Website Launches: RELAUNCH: United Way and Hospice of Chattanooga
September 12th, 2011
Today we have relaunched the United Way of Greater Chattanooga and Hospice of Chattanooga Websites, each with a new design and new features.
The new United Way of Greater Chattanooga website features a new Community Center with live social media feeds and our new SiteNow SMS module for Volunteers. http://www.liveunitedchattanooga.com .
The new Hospice of Chattanooga website is the result of a strategic messaging campaign led by the Williams Web team with the Hospice of Chattanooga marketing team led by Garry Mac. http://www.hospiceofchattanooga.org .
Please visit these websites and support these outstanding organizations that provide so much to our community.
Posted by Greg Pearson | 0 Comment(s)
News Announcements: New SMS Module Launches for United Way
September 8th, 2011
Today, the United Way of Greater Chattanooga launched its mobile Volunteer SMS Message system using our new SiteNow SMS module. We encourage you to sign-up to help the United Way of Greater Chattanooga. To see the new module and to sign-up go to ihelp.uwchatt.org on your desktop computer or mobile device.
This module is now available to all SiteNow clients. There is a very small cost for configuration and setup. This module can be beneficial to clients who need the ability to send urgent or timely messages to SMS participants in various categories of interest. Please contact support@williamsweb.com if you have questions or would like to install this module in your website.
Posted by Greg Pearson | 0 Comment(s)
Social Networking: More Google Plus
August 26th, 2011
Since my last post Google has made an important change to its Plus 1 button (you are beginning to see it everywhere now). Previously, the Plus 1 button was one of the ways that Google used to rank websites for Google Searches. Now the Plus 1 button is like the Facebook ‘Like’ button and posts the link in the user’s Google Plus circle(s).
Even though businesses cannot create Google Plus profiles yet, the addition of the Plus 1 button to your site IS beneficial and more so as Google Plus grows. Adding the Plus 1 Button to your website allows Google Plus users to ‘Plus’ your website and recommend it to others in their circles, as well as increasing your site’s presence in Google searches.
The easiest way to add Plus 1 as well as Facebook ‘Like’ and Twitter ‘Tweet’ and other sharing functions is to use utilities like ‘Add This’ (www.addthis.com). For our SiteNow clients, you can add the code for Add This as a media item and insert that snippet on every page. However, the best way is to add these utilities so that they show on every page of your site. We will need to place the code in the template but the cost is very small – usually less than $50. Let us know if you would like to do that.
One last thing - We are about to announce the next Slice and Advice. Be looking for the invitation email next week and be ready to click quickly. Slice and Advice always fills up within 8 hours.
Have a great weekend!
Posted by Greg Pearson | 1 Comment(s)
Social Networking: So What’s Up with Google Plus?
August 11th, 2011
For a couple of weeks everyone was ‘buzzing’ about Google Plus. It was invitation only so people were asking those who were already on Google Plus to send them an invitation. I got mine and promptly signed up, messed around a bit, and then went back to watching Facebook.
I am not alone. According to Chitika, Google Plus web traffic peaked at 0.007% of web traffic on July 20 and by July 31 had fallen back below 0.005%. It could be that this is just a respite as Google works out some bugs and is not issuing as many invitations. One thing is certain, until all of my friends are there, I do not have any reason to be there – I think that is why early adopters like me have not hung around, at least for now.
There is also the matter that businesses are not allowed to play in the Google Plus sandbox yet. One of the most attractive things about Facebook is that it allows regular people like us to interface and interact with other individuals, groups and businesses. It is true that it didn’t begin that way but what it has become is far better – because the interactions of our lives are more than just inter-personal. We do business everyday and most of us are part of organizations and support organizations. Facebook accommodates all of life so to speak.
That doesn’t mean that Google Plus is dead already. Some people I have spoken with like it more than Facebook but limited as it is it is not enough for those of us who already have much more in other social venues. One survey published on August 10 says that Google Plus will surpass Twitter and Linked In in 2012. Maybe it will.
Until Google Plus expands, there is nothing there for businesses and organizations, and just not enough for individual users. However, knowing Google, they will likely make it work. So businesses and organizations should at least add the Google Plus +1 button to their sites to allow Google Plus users to promote those businesses and organizations in their profiles.
Posted by Greg Pearson | 0 Comment(s)
SEO: When an SEO Expert Calls…
July 19th, 2011
All of us have gotten the phone call or e-mail from a company telling us that our website’s search engine ranking can be improved. That is usually stating the obvious. What happens next is the real issue – should you engage that company or person to perform SEO services for your organization?
Evaluate Your Needs.
Just because you would like to see improvement in search engine rankings for some of your key phrases doesn’t mean you should pursue that.
One of our clients called me one day and had me do a Google search for one of their primary key phrases. When the search came back the client’s site was ranked number 3. I said, “This is great!” “But”, the client said, “our biggest competitor is number one and we want to be number one”. I responded that every change made to a web page WILL affect that page’s ranking either negatively or positively. Sometimes, it is better to live with ‘good’ than to pursue ‘perfect’ because the pursuit of perfect could harm instead of improve rankings. Is it worth the risk?
Without engaging an SEO specialist, there are some simple things you can do that will improve rankings for under-performing phrases without affecting those pages that have phrases that are performing well. Here are two: (1) If your site has an integrated blog (not an external blog), blog frequently using the key phrases that you are wanting to improve. (2) You can also create brand new content areas in your site that focus on the under-performing phrases.
$$$$ Doesn’t Equal Long-term Success
Most of the SEO specialists who contact you will ask for a large payment in return for getting certain of your primary key phrases to the top of rankings. They may succeed in the short term, but SEO success is a long-term commitment.
I remember a story I heard a few years ago from a man who angrily confronted a Google engineer at an SEO Q & A session I was involved in. A month before the seminar Google had just released a major algorithm update that turned website rankings on their heads. The man said this (I will never forget it) – “Three months ago I spent ten thousand dollars to improve my site’s rankings, and in one day, when Google launched its new algorithm my rankings fell several pages and some couldn’t even be found”.
Was that ten thousand dollars well spent? We would all agree that is was not. Long term success in search engine optimization requires corresponding long term analysis and revision, not just an initial effort. All search engines ‘tweak’ ranking algorithms frequently and do major updates occasionally. Sometimes, those changes benefit a site owner. But usually when they tweak, you probably need to also.
And don’t forget your competition - you know, those guys that want the same top ranking that you want? As long as they are working to achieve top placements you will need to work also.
Instead of a large expenditure for ‘guaranteed’ results that may be short lived, we think the best approach is incremental. An incremental approach means apply your best effort using best practices and see what happens and follow that with next steps as needed. Sometimes a very small investment yields very good results using this approach. One of our clients websites recently ranked on the top page of Google for nearly all of its primary key phrases. That result came within a week of the launch of its new optimized web site, and among heavy competition. The beauty of that is that the client spent very little on SEO.
The point is, why spend thousands when a much smaller investment MAY achieve the desired results? And even if the small investment doesn’t fully achieve the desired results, those efforts almost always improve rankings some. Then, if the first round doesn’t get you all the way to the top, do it again - and again if necessary.
More to come next time. Please let us know how we can serve your organization.
Posted by Greg Pearson | 0 Comment(s)
