Your Website Is Your Megaphone, Use It!
21 Jun 2019 2 Comments
in Marketing TIPS, Tutorial Series, Web, Web@Work
Yes, Pay Per Click (PPC) Advertising is a proven method to in reaching your target audience, but what if I told you your website alone can help you reach some of this demographic for free? In fact, Search Engine Optimization involves thinking about the whole picture, not just PPC. While paid advertising is considered as the “quick and dirty” method, there’s also the “slow and steady” path you can take. Best of all, you’re allowed to and should take both directions!
You might ask, “Why is this important?”
When you stop paying for advertising and forgot to invest time into Organic SEO (your website and your content), most of your traffic to your website could disappear! You have no other choice, but to keep paying for advertising. Let’s be honest, having only one option isn’t really an option.
Make Friends With Googlebot
I’m going to give you a small glimpse into Technical SEO (Search Engine Optimization) by providing a few easy methods you should start implementing right now!
Part of my job in web development is to know how to build websites that will be heard and seen across the internet as best as possible. Website is not a static brochure, but a powerfully constructed megaphone waiting to be used for bringing traffic and revenue to your business.
In a previous article, “Don’t Be Your Librarian’s Worst Nightmare,” I explained how Googlebot is very much like a librarian who sorts websites and the content of its pages into “books” for users to be lead to the correct information. Not only is it good to let Googlebot know of your website and where the specific locations of your pages are, but it’s also essential to give some context of what your content is about.
Page Titles & Page Descriptions
Googlebot isn’t human like you and me. It only cares if you go by its rules and demands from you to meet its requirements or else it will ignore your content. When Googlebot indexes your website, one of the first things it pulls is the Title and Description of each individual page. In HTML code (the skeleton of your website), there is a Title Tag and a Meta Tag for a description. Below are screenshots of what Googlebot sees:
BUT JAKE, I DON’T KNOW HOW TO CODE!
Not to worry! We have already programmed inside all of our client websites an easier way to alter these tags.
- Login to your website (www.yourwebsite.com/admin) and use your username and password
- On the top left, under Content, go to Content Manager
- Select which Page you want to alter.
- In the Main tab, locate the Title field and SEO Description field.
- Click Apply at the top before exiting
What to Write In the Title of Your Page
For titles, use descriptive keywords instead of a generic name for the page. As an example, let’s take a look at the homepage of Print & Copy Factory’s website:
In this Title tag, we have a few keywords Googlebot can pull from:
Print, Copy, Web, Bellingham, Marketing, and Resource
See how this is so much better than using “Home” or “Homepage”?
What to Write In the SEO Description of Your Page
For Meta description tags, effectively state the solution to the problem within the first sentence. Keep it concise, around 150 characters and use keywords for robots to notice. Here’s what Print and Copy’s homepage description reads:
Keywords in this description: Bellingham, Washington, Whatcom County, Business, Printer, Commercial, Printshop, Digital Press, Copiers, Color Printers
How Googlebot Uses These Tags
So after implementing the changes, I will say it takes a while for Googlebot to notice, but eventually, it will update its database. Here’s what happens when I search for “printing bellingham” in Google Search Engine. As you can see in the screenshot below, we have the correct Title Tag as well as the correct description we gave to the homepage.
Bonus: Give Descriptions for All Media Content
The best part about this method is, it can be applied to everything including images, videos, buttons, etc. For example, if you want to give a description for an image, click on the image to highlight it. On the text editor’s toolbar, click the Image Icon and Insert/edit image box will appear. Write a description in the Image Description field. Click OK. Most importantly, click Apply before exiting.
Again, here’s what Googlebot will pick up:
Do’s & Don’ts of Giving Descriptions
To wrap this up, here’s a guideline of how to write great descriptions for your website.
Do:
- Do use effective and rich keywords to describe your product
- Do try to be concise and make the first sentence as your hook
- Do give descriptions for everything including pages and content
- Do provide unique descriptions for all pages and content
Don’t:
- Don’t copy/paste the same description for everything
- Don’t use generic descriptions for your pages and media content
- Don’t use irrelevant keywords that have nothing to do with the content
- Don’t “stuff” keywords as a substitute for writing full sentences
Don’t Be Your Librarian’s Worst Nightmare
30 Mar 2019 1 Comment
in Tutorial Series, Web, Web@Work
And by Librarian, I mean Gogglebot…
It’s crucial to routinely give an update to the Search Engines they are aware of all of the exciting changes on your website, whenever you are about to launch a brand new website with PCFWebsolutions or simply making changes to your content or renaming any URLs to your pages.
You might not think these small changes are anything significant, but if have ever seen an annoying “404” (error) page you might want to read more. It’s possible customers are seeing YOUR 404 page. Embarrassing…
You might ask, “What’s the harm in changing www.supercoolsite.com/index.php?page=pogosticks to https://supercoolsite.com/pogosticks?”
After all, you believe it’s obvious where the new location of your page is on your site, but not for Googlebot. This robot occasionally scans all of your pages as well as the content contained in each page to later reference this information as a solution to a question someone might be searching for.
Say for instance someone was searching online for a Pogostick.
Very much like approaching a local librarian to ask if there are any books about Pogosticks. Our internet’s librarian, known as ‘Googlebot’, immediately responds, “Oh yes! I know where you can read about pogo sticks!” They will then ask the user to follow them as they walk through the library (the internet) to locate their book (a page on your website). And much like a book, labeled and categorized to sit at a particular spot on a particular shelf, Googlebot will expect to find this “book” (webpage) exactly where it should belong. You think “Hey, that’s awesome!” You’ve written about pogo sticks and even sell them! They’re going to go straight to your website, right?
However, as soon as your audience arrived on this page, IT’S GONE! Your audience becomes confused, perhaps even frustrated, as they wish to exit and bounce out of your site and instead pick up a different “book” (your competitor’s website: https://lesscoolwebsite.com/pogosticks).
Googlebot is also confused and assumes it’s lost. After this occurrence repeats itself a few more times, Googlebot will have no choice, but to drop this page from its records and consequently DROP YOUR SEO YOU’VE BEEN BUILDING FOR YEARS!
“But my pages aren’t missing, there’s just on another “shelf” not too far…”
It doesn’t matter.
The customer already got what they needed but from someone else. NOT YOU! What a sad story… but no fear! We can prevent this awful scenario altogether by letting Googlebot know where all of these “missing” pages are, by redirecting these old links to the new links! This practice is how you can maintain your SEO value.
Of course, there are multiple ways to redirect pages, but to be safe, a “301” redirect is preferable over other redirects such as “302” and “307”.
This sounds a lot like gibberish, but let me explain: “301” indicates merely to web browsers and search engine bots (Googlebot isn’t the only one out there) that the page has moved PERMANENTLY. That means not only has the page changed location but that the content—or an updated version of it—can be found at the new URL! A “301” passes between 90-99% of link equity (ranking power) to the redirected page.
Here at Print & Copy Factory, we can communicate with Search Engine Bots and see what pages they might be looking for, but can’t seem to track down and help guide them to the new locations of these pages. New customers are buying your pogo sticks. No sad stories!
So if you’re making changes on your own or may feel that you might want us to look into Indexing and Redirection for you, don’t hesitate to contact us!
You don’t want your SEO to drop. On top of this, we also provide SEO services to boost our client’s website’s Search Ranking and convert prospects into customers!
Hi, my name is Jake and I’m the Web Administrator, Front-end Developer, and go-to web guru for all of the technical questions you may have. We host over 130 websites and provide all kinds of web services to our clients including newsletter email campaigns, engineering new websites, monthly backups, contact form building, etc… you name it – I’ve got a solution!
You can contact me by emailing to support@pcfwebsolutions.com
The Six-Stage Distinctions of Developing a Website
29 Jan 2019 1 Comment
in Design, Marketing TIPS, Services, Web
Process Blog post for Jan 2019
The Six Stage Distinctions of developing websites!
A lot has changed in 2018 in the web development world, and here at PCFWebsolutions, we’re excited to share with you our distinctions to what it takes to create and develop a beautiful, powerful, well-designed and functioning website. This process is to show you a great understanding of the steps of what it takes to engineer and maintain websites for a smoother experience for both you, your customers and us as your service provider. Most people don’t realize what happens behind the scenes of the processes and have assumed expectations that may not be fitting their budget and timelines.
If you’re looking to build a new website or simply update your existing website, reviewing these steps will help with the planning, expectations, and smoothing out the transition, all the while keeping the cost down!
The Six-Stage Distinctions
Discovery Phase
What is it that you want your site to accomplish? What is the functionality of your ideal site: is it an E-Commerce site, or is it mainly Information-based? Who is your target audience? What is your Call-To-Action? PCFWebsolutions has put together a packet called “Website Homework” to help you brainstorm ideas while you are discovering all of the possibilities. It’s also good to explore existing websites you personally as examples!
The very next thing we want to do is get all of us together for a meeting, whether that may be over the internet or locally here at Print & Copy Factory. We will discuss what your business wants and needs in a new website, in regards to branding, flow through, and functionality. Based on this information, we will research what’s possible and put it to a concept by engineering a plan and present a proposal.
Decision Phase
With an agreed plan being accepted, we will establish goals, timelines, and expectations for you as well as Print & Copy Factory to work with. You will then be tasked to provide content, images and other materials that we will need to help put the site together.
This is the time where you will need to start writing content for your page outline. If you’re not sure what to say, you might want to take a step back and see what your competition is saying on their websites. Conducting a survey to gather information from your audience is also a great method to bring clarity what the content for your site should speak to your audience.
And while you are writing content, we will be laying the technical groundwork to prepare for a new website and create a navigation flow-through presentation how the site pages are organized in an easy, straight forward manner.
Design
This is where ideas now take formation. With each page’s content, we will then begin creating wireframes to give you an idea of the site flow through. This is like moving the furniture around, by changing things enough for the whole design and content will flow together. We will discuss any minor changes that need to be finalized and will plan to start developing the site.
Development
This is where our magic of integrating your site on the world wide web and all of the parts will come together. You have great content ready and we’ve established the navigation flow-through, the site page layouts and how it will look overall. Now it’s time to take this and put it into action, this is why you can count on us to expertly create a beautiful website experience through your vision!
Deployment
After we have gone over everything that is necessary for launch, it’s time to hand over the keys for you to start driving your new website. This is where we provide training for your staff to manage your website at the level you choose.
Deliberation
After the site has been live for around a month, we will be tracking the behavior on the website and offer suggestions and make appropriate adjustments. In reality, a great site is never complete, as Google loves fresh content and updating things as your business grows too. This is how we can help you develop a great SEO reputation, and it doesn’t have to be restricted to the online marketplace. Print & Copy Factory can help you market your website through advertising, direct mail, and printing services.
Give us a call or email us and schedule a time to discuss a new or updated website today!
Your Website Is Your Digital Front Door
03 Sep 2018 Leave a Comment
Why Digital Presence Is So Important
Your website is your digital front door, and when your brand isn’t well represented on your website, you can cause significant confusion among your core audience.
When you work closely with a designer to translate your brand from printed pieces to the web, you’re ensuring that customers and prospects are comfortable with interacting with your brand on any channel. If you are using social media channels to promote your brand, you may want to audit the design look and feel for consistency. Many brand managers find it easiest to define a brand across all channels during a refresh of the look and feel of your digital presence. Everything down to the color that you choose for your logo mark will help tightly define your brand.
That’s why you can trust Print & Copy Factory to help build and manage your website for you!
Is Your Brand “Voice” Speaking Through Your Website?
Is your brand a little smart and sassy, or cool and classy? Slightly high-brow or ready for some fun?
The brand “voice” that you define is essentially the personality for your brand. It’s unlikely that a well-established bank would want to suddenly start using emojis in their brand communication, for instance. Alternatively, a fun and feisty new design firm would want to use different messaging than a financial institution! Your voice should be made up not only of the way you want your brand to appear, but also allow you to communicate effectively with your core audience. Based on demographics, your brand may have a slightly different voice when speaking to various audience segments.
Your website is your digital first impression of how well you communicate to the needs of your customers. If your Brand voice isn’t loud and clear enough, either they won’t notice you or will go somewhere else.
Marketing Collateral
Each piece of marketing collateral that you create — from letterhead to your website to your latest printed sales brochure — should all have a cohesive design that sticks close to your brand guidelines.
That doesn’t mean that everything has to look the same, but when someone looks at a piece of your marketing materials, they should have that “Aha! I recognize this brand!” feeling immediately. In today’s fast-paced digital world, it can be easy to create a new look for your website or emails and forget that your printed materials, such as business cards and letterhead, need to be refreshed to match an updated look.
Finding Your Identity
Each interaction, each step of each process, and each conversation that happens between customers and prospects is yet another piece of your brand identity! You can see why this makes your brand one of the most critical assets in your business.
While all of these pieces work together to create this mystical thing that we call “brand identity,” there are some definite hallmarks that help set the tone.
Need a New Website? Leave it to Us
21 May 2018 Leave a Comment
in Web@Work
Hello everyone! My name is Jake. I have 7 years of Graphic Designer experience and am now delighted to be working as a Web Developer here at Print & Copy Factory. I wanted to briefly go over how important it is to have a professional website these days. Whether or not you have a website for your business, it’s always good to keep a few things in mind.
The times are changing for the business industry. We’re entering an age where the technology is at the forefront of every business owner’s mind. For those who aren’t tech-savvy, the idea of the website can be daunting.
“Where to begin with building a website?”
“How much does a professional website cost?”
“Who can I trust to build one for me?”
Here at Print & Copy Factory, we have built many websites for all kinds of businesses, no matter the size of the business or what the needs may be. We also build our websites using a CMS platform where you can be in control adding or removing content in the future which is important in order to update your website with relevant information.
“The three steps to Powerful Marketing 1) Have something good to say. 2) Say it well. 3) Say it often.”
– Jason Gaylord, LocalLoop
Here are four things you should consider when building a new website:
1. Capturing Attention
Did you know that the average attention span is so short, a potential customer will decide whether to continue viewing your website or move on within the first 8 seconds? It doesn’t matter how modern looking a website is, or how many pages it has. Bottom line, if your website doesn’t readily give your audience what they need, they will look to others for a solution. That’s why having a clear call to action of what you can do can quickly convert your audience into customers.
Does your website have what they are looking for?
2. SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
You want your website to be your word of mouth. Keyword Search Support is the practice of organizing your site in a way that Search Engines can quickly and easily understand what your site is, and how relevant it is to what people are searching. The way Search Engines (Google, Yahoo, etc.) crawl websites and make their decisions on who to put first on the searches is constantly evolving and it’s good to stay on top of it. We specialize in helping your business make it to the first page of search listings to stay ahead of the competition!
3. Quick & Responsive
You want your website to be fast and flexible! Today roughly over 50% of those who visit websites are on mobile devices and the percentage has grown every year as technology becomes increasingly better. 40% of people won’t wait beyond 2 seconds if your webpage isn’t loading. When we build your website, we make sure to build it to automatically reformat itself for every device including desktop computers, laptops, tablets as well as smartphones.
So no matter where your customers are coming from, they can easily connect with you.
4. Security
When you embark your adventure on building a website, you want to make sure you’re prepared for the dangers out there. Sadly, stories of websites and social media accounts being hacked are becoming more and more frequent. To be honest, if the technology you’re using is outdated you’re leaving yourself out in the open for anyone to reek havoc online by hijacking your identity. You’ll see “free” offers online. Although most of these offers are well-intentioned, they usually don’t provide the right level of security.
That’s why it’s good to have a team like Print & Copy Factory who can keep your website relevant and fresh.
Don’t have a website yet? Let’s get started!
Already have a website? There’s always room for improvement!
CLICK HERE TO SEE HOW YOUR WEBSITE RATES TO THE MASSES!
(Alright, here’s another one because you’ve gotten this far.)
5. Branding
It is always a great idea to stay on top of your image, as website design trends can quickly look outdated. Visitors to your site will notice if your branding feels fresh and up-to-date, and it can instill trust in their minds that you bring that same attention to detail to all the other aspects of your business or organization.
If you feel starting fresh with a new logo sounds like a step in the right direction, we have a highly skilled design staff who can take care of that for you!
The power of CMSMS Photo Galleries
11 Apr 2011 Leave a Comment
What do these three images have in common?
Who Is Print & Copy Factory
03 Mar 2011 Leave a Comment
in Marketing, Services Tags: corporate video, ferndale chamber, Marketing
Creating A Corporate Video
A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to piece together a corporate video for the shop that was going to be aired at a Ferndale Chamber of Commerce meeting. I was quite excited about doing such a project, but I also knew it was going to be a challenge.
I have edited a few small videos before, but nothing of this scale: 3 or 4 minutes long, with several dozen video clips and still images, background music as well as a full narration throughout the entire video, spoken by your’s truly. Fortunately, just as much as this was a challenge, it was also a wonderful opportunity, for multiple reasons.
More
Training Video 3-Styling Your Text
16 Dec 2010 Leave a Comment
in Videos, Web Tags: CMSMS, video training
The third video in this CMSMS training series focus on styling text using headers, paragraphs and lists. By avoiding the pitfalls of inline, or manual styles, you can create a more consistent and flexible site.
Tips for Choosing a Readable Type
09 Dec 2010 Leave a Comment
in Design Tags: fonts, typography
You’ve worked hard to create just the right look for your client’s newsletter. But will your masterpiece also be easy to read? Balancing beauty with readability can be challenging. Here are some areas to keep in mind as you choose a typeface and layout the text on your next project.
X-height. X-height refers to the size of a lowercase x in a given typeface. The larger the x-height, the denser the type will appear on the page, and the less readable it will tend to be.
Training Video 2: Images in Your Website
16 Nov 2010 Leave a Comment
in Videos, Web Tags: CMSMS, video training
The second video in this CMSMS training series focus on uploading images, editing them and inserting theminto your content.
Images play a major aesthetic and functional role in our websites, but they can also create the most headaches. Check out this video to learn some of the tips and tricks to make images work for you.
