three pages to position you better overall. Normally this is $199, but during the month of February it is only $149. See the flyer – click here.

 

New Years Resolution: Have A Useful Website

Allow me to offer you a realistic alternative to all the feel-good resolutions floating around.  Exercising is a great idea, but sounds like a lot of work.  Eating right is fine too, but not so tasty.  If you planned to quit smoking go ahead with that – but otherwise, read on for a resolution you can stick to.

Most of you know by now that having a great website takes a fair amount of time and a dedication to updates, maintenance, and planning.  I encourage you to set a plan this year to keep your website up to date.  Here is my plan to help you.

No, no… this is not the sales pitch part.  I am leaving that out… for now.  I spent some time toward the end of 2009 putting ideas together to help you have a more useful website.  This is all simple stuff – and some of it you can do without paying me.  Each month I am rolling out two articles based around helping you have a more useful website.  Some will be instructive, others informative, but all will be chock full of grammatical errors.

Additionally, I am rolling out a few new services that will help you do better.  These will involve you paying me – but that’s OK.  Each month you will see a monthly special that will help you.  In this, hosting and maintenance plans are getting tweaked.  Don’t worry, you are not loosing any services.  You are gaining more services to add value to the maintenance plan you already have.

Finally, each month you will see a Maintenance Tip that will be something small to help keep your website in shape.
We all know that by the 4th of July the diet will be forgotten and the gym access card will be lost.  Keeping your website in shape will be so much easier.  I hope you will find the coming information useful.

To a great website and much success in 2010!

 

Time for a change

The YWP weekly newsletter has been running right at a year in some form or another, so it is time for a change. One of the things we are looking at is going to a biweekly release with more content. Other ideas are floating around, but the most important input is from YOU. Since this is geared to help you run a better website, tell us:

What can a free email newsletter provide to help you?

What type of things would you like to see?

Would you be interested in events going on with other YWP clients?

Let us know so this tool can serve you best. Comment on the blog, facebook, or reply via email.