I have always tried to operate my business as ethically as possible and encourage every employee to uphold the same values in both their personal lives and dealings with our clients. I believe I will answer to God one day for every action undertaken.
A couple times each year we receive phone calls from potential clients asking us if we will do “adult websites” or other sites of a questionable nature. I have always turned them down quoting the line that we are a “family oriented business.” But sometimes we receive requests for “grey-area” websites, like bars or clubs. This week I was approached and asked to create a site for a well-known local club. The offer was cash upfront and an advertising deal both inside the club and on TV. I am aware that this offer was too good to refuse. The club is well-known and draws customers from a very wide area. The deal had the potential to bring us in some good business while helping the club out of a bad situation too. This was a win-win for both companies. I have to admit, I took a few minutes to think it over. I came up with some really good justifications to accept the deal, especially in these economic times. My company is responsible for putting groceries on the tables of four families... Some economists predict worse times ahead... I can use all the help I can get… But I kept coming back to this point: Is it RIGHT? If the website is advertising somewhere I believe it is wrong to go to, is it RIGHT to assist the establishment in its deeds by helping them advertise? How would I feel in my heart the next time I prayed to God? “Backbone” is standing firm on your principles despite everything happening around you. Yes, I had many justifications to take on this new client, but backbone said, “No.” And I believe God honors backbone when the principles stood on are Biblical and the actions are performed in a proper attitude. I don’t know if God will bring in more business and make everything smooth in times ahead, but it really does not matter. I can live with myself and that is also “Backbone.”
Keywords: noneOur clients often ask us to consider providing additional services of one type or another. We always carefully weigh the pros and cons and then make a decision based on our overall market strategy and mission statement.
One item that has repeatedly been requested is the ability to print brochures, business cards and other items to go along with our client's newly designed or redesigned websites. As we have grown larger and have had the ability to add additional staff we decided that 2009 will be the year to branch out into the graphic design and printing field. The first of February we invested in various pieces of printing equipment and began offering small-run graphic design and printing. Since then we have averaged two business card customers per day and are slowly picking up additional poster and graphic work. After operating "in-house" successfully for two months we are now ready to take the business online. Introducing our printing website- PrintInEnterprise.com! Local clients can order or re-order printing online and either come by our office to pick up the items or we will deliver them. Non-local customers can have the items sent priority mail. We are offering 500 business cards for $14.99. With a standard 24 hour turn-around after proof and priority mail shipping, clients can have their business cards in 24 to 72 hours or slightly more if the mail is slow. Graphic design of posters and signs may take a little longer depending on size and complexity. Stop by our new website, PrintInEnterprise.com and order some business cards and / or graphic work today!Keywords: none"You are doing an outstanding job. I wanted you to know how much I appreciate everything you are doing. Your company is the best by far on any other company used in the past and I guarantee you - Your company will be the only one we deal with in the future."
Let me provide a case study completely separate from the note above. Last June we were contacted by Gary Bruce, owner of Wiregrass Shoppers Guide, a local classifieds print paper. He asked some advice on making his website better and I took some time explaining how he could make improvements and offered a quote. A couple months later he called again and we went through the same process. This past week, Gary called me again and said he was finally ready to proceed with his website redesign. He had been unable to put my suggestions into practice due to the way his site was built, it was difficult for him to maintain and was not doing well in the search engines. In addition, his visitor count was remaining quite low. He had tried the "let a friend do it cheaper" route and found it was not the best way to go.
Wiregrass Advertising completely redesigned his site, built it on a platform he would find much less time consuming to maintain, provided hosting which will save Gary over $100 each year, provided rotating banner ads so now his customers will be happier, search engine optimized the site and submitted it to over 199,000 search engines and directories. In addition, we added some news feeds to keep people on his site longer and provide incentive for them to return. This, of course, adds value for his advertisers.
In the past, as people called in their ads or emailed them to him he would copy and paste those ads into one long page on his site which had no categories or classifications. This made it difficult for people to find objects they desired to buy. With our placement of a full classifieds program on his site, now, people submit the ads online and he simply copies and pastes them into his paper. No phone calls needed and fewer man-hours to pay! Now he's saving even more money!
In addition, although ads are free, customers can upgrade to various options for a price. Gary received an email this week where someone spent $50 placing an ad. Gary said he just sat there looking at the payment for about 15 minutes. Unbelieving how he had just made $50 without doing any work himself.
Now that's what we're talking about!
Keywords: noneSearch engine optimization (SEO) and search engine ranking (SER) are two completely different things, yet both correlate to the other. Without good optimization, it is extremely rare to have good ranking. For the purpose of this article, let's define our terms.
SEO is the preparation of a website to obtain the opportunity of decent ranking in search engines.
Ranking is the spot a particular website appears in a search engine list of returned websites when a particular search term is entered.
There are many variables that go into ranking of websites on a search engine. Even though Wiregrass Advertising, Inc. is the largest web development and internet marketing company in the Tri-State region, we do not have any pull with search engines. Just like every other internet marketing firm, we must design a site correctly to obtain good ranking.
With that said, I am aware of at least two methods of gaining fast ranking so that a website could very well appear temporarily and under specific circumstances in the number one spot of Google for their chosen search term. Both of these instances are temporary and both of these instances cost from $300 to $1,000.
Over the course of time we have had several clients express concern that their website is not number one for their specified search term. Usually these sites are brand new, some going "live" just hours before. In the client's thinking, if we had optimized their site as promised (and we did) then they should be number one.
However, ranking is not an overnight thing. There is only one number one spot. There are millions of websites vying for that spot and thousands of website design companies and internet marketing companies all trying to get their clients into that number one spot. Rest assured, competition here is worse than for the front parking spaces at WalMart on Friday after Thanksgiving.
We do everything (legal) that can be done for search engine optimization of our client's website. We add content (remember content is king), we add key terms in appropriate locations, we add additional files for the search engines, we add their site to a website we know is crawled on a regular basis and we submit their site directly to the search engines. All of this is included in every website design base package we provide to our clients. To reiterate, this process is search engine optimization.
Ranking is determined at the search engine level by a computer that compares the client's site to millions of other websites and determines relevancy to a particular keyword that has been entered into the search box and decides where in the list to display that site. This comparison is completed in a millisecond. Neither I, nor anyone who does not own the search engine, can promise that when this comparison is completed that a particular site will show in the coveted number one spot. If anyone does make that promise they are being untruthful. We can, however, promise that we will do the best job possible to give our client the best opportunity of appearing in that number one spot. But we will never promise it.
After a site is completed, there are additional things that can be done to assist a site in gaining ranking (getting closer to the top spot). Wiregrass Advertising does offer a six-month marketing campaign in which a client is offered numerous other options not included in the base package. The marketing campaign is designed to increase ranking over time as well as fill the gap between initial site start-up and gaining ranking.
And while we are on the subject, let me address the next question a client asks, "If the marketing package will improve ranking, why is it not included in the base package?" The answer is simple. Ninety-nine percent of our clients are looking for a website that fits within a certain budget that is usually barely enough to cover the expense of building their website. As much as we would like, we simply cannot put an additional twenty to thirty hours of time into their site at the price these clients are willing to pay. The other one percent of our website clients see the need for ongoing- support, ongoing optimization and ongoing ranking support and are willing to pay for the extra time it takes over a 6 month period to get their site where they want it to be.
The bottom line is, I would love to see all of our clients in the number one spot on every search engine for every chosen search term. Realistically this will never happen because we do not own the search engines. However, as I said before, we will continue to build websites that give our clients the best opportunity we can provide.
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