TheGraphicsPortal.com: 2013

Monday, February 25, 2013

Free Websites? Tell me more

I was recently asked about a replacement venue for a small organization that used a free service to run / host their club page but is now charging a fee.

While there are a plethora of packages you can choose from (in the $60-70/yr range) that have built in editors, free images and code modules / widgets that you can just drop into place and a registered web address, there are also a number of free venues that most tend to overlook, here's some points that apply to both Facebook and Blogger platforms.

Facebook and Blogger are like a block party that never ends and are an invaluable resource to getting you or your company found through search engines, local searches and word of mouth (albeit digitally).

With these 2 services in place you can:

Find out who "likes" your product and / or service.
Develop a relationship with the community (local or online) through informative content and specials.
Engage customers (and potential customers) and give them a voice and let them conveniently interact with you.
Both of these solutions have SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and SEM (Search Engine Marketing) built in so no need to worry about weekly / monthly advertising costs, just create a post and introduce your customers to new products, services and events.

Click on the Contact link below and we'll assist you in setting up custom, business-centric pages for either of these options as well as answer any further questions.

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/TheGraphicsPortal
Blogger: http://thegraphicsportal.blogspot.com/

Contact Us now for more information about our custom Facebook or Blogger pages.

Thursday, February 21, 2013

5 Quick Facebook Tips For SEO

1. Use Facebook as an extension of your marketing initiatives.
  a. Have your Facebook URL on all traditional print media / campaigns.

2. The About, Mission, and Company Description sections are pulled from your Facebook page as SEO elements.
  a. SEO Title = Your Facebook page name.
  b. Description = Facebook page name + the About section of your page.
  c. H1 = Your Facebook page name.

3. Include your Address, City, State, and Zip if you wish to show up for local searches.

4. List your companies products using the product name and full description to show up for product searches.

5. Backlinks
  a. The more inbound links you have to your page, the more authoritative Google thinks your page is.
  b. Always include links to your Facebook page from your other marketing channels, like your website, blogs, and LinkedIn profile.

Contact Us now for more information about our Search Engine Optimization Services.

View My LinkedIn Profile

Friday, February 15, 2013

SEO Tip of the Day

Title Tags and Attributes

Title Tags are located in the <head> section and have 4 purposes:

1. Let search engine spiders and humans alike know what the page is about.
2. Provide a title for browser tabs.
3. Provide a title for when the site is added to "Favorites".
4. Displays in the search engine results as the link to the site you’re (potentially) looking for.

Title Attributes are located within the <body> and have 3 purposes:

1. Provide additional information about an element on a page.
2. The content of the title attribute will usually show up as a "tooltip" when hovering your mouse over it.
3. Title Attributes are spoken by Screen Reading Software (JAWS, Orca, BrlTTY) when no explicit label is set in form elements (they are also a level 2 requirement for WCAG compliance).

The attribute was used solely within links in the previous releases of HTML and pages would not validate if it was included anywhere else in your code, with the release of HTML5, the title attribute can now be used most anywhere and not affect validation.

Final Thoughts:

The title tag as well as the attribute are supported by all major browsers, give humans and spiders a description of what to expect, and should be used in all of your SEO/SEM endeavors.

Thursday, February 14, 2013

Examples of our Web Design:

Examples of our Print Design:

SEO Tip of the Day

White Hat Method
improve the usability of a site, create great content, write good code.

Black Hat Method
in pursuit of higher rankings participate in link schemes, keyword or key phrase stuffing and violate Google’s existing quality guidelines.

For Google Best Practices, click on the links below:

Google’s General Guidelines

Google’s Webmaster Guidelines

Google’s Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide (PDF)