Google uses several different methods to detect user location including locations in search term and location based on computer’s IP or GPS mobile devices location. This is 99% accurate. Google displays Pay Per Click advertisements and search results based on user location.

If a local small business owner in Raleigh chooses an Internet Marketing or SEO company located in a totally different area, they most likely won’t be able to see your website in search results as someone from Raleigh area does.

Following are two totally different search results for the same search query “car dealers”. First screenshot is from someone located in Raleigh, NC and the second screenshot is from someone located in Atlanta, GA.

Google Search Results in Raleigh, NC:

Search Results in Atlanta, GA:

As you can see, Google displays search results relevant to the user location. If there is such a big difference for two relatively close US cities, how can someone from outside the country properly optimize a local small business website?

To run an effective local Internet Marketing campaign, you need to see the search results that your target audience actually sees.

When it comes to small business web design and search engine optimization you have to be good enough to work fast enough to deliver a great website for a reasonable price. At the same time you can’t be wasting hours and hours making it perfect and getting lost in details, because this will reflect on the final development cost.

We mostly work for local small business owners who really care about the final product. There is no such thing as perfect when you are trying to meet the requirements and scope of the website. For those of us designing small business websites, we can’t have a perfectionist spending days playing with the latest HTML, Javascript and CSS trends and technologies, because that is coming out of the bottom line.

Do typical small business owners care more about the 1% of the visitors who use ten years old computers with JavaScript turned off or do they care more to bring in potential customers?

Developing a small business website is entirely different than developing a university website or a big online store. If we fail to properly scope the project, we will end up with a negative return on investment (ROI) for the small business owner and this is not acceptable.

Google is actually combining local search with organic search results.

 Using a new algorithm, Google can now detect when users are trying to find local businesses. Search Engine results pages will actually display the location of nearby businesses that match the search query, along with business photos, reviews and relevant information. For small business websites this is a big opportunity.

Google will automatically choose local search results, rather than a general web search, if it thinks a search query is about a local business. Local search accounts for 20 percent of Google searches.

How the new Google search results benefit your local business?  Your Google Places page can help you rank in search engine results and drive more visitors to your website.  The Places Page (Google Local Listings Page) allows you to add relevant information about your business such as business descriptions, website, contact info, hours of operation, photos, reviews and more. 

The more optimized for search engines a website is, the higher a business will rank in the Google Local Search. Local businesses that have not claimed and optimized their places pages are at a big disadvantage in local search.  Any local business can easily take advantage of this opportunity.

Search Engine Optimization is evolving fast. Stay on top of the trend, use affordable SEO in Raleigh, NC.

“I hired a web design company who promised to build me a great website. While it looked good, it cost me about $12,000. Well, I didn’t see the results I was looking for and my website didn’t bring any additional traffic or new customers.”

Why did this happen? Here are some of the most frequent mistakes that contribute to a website failure.

Website Not Optimized for Search Engines

Thinking about SEO as a totally different project is a big mistake. Basic Search Engine optimization should be at the heart of the website, with the pretty presentation built around it. Keyword research, search engine friendly navigation and structure, duplicate content, multiple domains, Google local listing, 301 redirects, semantic markup, HTML and CSS coding, unobtrusive scripting all do matter when designing an optimized website.

Not So Great User Experience

A website success always depends on its visitors. A surprising number of web designers ignore user interaction entirely and base their web design only on a design perspective. This typically results in inappropriate design or just decoration. Web designers are much more than pixel pushers. They have intimate knowledge about the Web and how users interact with it. They also understand user interfaces and design techniques, including grid systems, white space, color theory and much more.

“Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” – Steve Jobs, Apple

Website Performance Not Measured

You cannot value something you cannot measure. Fortunately, there are numerous metrics you can use to evaluate the impact of the website.

Google Analytics generates insightful charts and reports about the number of visitors, page views, content distribution, traffic sources, keyword report and much more. If you don’t have it installed, how do you know that something needs to be adjusted and improved?

To have a successful website you should know right from the start how to measure the performance of your website. Measuring your site’s success is crucial if you want it to make the biggest online impact. This is because by measuring how often people visit your website you know how well your site is doing online and how well it is appealing to its target audience.

Previous Work and Results Not Checked

Don’t believe everything you are told, but ask for examples and results! Are previous clients happy? Are their websites looking good and professional? Do they have any traffic?

“Can you show me examples of your previous work and share some success stories?”
- Google

Check your web design company portfolio and look for quality and the latest trends and technologies. Ask for adequate contact information, documentation, and explanations.

Unless you are really using social media and you are able to create a audience around you, from a SEO point of view there is no benefit of using Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Most small business owners are not online stars or have excellent social media communication skills, so doing it just for SEO doesn’t make sense.

Following I’m going to show you why.

Nofollow Atribute

“Nofollow” is an HTML attribute used to tell search engines that a link should not influence the link target’s ranking . It’s purpose is to show search engines what links are not to be trusted, without merit, or just spam.

How does Google handle nofollowed links?

“In general, we don’t follow them. This means that Google does not transfer PageRank or anchor text across these links. Essentially, using nofollow causes us to drop the target links from our overall graph of the web.”
Google

Links from Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn

Links from Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn do not matter for the most part. I haven’t seen any websites without good quality links, ranking high on Google just because they have Twitter and Facebook accounts.

For showing purpose I’m going to pick one of the largest web companies, Google. So let’s see how Google accounts on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are treated.

Facebook Links

For Facebook, a lot of the profiles are not public so Google cannot see them. Links from public profiles are “nofollow”.

Twitter Links

Most of the links on Twitter are “nofollow”, including user website link.

LinkedIn Links

Most of the links on LinkedIn are “nofollow”.

Blog Commenting Links

Most of blog commenting links like Blogger and WordPress are “nofollow”.

What is the conclusion? Engage in social media to connect with customers in new ways, not for SEO purpose. Social media is about you and your online community not about Search Engine Optimization.

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.

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.