Visits Report

The number of website visits is extremely significant particularly when you are tracking SEO results. Many site owners will be surprised to find out that they have an average of only 5 visitors per day. Ways to improve traffic is to optimize the website for search engines and run a low budget Google AdWords campaign. However, there is no magic to have a lot of traffic all of the sudden. Traffic is gained in time.

Bounce Rate Report

Bounce rate is the percentage of visitors that once they landed to the website they will not browse it or view additional pages. A high bounce rate means your website design doesn’t work or the information is not presented properly. The website fails to attract and engage visitors – they will not find anything that catches their attention and will move on. Big chunks of text are especially not helpful in quickly delivering the message.

Average Time on Site Report

Finding a balance between the amount of information and effectively delivering the website message is the key when designing a website. In an ideal world, visitors will read everything the website offers, but in the real world they will just scan the page to find things that get their attention. The usual average time on site is 2 to 3 minutes. How much information can someone read in 2 minutes?

Traffic Sources Overview Report

This report explains where web traffic is coming from. Visitors may come by typing the website url into their browser, by links to the site or from search engines results. If search engine traffic is really low, redesigning and optimizing the website will help.

Content Overview Report

This report provides information about what pages have the most page views. For example, if one of the main menu pages gets the most traffic that information needs to be enhanced. Vice-versa, if one of the pages doesn’t get much traffic, it means that visitors are not interested in clicking on it. Changing the page name might help.

Users Notice Quality

People use quality websites like Google, Yahoo, Facebook and Twitter on a daily basis and therefore they are used to quality web design. Most people have a hard time describing why they like a website but they definitely know they like it. Is more like a gut feeling to them.

Users Don’t Read, They Scan

Analyzing a web page, visitors rarely read everything, they pick headers, images, buttons, links, bold text which would guide them through the content of the page. It’s like going through a store and looking over a shelf with 500 products – people do not notice every label in order to pick the best product.

Users Follow Their Intuition

Users don’t follow the quickest way to find out what they’re looking for. As soon as they find a link that catches their attention, there is a very good chance that they will click on it. Users choose the first reasonable option.

Users Don’t Like to Figure It Out

A web page should be as clear as possible. Users need to notice what a web page is about in a matter of seconds. If the web page is confusing, users will always click the back button.

Users Like a Call to Action

A call to action brings focus to a web page. The best way to accomplish this is with a button that is clear, stands out, and shows visitors the purpose of your website. It needs to be simple and valuable.

How a website is designed visually and how it is presented professionally will lean towards more potential clients. Potential clients are visitors interested in your products and services.

Failing to understand your visitors will either get you a poorly designed website that it will not rank in search engine results or the opposite, a top of the line award winning web design that most of your potential clients might have difficulties to use or understand.

Local Search Volume on Google

Are you a realtor in Raleigh? Here is what you’re missing:

Are you a restaurant owner in Raleigh? Here is what you’re missing:

Are you a dentist in Raleigh? Here is what you’re missing:

The list can continue. To find out how many searches you are missing, use Google Keyword Tool.

Typical Traffic Before & After Redesign

Here is one example (Windows Doors and More) of what you can expect after you redesign your website. Data is taken from Google Analytics.

Before Redesign

The client had 7 visitors from search engines for an entire month.

After Redesign

The new, redesigned website, has 450 visitors coming from search engines! Even if only 5 visitors become customers, in a year, this means 60 new customers coming from search engines.

At Better Image we don’t offer empty promises of huge amount of traffic. We do offer our clients websites with results.

Style Sheets help optimize your site by separating content from design elements. If you are not familiar enough with CSS, I suggest contacting a professional for the job.

Research Keywords

Optimizing your site means you need to know what people are searching for. Google has a very useful tool that will help you identify the most important keywords you need to focus on: Google AdWords: Keyword Tool.

Have Enough Content on Your Homepage

The homepage is the most important page in your website. Include all keywords you want to rank for in the page content. If keywords are not included, your website will not show up in search results. Try to avoid using images to display important keywords.

Choose Page Titles Properly

The title tag needs to be matched with the page content. For example, don’t use the word Raleigh in the title if “Raleigh” is not included in your homepage content. The title length affects the weight of the keywords, so don’t dilute them by using a lengthy title.

The title is also important because it is used by Search Engines to display Search Engines Results Pages. A smartly chosen page title can lead to a better click-thru rate.

Do Not Use Multiple Domains

Duplicate content will penalize you with Search Engines, and rightfully so. How would they know which domain is most important to display in search results? What is the purpose of the other domain? It promotes confusion for visitors and for Search Engines.

Install Google Analytics

Google Analytics will provide very important statistical data: how many visitors the website has, what pages are most requested, what is the bounce rate, what keywords bring the most visitors and so on.

Use Google Webmaster Tools

Google Webmaster Tools provides detailed information about your pages’ visibility on Google. This helps to identify the errors, broken links, crawling rate, external and internal links, statistics, diagnostics, etc.

Have at Least Three Quality Inbound Links

Quality and relevance of links is very important. If you do not know how to measure links’ quality, ask for professional help. One quick way to do this is by letting all your friends know about your website.

Do Not Participate in Link Building Schemes

As soon as Search Engine algorithms will detect that you are in the business of building links they will penalize you. Unless you bring real value to the web, there is no quick way to the top – you will only rank in time.

Don’t Fall for Huge Traffic Promise

Because they are afraid that you will not use their services, some SEOs are appealing to clients with promises of a huge amount of traffic. Don’t believe false testimonials, but ask for examples and results! Did you notice that SEOs will try to avoid showing the measurable benefits of using their tools? Ask smart questions before paying $150 per hour for their services.

Recent Testimonials From My Clients:

“Working with Better Image has been a tremendous success for us! They are experts at what they do – also extremely dependable and agile. We presented Better Image with several time-sensitive challenges, and they were able to come through every time with a fantastic product. They have directly impacted the success of our business, and we look forward to working with them on an ongoing basis.”
Dave McNasby, COO, Optimal Resume, Durham NC

“Thank you again for your great work on my website! You did a fantastic job with the optimization. I have gotten several compliments from people who seem to know when a website has had an excellent job of this done, vs. just average.”
Michele Moss, Owner, Natural Pain Relief

“Writing to thank you for the work done on our website. Our main goal was to improve SEO and in just these few short months we have been seeing positive results of that and it only gets better.”
Todd Gillespie, Owner, Windows, Doors and More

We are so happy that we found you and are still extremely pleased with the website you designed for us. Once you completed the SEO, you told us to be patient and we would start ranking higher in the search engines, and within only a few months we were ranking on the first page in Google and Yahoo for most of our search terms. We will continue to recommend you to everyone we know and wanted to say Thank you, again, for the amazing job you did!
Rachel Jett, DTF Mechanical, Inc.

For me, as a web designer, this is by far the most important measure of the quality and value I provide.

Internet marketing is a comprehensive marketing campaign and usually involves paid clicks (PPC). SEO can work great as an online marketing strategy but the two are not the same. Usually you need to pay in order to run an internet marketing campaign. For search engine organic results you don’t have to pay a thing (assuming the optimization work has been done).

Small business owners are confused about this issue. They think always they need to pay someone in order to rank high on Google search results. But most of them can have some qualified traffic to their website without running an Internet Marketing campaign and this is all about optimizing their website to be properly indexed by search engines. A couple of good trusted links will do a good job in allowing the search engines “know” that a website is important.

Can Internet marketing do much more than SEO? Yes it can, but it also costs money. Most small business owners do not have big budgets for advertising and don’t know enough about online marketing to trust it. This doesn’t mean they cannot have qualified traffic to their website.

To conclude, SEO brings free traffic to your website, Online Marketing brings paid traffic to your website.

According to Wikipedia, usability means the ease with which people can employ a particular tool (a website in our case) in order to achieve a particular goal (a call to action in our case).

After many years of using Google Analytics to research how visitors browse websites, I can say that website design and usability is as important as the marketing campaign itself because it greatly affects the number of conversions (successful sales).

The following are some common usability tips that will affect any Internet Marketing campaign.

Do not assume that visitors will get to your site and they will know what you do or what you sell. They don’t. Your landing page has to be as clear as possible stating what your business is about and have a clear call to action. If you do business in Raleigh for example, mention Raleigh somewhere. Potential clients tend to trust local companies more.

Once visitors are interested and they decide to stay on your site, the navigation comes into play. Keep it simple and easy to use to help visitors determine what to do next. Identifying what section of the site they are in, helps guide visitors where they can go next. Most of the potential clients or buyers will want to browse a bit more before making a decision.

Remember, keeping the visitors on the site and guiding them to the call to action is extremely important. Do not bug visitors with unnecessary information hoping they they will remember it and eventually return. They really need a good reason to do that – some kind of special offer, to catch their attention.

Try and keep the contact forms as simple as possible. People do not like to give loads of personal information on the internet. Ask yourself if the information you’re asking for is so important that you’re willing to lose a customer.

Internet Marketing and good rankings are important, but these don’t mean much if you’re turning visitors away as soon as they click on your website. Does your website send the message you intended to send out? Do users enjoy browsing your site? These are the questions you need to ask yourself before starting an Internet Marketing campaign.

That’s why Google is so important – people use it to find products or services. For your small business website this means business.

Small business websites need to focus on attracting qualified traffic to their websites with search engine optimization (SEO) and local targeted online marketing (Google AdWords pay per click), then converting that traffic in calls to action. Those leads will definitely result in new customers. Traffic quality will always be more important than traffic quantity.

What is traffic quality? For example, if you are a law firm in Raleigh-Durham and someone gets to your website searching “lawyer Raleigh”, this is qualified traffic as that visitor is a potential client.

How do you measure traffic quality? Some will say it is impossible to measure, but the answer is simpler. The number of new customers coming from your website is a direct result of your traffic quality.

Deceptive marketing professionals promise they will increase traffic to your website but fail to mention traffic quality. They are happy to cash in the money for a job that won’t bring you much business.

Because they are afraid that you will not use their services, they are touching their clients’ soft spots with promises of huge amounts of traffic. That’s why some SEOs make promises they can’t keep. Once you realize it, it might be too late, as they have full control of your website.

You should always bind your SEO contract by the number of new clients you’ve got, not just traffic.

Before search engines start to give your site a good ranking, they need to achieve a certain level of trust with you and this will grow in time as you establish your website. Once deceptive techniques are detected it will be really hard to rank well again.

Your website is an investment in the future. Don’t let anyone do things that you don’t fully understand, as it may cost you a lot in the long run. Sooner or later deceptive marketing techniques will fail.

Deciding to hire an SEO is a big decision that can potentially improve your site and save time, but you can also risk damage to your site and reputation.
Google

Before deciding on a professional, read what Google says about SEO.

Some Search Engine Optimization experts (SEOs) will argue that SEO doesn’t have anything to do with Web Design, is a totally different issue and you need a monthly fee in order to rank high on Google and have qualified traffic. Traditional SEO services can charge thousands and usually provide 3-6 months of service and link building packaged in.

Submitting news articles, press releases and directory listings are all types of SEO strategies as long as they are not spammy and keyword rich. These things take time to do, and in a competitive market, must be reviewed on a daily basis.

Let’s discuss our methodology. When someone designs a website with us, we take care of all the details like keyword research with Google AdWords Tool, optimized CSS/XHTML code, website architecture, meta description tags, title pages, keywords targeted, etc. This means proper web design. META and TITLE tags, H1 and H2 tags, are HTML markup language not SEO tags. After going live, we place some good links in our portfolio and on some relative websites and web design galleries and that’s it.

In a couple of months the website will rank great, usually on the first page of Google search results and the client doesn’t pay any monthly fee for qualified traffic. Down the road we analyze Google Analytics data and recommend improvements. The traffic will stay there, it won’t just disappear when search engine optimization process stops.

A couple of weeks ago, someone contacted one of my clients and told him that his website is not optimized for search engines and he can rank much better for a couple of hundreds monthly fee. He is on the first page on Google Search Results. Here is the client: Saber Exterminating Pest Control. Search on Google “Termite Inspection Raleigh” or “Pest Control Raleigh”. Is he on the first page? So, what more would the SEO company do? Will a monthly SEO fee get them a better deal?

Read and watch this recent interview with a well known Google engineer in USA Today. Try and find something that makes sense for a monthly fee. I couldn’t.

I am aware there are lots of SEO professionals out there that do a good job for their clients, especially for medium businesses. All I’m saying is that someone who modifies title tags and meta descriptions, and builds some links, shouldn’t be paid a monthly fee unless he has a comprehensive SEO plan and is able to explain what exactly he will do and what results you might expect. Giving client access to Google Analytics and explaining basic search principles is a must for any honest SEO professional. Google AdWords plus search engine optimization plus a great-looking optimized website definitely leads to success.

I would like to hear some comments about this issue. Maybe I don’t get it right, but then, how some websites rank high and do well on Google without any monthly fee? Read more about Search Engine Optimization in Raleigh-Durham.

For local small business owners who want a professional, optimized for search engines website, here are some good tips and information about the time involved in a typical web design project.

Hourly Rate

Our hourly rate is $60 per hour. Does it seem too much? Not really. Almost all established web design studios charge $80 and up. Big, well known agencies charge $150. Some web designers might charge less though, but most of the time their work is not up to the task.

Design Drafts in Photoshop

Design drafts are images that show the website layout and functionality. For a typical small business website, this design stage should take 20 to 30 hours, depending on the client revisions. This means anywhere form $1200 to $1800.

Optimized, Valid CSS/XHTML Templates

This phase should take 10 to 15 hours. What you’ll get is top-of-the-line optimized code following the W3C Standards. This means $600 to $900.

Integrating Templates with a CMS

This phase should take 20 hours for WordPress CMS and 40 hours for Expression Engine – depending on the functionality desired. This means between $1200 and $2400.

So, the total price for a simple, CMS powered website should be from $3,000 to $5,100. You’ll get a great looking, professional website that will rank well on search engines, have visitors and will be easy to update in the future. There are no ongoing fees. Of course, excessive revisions, additional features and e-commerce will drive the price up.

How Can Someone Quote a Smaller Price?

• They offer low-quality web design
• They have a smaller hourly rate
• They will slightly modify a previous design
• They will use old web design technologies
• They will not optimize for Search Engines
• They will not use a modern CMS

Why Will Someone Quote a Bigger Price?

Explanations are many but here are the usual ones:

• They have a big hourly rate
• They will offer what you don’t need
• They are a big company
• You will pay for extra staff
• They spend time in endless meetings

If you want results for your website, you need a professional. After you get the quote, check the company portfolio to know what quality to expect.