I often get queries from my clients that an article they have posted looks wrong or badly formatted. This is most often a result of pasting from Word or other application or even a web page. The result can be unprofessional looking layout, messy or just inconsistent with the rest of the page
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Angie's List, Yelp, Google, Facebook. Online review sites and social media present a double-edged sword for businesses. Consumers can praise, hate, rant or rave about a business and reach thousands, even millions, of other consumers. It's great when they are saying good things about your business, but not so great when they are trashing it. Studies show that 7 out of 10 consumers believe online reviews as much as they do family and friends. Fifty-seven percent of people avoid businesses with bad online reviews. So how do you deal with bad online reviews about your business?
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Blogging is a critical asset in acquiring web site visitors. Here are some reasons why:
- Blogging creates fresh content and more pages of content, all is great for SEO.
- Establishes you as an authority in your industry or subject area.
- Help converse and engage with your audience and potential customers.
- Good for attracting inbound links from other sites and blogs.
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Keep data, such as your business’ Name Address and Phone number, consistent to help improve your local search results. Be sure to use the same format for your address everywhere you’re listed on the Internet including business directories, each page of your website, and all of your social networks.
With smartphones in almost everyone’s hands, more than half of all searches on a mobile device are local searches that are seeking out a local business. For businesses with a physical location, getting properly listed on local directories on the search engines and other local sites is vital. Vocus’ Local Listings gets your listing in and updated on over 100 local search websites, like Google, Yahoo and Bing, and Mobile platforms like dexknows or Yellowpages.
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"Our advice for publishers continues to be to focus on delivering the best possible user experience on your websites and not to focus too much on what they think are Google's current ranking algorithms or signals" However, SEO still plays a part and you shouldn't ignore it altogether. Perhaps you want a bit more information from us on what does work. I have compiled a quick list of questions to help you answer these questions yourself. Look at your content and ask the following seven SEO questions:
- Does this article have excessive links or ads? Or do they distract from the content itself?
- Is this article relevant to those who visit my website?
- Do I have other articles that are basically the same but have mainly just changed the keyword or keyword phrase?
- Does this article sound like it was written by a native speaker? Or does it sound hastily produced or written by someone who doesn't fully understand your language?
- Would you trust or use the information in your article?
- Would you bookmark, share or recommend your article with your friends?
- Is this article for search engines or for readers?
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As a small business owner with mostly local customers there are a lot more things you can do to market your business in addition to your website. Over 70%, I have seen figures over 90%, of customers find a business using the Internet.
In any case if you are ignoring or or not working constantly to build and improve your Internet presence, you are throwing away valuable business. Your business website is only one part of an Internet marketing startegy.
Here are a few ways to market your business on the web in addtion to your web site.
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Have you ever wondered how your web site ranks in Google, or even better, how individual pages rank? Or do you have questions like:
- Are my page titles too long?
- Are my page meta descriptions being displayed correctly?
- Have I gone overboard with too many links on a page?
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You may have noticed on magazine advertisements, or business cards and product labels, in fact in many places, a small square printed object like the one to the right. The object is a Quick Response or QR code. They are used to take a piece of information from a transitory media and put it in to your cell phone. They have been in use for years in Japan and Asia and are showing up all over the place in the US.
While they sort of look like a bar code they are much more useful. They can store (and digitally present) much more data, including URL links, Geo coordinates, and text. The other key feature of QR Codes is that instead of requiring a chunky hand-held scanner to scan them, many modern cell phones can scan them.
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Keep Your Site Administration Passwords Secure and Safe
Recently, one of my client’s websites was compromised due to a compromised password. We all must be reminded of the significance of maintaining the security of our user credentials. Fortunately, the hacker did not cause any damage to the website. Visitors to the official website were not affected. The hacker placed malware-infected pages on the server. These foreign pages attracted visitors interested in free software and inexpensive goods. Once these pages were discovered and removed, the situation was resolved. It could have been significantly more severe. The foreign content could have been explicit or the hacker could have been more malicious, potentially destroying the website.
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Blogs serve as potent mechanisms to sustain and enhance the dynamism of your website, thereby contributing to improved search engine rankings and attracting new visitors. A notable enhancement within Joomla’s capabilities is its ability to refine blog and article layouts, thereby augmenting your keyword density for the website when effectively utilized. While the functionality of this feature bears similarities to those found in Drupal, WordPress, and other content management systems (CMS), I will provide a detailed explanation of its usage within Joomla.
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Social media platforms serve as invaluable tools for fostering customer engagement and expanding your reach. By strategically incorporating share and bookmark buttons on your website, you can effortlessly facilitate the sharing of your content with your audience.
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