Making Sense of Search Engine Optimization and Link Building

Most business owners and web design clients have an easy time understanding why inbound links are such an important part of Google’s algorithm. After all, if lots of other websites are pointing in your direction, then it only makes sense to consider your site a top resource in the industry.

What they don’t often realize is that the relative value of inbound links goes deeper than that. It isn’t enough to simply have links to your website, they need to be the right kinds of links from the right places.

To help you make sense of search optimization and link building, here are three quick things to keep in mind:

Having other sites link to you is a big deal. Having just a few dozen high-quality inbound links to your website can help your Google position more than anything you could actually change or optimize on your own pages. In other words, Link building is one part of the search engine optimization process you can’t afford to overlook.

To be valuable, an inbound link has to make sense contextually. In other words, Google and the other major search engines put more weight and links that come from sites that are related to yours. Having vendors, suppliers, and industry directories point you is valuable; gathering random links from sites on unrelated topics isn’t.

You have to ask for links in a way that makes sense to other business owners and webmasters. Just because an inbound link would really help your online marketing efforts will doesn’t mean that someone else is likely to give it to you. Instead of simply requesting that people link to your site, point them towards a piece of interesting content or some other feature that will benefit their readers and followers.

Link building for SEO purposes is a big topic but understanding the basics of what the major search engines want to see is your first step towards climbing the rankings on Google, Yahoo, and Bing. Take what you know and work with your business web design team to make sense of your inbound link building strategy.

Tips For Better Search Engine Optimization

If you are new to doing business online, you may not even know much about SEO or Search engine optimization. This is actually a very important part of driving customers to your site, and there are a number of things that will boost your Search engine optimization. The basic idea is that when people search for a product such as yours, you want your website to come up on the first page of that search without having to pay for an advertisement.

You know that if your website is sitting five or ten pages back, very few people searching will actually get to your link. In fact, some Search engine optimization studies indicate that 75% of people who do a search don’t go beyond the first page of results, and that of the 25% who go to the second page, only about 10% will go on to the third page. Each website receives a page ranking from the search engines, and that ranking is part of what determines where it is within the pages when a keyword search is performed. It is important for you that you boost your Search engine optimization so that your site can gain a higher ranking and be found by search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo. You may have a Search engine optimization company that is helping you to improve your rankings, and there are several things that they will need to work with you on in order to help you get the best rankings through Search engine optimization.

The first thing you must do to begin your Search engine optimization is to do keyword research. This is where you try to come up with words that people will search on that could connect them to your site and your product. There are Search engine optimization methods of determining which keywords are more competitive and which are going to be easier to get associated with your website. Your Search engine optimization team may ask you to provide some keywords and can then help you understand which ones are more likely to get you higher in the rankings in a shorter amount of time.

Next, you need to connect those keywords to your content in order to actually realize any Search engine optimization. You will need to have informative content on your site that uses those keywords and you will also need to have content that contains one-way links to your website that is posted elsewhere on the web, such as in article directories or blogs. Your Search engine optimization professionals will know how to do this and you will find that it really does work. Search engine optimization is not something that happens overnight, but with time and serious effort you will begin to see progress. Your SEO team will help you find some keywords that you can move up in the rankings on fairly quickly, while other more competitive terms are worth the wait. Soon, your website will be moving up in the rankings and more people will be able to find you.

Professional Web Design Can Boost Your Online Business

People who have online businesses or who are considering starting up online businesses need to understand that web design is a very important element that cannot be overlooked. The web design of your website is the key to the online business that you expect to get. Whether you are selling your own product or you are working with affiliate marketing, you need a good looking site if you want people to visit it and to come back again. You may decide that the best way to go is to hire a web design company to create your site for you, especially if you have a large number of products or you need to have a specialized shopping cart. You can do your own web design if you understand how it works.

Hiring a good web design company that understands the complex web design necessary for your site is a very important step for you to take to get your online business going and growing. However, if you understand some of the basics of how web design works, you will be able to work with your web design team intelligently and will be able to make sure that you are getting the web design elements you need.

There are certain steps necessary for web design. First, in order to have a website, you have to have a domain name. This is the URL that connects to your site and is the name that you and your site will be identified with. You want it to be easy to remember and to connect with the product or service that you are selling. It needs to be easy for your customers to type in so that they don’t get frustrated and give up trying. You don’t want it to be too long to remember, but you don’t want it so short that it doesn’t really describe your business or what you are selling. This can one of the most challenging elements of web design.

Once you have come up with the domain name, you will want to think about a logo that will identify your business to customers who visit your site. The professional web design team that you have hired to create your site often has logo creation services or can direct you to other sources for this service. It is important that your customers recognize your site as belonging to your company. You want to stay away from a logo that looks similar to the logos of other companies; it is important to be original so that your company can more easily be identified.

The site should have informative pages about your company and products as well as a way for your customers to contact you. If you have a shopping cart, it should be user-friendly so that prospective customers don’t give up because they can’t get it to work. By understanding what a good website needs, you will be able to appreciate the work that your web design team is doing and you will know whether they are doing a good job.

Phoenix Web Design: The Five Keys to Happy Clients

Today, we are going to fill you in on an industry secret: There are quite a few companies that offer business web design in Phoenix.

What do you mean you already knew that?

In all seriousness, Arizona – like any other part of the civilized world – has its share of business web designers and online marketing experts. And yet, we have been able to grow our company significantly over the years. We like to think that a large part of that success has to do with our creativity, and the fact that we build business websites that are as good as, or better than, any other website design company in Phoenix.

But we also know that there is a lot more that goes into keeping our clients happy. Here are five things we do to set Epic Web Solutions apart from our competitors… and why you shouldn’t hire a business web design team in Arizona that doesn’t do any of them:

We design great business website layouts. Although it’s not the only thing that matters, having a good artistic eye is critical to designing a profitable site.

We incorporate search engine optimization into every project. On the other hand, what good is your work of art if no one sees it?

High-quality web hosting is part of the package. This is a piece of the puzzle that a lot of clients forget about, but having your site be online continuously, updated against security threats, and loading quickly is probably more important than you think.

We put customer service front and center. In almost any business, and especially ours, your work is never great until your client thinks it’s great. Getting input and feedback from our clients has been invaluable to our business.

Epic Web Solutions offers business websites at affordable rates. No matter how great your business website is, you have to make more money from it than you spend, which is why we work so hard to keep our fees competitive.

While these might not be the Phoenix web design and search engine optimization “secrets” you expected, they have helped us build a very successful company. So the next time you look to design, or re-design, your company’s website, why not give us a call?

Who Does the Best Business Web Design in Phoenix?

Before you read any further, admit it: You fully expected us to say that we offer the best business web design in Phoenix, didn’t you?

While we are proud to say that we definitely feel like we are in the mix, the truth is that it’s something of a trick question – there really isn’t any best web design team in Arizona, or in Phoenix, or even anywhere else in the world. That’s because great business web design – in the Southwest or elsewhere – isn’t only about skills, talents, or even prices… it’s about the right fit between client and designer.

And so, the question isn’t who does the best web design, but which web design team in Phoenix is right for you? Here are a couple of factors you should probably consider:

Your budget. We would love to pretend like this isn’t a consideration, but when was the last time your company approved an invoice without caring what the numbers were? The fact of the matter is that budgets matter quite a bit in business web design, and so it’s important to choose a team that does great work, but also one you can afford.

Skills and capabilities. Some of the web design companies in Arizona focus on the basics of layout; others, like ours, have online marketing specialists and programmers on hand who can handle things like search engine optimization and custom apps. What matters isn’t that your web design has or doesn’t have any of these, but that they are able to design the business website you really want, with all the features and capabilities you need.

The right match of personalities. Can you hire a web designer you don’t really like? You can, but why would you? Given that designing, launching, and then promoting a business website can be a lot of work – and occasionally, an intense process – it makes sense to find personalities that you mesh well with.

There are a lot of web design teams here in Phoenix and throughout the Southwest, but what really matters to your company is finding the one that makes the best fit for your project.

Why Business Owners Struggle With Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization is an interesting topic among business owners. On the one hand, many of them love it. The Internet has made it possible to bring thousands upon thousands of new buyers to their websites from all over the world, at any hour of the day or time of the year.

On the other hand, a lot of business owners hate the search engine optimization process. How can they be so excited about the results, and at the same time so annoyed with what it takes to get them?

It’s easier to understand than you might think. That’s because executing a successful search engine optimization plan is a little bit like dieting – it’s a slow, tedious, and occasionally painful process that usually only pays big dividends after you’ve been doing it for a while. And what’s worse, the longer you put it off, the longer you usually have to wait to get into the right kind of shape.

Just as most of us would love to shovel down hot fudge sundaes and still look great in swimwear, the average business owner can barely wait to see all the new leads or sales they’re going to rack up once their search engine optimization plan starts to pay off. But in the meantime, it can be frustrating to keep generating ideas for content, viewing regular traffic reports, and yes, paying web design firms and search engine specialists for the guidance they provide.

In other words, having a great SEO plan is almost priceless, but writing blog posts, articles, and checks in the meantime can quickly get old.

Our advice to you is this: Find a team that truly understands search engine optimization and how it fits into your bottom-line business plan, and then give them whatever they need to get started. Recognize from the outset that it’s going to be a little bit painful and frustrating… but that you’ll be glad you made the right decision when tons of new business starts rolling in.