May 17, 2016
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Business,Search Engine Optimization
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2 Comments
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Author: Rick D'Haene
>Blog>Business, Search Engine Optimization>Improve Your Business SEO: Blogging with Long Tail Keywords
If you own a local service business maintaining a blog on your website is a great way to establish yourself as an authority, provide value to your audience, and keep visitors coming back to your site. But there’s another aspect of blogging on a WordPress website that you cannot afford to ignore: search engine optimization, more commonly referred to by its acronym: SEO.
As a website management company, SEO is one of the services that we offer to help you drive leads and make sales. As we covered in our blog post about small business SEO, organic traffic from Google is one of the best ways to help potential customers find you. SEO has many components, some more technical than others. One of the keys to SEO success is targeted content that integrates the proper keywords. This might sound daunting, but at its core, it’s actually pretty simple: posts need to be written to include what your potential customers are searching for.
Optimizing Your Blog Posts
Blog post optimization starts with keyword research. The goal of SEO for small local businesses is to help people find your business when they’re looking for the services you offer. By integrating common search terms into your posts, along with your service locations, you or your website management company can increase the likelihood that potential customers will find your site.
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May 3, 2016
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Business
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No Comments
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Author: Rick D'Haene
>Blog>Business>Keeping Your Content Safe: Website Copyright Essentials
In the United States, copyrights exist to promote arts and culture. Copyright also protects your digital assets—your design, written content, branded imagery (e.g. a color you’ve created), photography, and more.
But exactly what do you need to do to protect your online assets? There are some easy steps you can take to protect yourself from digital theft or exploitation.
First and foremost, adding a copyright notice on your work is an excellent way to claim your properties. Adding a © symbol, next to the date the item was created and your name or company name, will cover you in most cases.
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February 16, 2016
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Conversion Rate Optimization
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2 Comments
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Author: Rick D'Haene
>Blog>Conversion Rate Optimization>Turning Website Visitors into Customers: 5 Easy Tips
Congratulations! You have more and more potential customers checking out your business’s website each day. It could be that your marketing strategy is working, and those creative Facebook posts or strategic targeting through Google Adwords is paying off. Or perhaps your SEO service provider’s hard work has started to really kick in and influence your search engine rankings. Regardless, it’s great news!
That being said, there is a possibility that interested people are reviewing your inventory or services but are leaving for an unidentified reason. Are you tracking your website’s conversion rates? If so, you might notice that they have dropped, or are otherwise lower than you’d like them to be. This, even despite an uptick in website traffic? If there were something you could be doing to to increase your conversion rates, would you take the time?
Here are some techniques to help ensure each website converts visitors into sales.
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December 10, 2015
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Business,Website
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No Comments
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Author: Rick D'Haene
>Blog>Business, Website>The Straight Facts: What Should My Small Business Website Cost to Build?
I’m a small business owner who wants to reach a wider audience, but I have no idea where to begin. Is a website even necessary for a good online presence?
Fact: Small businesses need a website.
For any small business, having a website is important, and even more so if you don’t have a large customer base. This is the very tip of the iceberg when it comes to digital marketing.
Of course, it’s easy enough to slap a website together for others to see, but you want to make sure you’re communicating the right messages to those potential customers. That means you’re going to want a pleasant, functional website that makes your customers feel comfortable, reflects positively on your small business, and gives them the information that they came to find.
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November 17, 2015
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Business
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1 Comment
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Author: Rick D'Haene
>Blog>Business>5 Reasons Why Your Business Website Needs A Blog
Many business owners ask if it’s worth having a blog for their business website. The majority of the time, the answer is yes. Blogging offers a simple way to connect to your audience without the need for complex design or web-based skills, among tons of other benefits.
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November 6, 2015
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Business
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1 Comment
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Author: Rick D'Haene
>Blog>Business>5 Common Mistakes Small Businesses Make When Building A Website
Having a website is a necessary step in running a business.
We know that by now—it’s 2015, and not having a website usually means that you’re behind the times. But some business owners don’t know where to start when it comes to having their own online presence. Here are five common mistakes that lower-budget website owners make, and some useful tips to help you get your first website ready for the World Wide Web.
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November 5, 2015
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WordPress Tutorials
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12 Comments
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Author: Rick D'Haene
>Blog>WordPress Tutorials>Gravity Forms: Clear Default Radio Button Option and Preserve Conditional Logic
While creating a complex four page form using Gravity Forms I ran into a problem. For testing purposes I had set a radio button option as the default selection. My problem arose when I needed to clear that default selection and add additional options. Clicking on the set default radio button a second time does not remove the selection. This is due to the inherent functionality of a radio button: one selection from a set. As opposed to a series of checkboxes: select as many options as you would like.
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October 21, 2015
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Business
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No Comments
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Author: Rick D'Haene
>Blog>Business>Bellingham Startups and Small Business Partnerships
Starting up a Startup
“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”
Laozi – Chinese philosopher (c 604 bc – c 531 bc)
This proverb is as true now as when it was first written 2,500 years ago in the Tao Te Ching. Imparting wisdom, it means that even the most arduous ventures begin in simple fashion.
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