Milwaukee SEO: Any Site Can Benefit from SEO

by demtron on Friday, March 06, 2009 04:35 PM

Based on our research, at least 95% of all business web sites have had minimal to no search engine optimization.  We're not talking rocket-science style SEO here.  We see simple things like duplicate title tags, no title tags, missing title tags, poor natural text and even broken links.

Businesses are arranged in a phone book by industry or type of business and have the relevant keywords in the section heading.  People searching in a phone book will look for the relevant business category first, then look a a business that's nearby them.

Take a look a your own website and look at what's in the title bar of the browser.  Having your company name is fine, but unless you have strong brand recognition, nobody will search for you based on your company name.  Particularly for small professional services businesses, local search can be crucial for getting traffic.  If you're an attorney in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, doesn't it make sense for your site to have Milwaukee Attorney somewhere in the title where it can be found by search engines?

Surprisingly, sometimes this is all it takes for a search engine to find and rank a page highly.  If your keyword phrases don't involve significant competition, this can launch a site right to the first page of Google search results.  On a recent site, we optimized the site for South Milwaukee Physical Therapy.  Guess what?  With that little bit of work, that site now ranks #1 for that search terms and enjoys a good amount of local traffic for that phrase.  This site now provides that business with an additional way to be found and for new customers to contact them.

If your site needs help with SEO, contact our Milwaukee SEO experts today for a free evaluation and recommendations for your site.


Free, Easy Project Management Templates for Excel

by demtron on Tuesday, February 10, 2009 09:15 AM
One project in which I’m involved requires a small amount of project management for a team of 3 resources plus an outsourced software development group.  The project lead is the owner of the company and needed a high-level project plan with a simple interface for maintaining items in the work breakdown structure.  Sounds like we could use MS Project, right?

The owner uses a Mac, for which MS Project is not available, and has no experience with PM software to boot.  MS Project would probably be overkill, but the project is of sufficient scope and duration that a basic project management tool is needed.  In the interest of keeping things moving forward and finding a low- or no-cost PM tool, I began hunting for simple templates.  Why reinvent the wheel if someone else has already created something that works OK?

In general, all the templates I found offered at least one, but not all of the following:

  • Simple task dependency tracking (start-to-finish)
  • Gantt chart generation from a WBS
  • Rollups
  • Color coding of task status
  • Budgeting
  • Tracking by the hour


In the interest of meeting the tight time deadline, I decided that we needed one that could create a simple Gantt chart (no dependencies needed) and handle start/finish dates, percent completion and resource assignments.  I found a great set of them at http://www.hyperthot.com/pm_excel_gantt.htm .  I picked the Gantt chart with auto-bars version.

Here's an example of what the Gantt chart looks like with some tasks filled in:

We’ll see how this works.


5 Things Every Web Site Owner Must Know

by demtron on Friday, November 21, 2008 03:06 PM

Your web designer has just completed your site and it’s live and available to see on the Web.  You’ve thanked your designer for a job well done and you’re excited about the prospects of new customers and increased awareness of your business.  What do you know about the setup, configuration and ongoing charges for your site?

When I work with new clients, I always give them the “run over by the truck” story.  If I’m run over by a truck and can’t help them with their Web sites, have I given them enough information to give another designer so he can quickly get up-to-speed and continue maintaining their sites?  When I take over site maintenance, I always ask for this information, and I am amazed and little data my clients sometimes have about their sites.  If a designer leaves, falls ill, or is otherwise unable to continue work on a site, a site owner may be left with now knowledge to transfer for a new designer.

Before you pay your designer, make sure you have this key information about your site.

Is your domain name registered under your name?  You NEED to make sure of this.  If your designer or someone else registered your domain, you may not own your domain name.  This can be DISASTROUS if you lose contact with that person and need to renew the registration or make change to your Web site.  If there is one thing I stress to all clients, it’s to take control of domain name registration.

Do you know all the passwords for your site?  Be sure to ask for passwords for the hosting control panel, FTP site, database, e-mail accounts, and any information pertaining to the security of your site.  If your designer does not pass these along to you, you may not be able to update your site content, e-mail accounts, or other site aspects in the future.

How is your site configured?  Some sites require special configuration because of features that you’ve requested.  Examples of configuration details include whether it uses an SSL certificate, a database, and payment processing.  Depending on the complexity of your site, your designer may have needed to alter the default site settings.  Make sure you get documentation from your designer detailing any special considerations from the site that may not be readily accessible or understandable by a new designer.

Who is responsible for what aspects of your site?  Hosting, email, domain registration, SSL certificate registration and payment processing may each be handled by a separate entity.  Be sure to get the company name, phone number and Web site address for the billing and technical support contacts from these services.

How has billing been arranged?  Hosting plans, SSL certificates, and other parts of your site or domain registration may be billed to you monthly, quarterly, yearly or in some other interval.  Are these set up to automatically bill your credit card?  If not, how will you be notified of a payment and how do you arrange payment?

Your Web site can be a vital part of your business, and it’s imperative that you have control of all its major aspects.  For some of my clients, previous designers did not pass along this vital information, which left them vulnerable to a variety of maintenance, security, and other problems.  Ask your designer to take an hour or so to document these Web site aspects for you.  You’ll be glad you did!


Web Site Traffic Quantity vs. Quality

by demtron on Monday, November 17, 2008 09:19 AM

I've had numerous people approach me about how to bring traffic to their Web sites.  Of course, everyone wants more traffic, but is traffic volume really the ultimate goal?

Attracting and retaining the right audience is the most important consideration for any Web site, whether for a business, government, school, non-profit, or informational resource.  Without the right audience, there's no real purpose for a Web site.  Here’s a set of basic steps for getting a handle on understanding traffic quality.

First, determine your target audience.  If you organization has significant off-line operations, does your Web site target the same type of customer or a different one?  For example, a law firm may offer services in several facets of law but only promote one of them on their site, making their off-line marketing needs different from those on-line.

Second, find out the source of your traffic.  This is where a good traffic analytics tool can help out.  A popular and free tool for this is Google Analytics.  Think about the attributes that make up your desired traffic.  Is local traffic or regional traffic important?  Are you advertising on sites related to your industry?  How much traffic is coming from keyword advertisements versus natural searches?

The next question is perhaps the most important.  Which type of traffic is most valuable?  Again, an analytics tool can be used to track conversions.  A conversion is a specific action that the visitor is expected to make, such as purchasing one or more items, requesting more information or free written materials, or becoming a subscriber to a service offered.  Matching conversion rate to traffic types is critical to a site’s success.  Which would you rather have – 10000 hits per month with a 1% conversion rate or 3000 hits per month with a 7% conversation rate?  I'll take the higher quality traffic any day of the week!

Finally, consider whether the current traffic aligns with the strategy of the site.  There are three possibilities: 1) traffic does not align well and produces poor conversions, 2) traffic does align well and produces good conversions, or 3) traffic aligns well in an unintended area yet still products good conversions.  The third scenario is intriguing.  I’ve seen a number of situations where a site generates quality organic search traffic based on keywords or themes not previously considered.  After additional research, it’s possible that this traffic arrives because the topic is poorly represented in search results, meaning that it could be ripe for exploitation on your site by adding more related content.

Web site traffic generation is more that just an exercise in "playing the numbers".  Web site visitors know when they’ve found a site with quality content that separates itself from those that favor extreme traffic generation.  Those visitors will be the most loyal, buying goods and services and returning in the future for more great content.  Understanding how to identify, track and measure your exposure to this target audience is crucial to an effective web site.


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