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Do Your Customers Know Where to Find You?

Thursday, July 8th, 2010

Yahoo Local Listings Basic Is Free

Yahoo offers a free listing with your basic information for free, but charges $9.95/month for all of the features that Google Places includes for free.  I would still advise you to use their basic service.  It is free and it puts you in front of people who are using Yahoo and looking for local businesses.

With your free business listing in Yahoo Local you can display your address, phone number and web site URL if you have one.  As Yahoo says, this is just basic information, but you can put your business in up to 5 categories.  This is helpful.

For example, at Ajalon we could be under printers and we could also put an entry into copying, graphic design, wedding invitations and letterpress.  That would mean that if a person searched for any one of those terms our business would likely come up in a Yahoo search.  You can do this for your business also.

You may sell flooring. But you could have listings under carpets, hardwood floors, floor refinishing and commercial flooring.  All of these additional listings would be available to you if people were searching for these items.

Included in this basic listing is the ability to list the products, services or brands that you have.  For example if you carried garden equipment who could list all the brands like Toro, Black and Decker, Stihl, Snapper and other brands.  Or if you were a spa you could list all the services you offer such as facials, manicures, pedicures, massage and other offerings.

People from your area are searching every day for the products and services you offer.  Yahoo knows this and has built a service to help them find what they want.  Yahoo invites you to cooperate with them in meeting the needs of people searching.  For free.  This is really unprecedented.  When was the last time the newspaper, tv or radio asked you to advertise your business for free, so that their patrons could satisfy what they were looking for or needed?

If you would like help in setting up this free service from Yahoo give us a call.  707.528.0288.

Written by David Walrath

Ajalon Printing & Design

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It’s Free, So Why Not Do It?

Thursday, July 1st, 2010

Sonoma County Businesses Can Get Free Listing on Google

The way people find businesses has changed, and now more people search online than anywhere else.  I don’t usually promote something so blatantly, but I think the possibilities of being found in local business listings can benefit any business. Google, Bing and Yahoo all do it for free and I will tell you how each does it.

Creating a listing through Google Places takes a little bit of time, but it makes it more likely that you can be easily found on Google.com and Google Maps.  And as I’ve said before, it doesn’t cost a thing.

Your business listing probably already shows up on Google, but by going into Google Places you can update information and verify that it is accurate.  You can also add notifications, which can give you a fresh, current appearance to your listing.  And you don’t even need a website in order to maintain your listing.

Customization is easy

One of the advantages of setting up your own listing is that you can add photos and videos.  You can create custom categories, personalizing your information, adding things like business hours, parking and even offer coupons to encourage customer to make a first-time or repeat purchase.

Verification is valuable

Google collects information to fill your business listing.  If you go in and verify that you are authorized to represent the company, Google then allows you to personalize your information.  In addition to being able to add your own details about your business, Google will also begin to collect data that can be helpful to you in running your business.  This can allow you to make changes that will help you increase your business.

Training Videos Available

Google wants to make this service accessible and useable.  There are numerous online videos which explain how to set up  your business listing.  It is clear that  the battle for people’s attention and search clicks is so intense, that the search engines are fighting for market share and your business can benefit because you can get great information out about your business onto the first page of a search.

Written by David Walrath

Ajalon Printing & Design

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New Marketing Secret: Free Tips on Local Search Engine Marketing

Thursday, June 17th, 2010

Local Seo Is A Powerful, Effective Way to Promote Your Business

One of the good things about the growing use of the internet is that it is becoming easier to promote your business in your local community.  We are a printing business and we have been here in Sonoma County for over 50 years.  And we have experienced real pressure on our business because of computers and the internet.

But now there is an opportunity to capitalize on the fact that people are looking to find things in their own communities, like Sebastopol or Santa Rosa, not just buy things on Amazon or Ebay. On the whole people are developing in the use of their computer and are searching for services and products in their local community.  And the search engines have recognized that.

Google, Yahoo and Bing have set up local search results that help find local businesses that people are looking for.  And getting your name into these  directories is free.  The search engine companies realized that making it easier for people to find what they were looking for, especially on a local level, made the search engine more valuable because people would use it more regularly.  So they decided to add these local search capacities for free.  nadda.  zilch.

This is like being listed in the yellow pages for free!  I suggest you look into how to do this for yourself.  Below is a link to a youtube video where Google introduces their service. They call their service Google Places.

I suggest you check it out and consider making your business more findable on the internet.  This is something you can do yourself or we at Ajalon can help you do this if you don’t have the inclination or time to set it up.  The search engines are battling for this part of the market right now and you can benefit for free.

Written by David Walrath

Ajalon Printing & Design

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The Third Question to Ask a Web Designer

Tuesday, May 25th, 2010

How do your clients’ sites rank?  This question will probably also cause consternation among many web site developers.  They are much more used to talking about look and feel and will easily show you all the pretty designs and pictures they have created.

But do these pretty faces do work?  Does the designer build sites that look good and work little?  Or are they hard working sites that bring you traffic and convert to business?

Visual beauty and balance and effective operation are important in a website.  But if the factors that optimize a site so that it can be found by a search engine are not present, then you have a site that hardly works for  you.   A site that is built entirely in Flash may be aesthetically appealing, but it does little to help prospects find you on the internet.  Search engines do not “read” any of the content in a Flash module, therefore it is basically a blank space in or on the page.

The way to check how a site ranks is to look at the site and see what the keywords are that it is built around.  If you can’t figure that out, you already have an alert.  It should be obvious what keywords each page of a website is set up for to attract people who are searching.  The words in the heading of the web page are what the search engines first look at.

Take those words, without the actual name of the business, and put them into a search in Bing or Yahoo or Google.  Does the website come up in the first few pages?  When was the last time you searched past three pages when you where looking for something on the internet?

If a designer designs websites that don’t come up on the first few pages of a search for the keywords that the client was looking to attract, is it of much use?  There are over 350 million websites, and many times that in terms of web pages.  You must rank well for the particular words that you want people to find you with.

At Ajalon we built our site to rank in the first page or two.  We can do the same for you.  Give us a call. 707.528.0288

Written by David Walrath

Ajalon Printing & Design

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The Second Question to Ask a Web Designer

Tuesday, May 18th, 2010

Where do you rank?  Ask that of most website designers and most of them will ask you, “What do you mean? ”  They are more comfortable showing you what sites they have designed or talking about flash.

But ask them to show you where they rank in Google, Bing or Yahoo.  What are their keywords, what do they rank in searches for those keywords?  Web designers like to tell you what they have done, but would you buy shoes from a person who goes around barefoot?

Has the web designer practiced their craft for themselves?  I know one designer here in Sonoma County who for a long time didn’t even have her own site and then it went up and was a very primitive site merely linking to sites she had created.  Do I want somebody working on my site who doesn’t even take the time to maintain their own?  Would I go to an accountant who did keep her books straight?

Don’t just look at sites the web designer has done, but at their own site.  Does it get page rank for them?

We have had the discussion about a pretty face earlier.  Who would hire a person because they are good looking only?  Well many businesses have put up websites that are nothing more than a pretty face.  They do nothing to help them be found unless somebody is specifically looking for their site by name.

So find out if the web designer knows how to build a site that ranks.  Does their own site rank at the top of a search for their keywords?  If not I would say you should find someone else.

There are a lot of people out their who call themselves web designers but never learned their craft beyond looking pretty.  They use a web design tool or software and leave it at that, not knowing how to do the work of building a site that will get you found and ranking for the services or product that you sell.

The day of just having a web site is past.  I did that.  Then I realized that people really are using the internet to find the services I offer locally.  It is worthwhile, and actually imperative, that your site be findable in a search.

Ajalon can help you get found on the internet locally or globally.  We have done it and know what it takes.  Call us at 707.528.0288.

Written by David Walrath

Ajalon Printing & Design

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The Number One Question to Ask Every Web Designer

Thursday, April 29th, 2010

The Pain of a Website That Isn’t Working for You

What can a business in Sonoma County do when their website is not up and working for them?

I have been talking to business owners about their websites and I have been hearing some common themes.  Most of them painful to hear, and certainly not helpful for the local businesses here in Santa Rosa or anywhere.

I was talking to a local winery from Alexander Valley, near Healdsburg.  They paid an experienced web designer a big down payment to create a new web site for them in December.  It is now 4 months later and not a single page of the new web site is up.  There has been much frustration and broken promises.

Whenever you are thinking of working with a web designer, a very important question to ask is, “By when?”  Some designers are very upfront with you and will tell you they can’t get to your project for weeks or months.  Others are eager to take your downpayment or deposit, because they have cash flow problems, and then move on to the next victim, whoops, I mean client, and get another deposit to tide them over.

We have learned how to do business with most people, but it seems to me that web design has led business people to neglect the normal best practices they would follow with other vendors.  Most business owners would not give money to a vendor before a job was started without have a very clear, written commitment and production schedule.

For some business owners, websites are this fuzzy area that they don’t know very much about and aren’t even sure what questions to ask.  As a consequence they look to the professional that a friend recommends and don’t ask many questions because they don’t feel very confident about what to ask.

I will be offering a series of questions to help you make intelligent choices by asking the right questions when you are going through the process of wanting to put up your web site or getting something improved on your website.  Web sites are important and can be a big help for your business.  At Ajalon we are always happy to help you succeed.

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To Blog or Not

Tuesday, April 27th, 2010

I can remember when my kids would come home and ask me if I knew what a blog was.  I must confess I was a bit unclear about it.

It has now become mainstream.  I remember when the movie, You’ve Got Mail came out.  Here was a movie about that new phenomenon of email.  Most of us knew about it then, but few of us did it.

Now with the movie Julie & Julia, blogging has come mainstream.  Most of us have read blogs and many of us know somebody that actually blogs.  But does it work for your business?  Should you be blogging?

These are important business questions.  Blogging isn’t for everyone and it isn’t for every business, but it is a powerful, cost effective way to increase or begin an internet presence.

So what are the considerations in creating a business blog?

Blogs are nice because they are so versatile.  They can stand alone by themselves or they can integrate easily into a website.

It might be that you don’t want or need a full website but can just have an internet presence as a blog.  Blogs can be put up rather quickly and don’t have to cost a lot of money.  In fact it is possible for just about anybody to start a blog in a few minutes.

Sites like Blogspot or WordPress have simple blog sites that are made for anyone to be able to start blogging in a matter of minutes with zero cost.  It’s easy to set something up and give it a try.

At Ajalon we have two blogs, both of them  top ranked blogs on the first page of Google for their specific markets. We are more than happy to talk to you about blogging and whether and how it can work for you.  We can tell you what it takes and help you decide if it is something that can work for your business.  Give us a call at 707.528.0288.

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How to be Found on the Internet

Tuesday, April 20th, 2010

You know people are looking for what you want to sell on the internet.  It is essential to optimize your site for the search engines to find you if you want to be successful with your website.

The first thing to do is determine the keywords  people are using when they are seeking the type of product you are offering.  It is not necessary to guess what words they are using.  With the internet, all that information is kept track of and compiled.  This may be scary, but it is oh so useful.

We can find out what exact phrases are being used by real people in real time to search for different, related items.  What combination of words and the order of words.  It is then possible to produce content on your website  that matches the way people are searching.  The closer  the match the more likely the search engine will rank you for the search.

Ajalon can research which key phrases are most appropriate to bring you the most qualified traffic.  And it is often possible to find other possible phrases that might not be immediately evident to you.

Once you know what the phrases are that people are using to search for your products, you must build them into your website.  You can use this information to improve your search engine rankings and build content in and on your site that strengthens the site for keyword searches and increases your conversion rate.

This keyword search and content creation must be focused on what your customers are looking for.  You must create content that is attractive to your audience.  It must be interesting to them and satisfy a need they feel.

Written by David Walrath

Ajalon Printing & Design

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People are looking for what you want to sell

Tuesday, April 13th, 2010

When you sit down and think about it, most of the people who will be visiting your web site will have put some words into a search engine that they think will help them find what they want.  People do not just turn their computer on and presto, find you.

The Good News

Following from this observation you know something important. When visitors come to your site they are looking for something. More importantly, they are looking for something that is on your site.

This is tremendous.  It is like somebody walking into your store who wants to buy.  This is an ideal marketing situation.  You don’t have to capture their attention and you know they are willing to buy.  You don’t have to distract or attract them, they’ve come to your site willingly.

In traditional advertising or marketing, a lot of money is often spent just to get qualified leads.  With internet marketing you start with a qualified lead because anybody who comes to your site found you because of something on your site.  They are looking for what you have.

This was the appeal of yellow page advertising.  You wanted to have an ad in the yellow pages because if people picked up the book to look they were committed and serious.  Yellow page advertising has been falling off  precipitously because business owners have learned that consumers are not searching the yellow pages as much, but are using their computers to find what they are looking for.

Even people who don’t have computers go to the library to use a computer to find a car or whatever they are looking for.

And, it’s not just young people. Every age group is participating.  The other day when I was in the Apple Store drooling over the new iPad, I noticed around the display table that there was one person so young that their head barely reached over the table and there was a couple on the other side that could have been her great-grandparents.  Young and old alike are using computers to search for what they want.

We will continue in our next blog discussing how you can attract those eyes that are looking for your product or service.

Written by David Walrath

Ajalon Printing & Design

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How Does a Website Work for You?

Thursday, April 8th, 2010

Most of us put up a site because we think we ought to and with a vague hope that it will bring us more business.  We may not be sure what we are doing or what to expect.  This may be like getting a new puppy.  You know you want it but you aren’t sure how it is all going to be.

Well much like a puppy, a website doesn’t know what to do just because you have it hosted and live.  We all know that we need to train a puppy in the ways we want him to be.  So it is with a website.

It does not work to bring a puppy home and expect him to know how to behave properly.  You have to put effort into the training. So also with your site.  It should be built properly from the beginning so that it can begin working for you immediately.

It should first be seo’d.  Now what is that you say?  Search Engine Optimization (SEO)  is a big process, which we will be going over step by step.  What it means is doing the things in a website that make it easily searched by the search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo.

When you put the words for the things you are searching for into a search engine and a few seconds later it comes up with pages and pages of possible matches for what you were looking, it did not go out a search all of the places right then.

When it says, “Results 1 - 10 of about 178,000″  it is giving the first 10 results that it thinks are the closest match to what you were looking for.  It does that by sending robots, sometimes called spiders, out to look at pages and see what is on the pages.

These spiders scan a page and look to see if the content on the page is consistent with what the site and page titles say they are about.  When it feels it understands what a page does, it indexes it, which means it keeps track of what is on that page so that it can quickly recall it if someone seaches for those things.

In our next blog we will continue explaining this process of making your website a more powerful employee  serving your customers and bringing in new prospects.  If you would like to talk about your site and how hard it is working for you call us at 707.528.0288.

Written by David Walrath

Ajalon Printing & Design

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