How important are the reviews? Let’s take a look at some of the ways they can impact your business.

Reviews are eye-catching

In the screenshot below, the one that catches my eye the most is Aloha Chinese Takeout which has the highest score with four and a half stars with seven reviews.

It was only after studying this for awhile that I noticed Kim Huoyh Chor. It only has four reviews and doesn’t yet have an average star rating, so I didn’t even see it while scanning through the results. Kim Huoyh Chor might get lost on this page because it doesn’t have enough reviews to show an average star rating. Those shiny stars really stand out! Not many people will study the search results like I was doing when preparing for this blog post.

Reviews build trust

Not only did Aloha Chinese Takeout catch my eye first, it left an impression on me because it had such a great score. If you’re like me, you want to take this list and narrow it down to about two or three candidates. How do I do that? If all other things are equal, I will choose one of the best reviewed establishments every time.

Reviews could help your rankings

According to a statistical study by Bizible, reviews can help your search engine rankings:

Having five or more Google reviews was associated with a 1.85 improvement in rank.

Bizible does go on to say that it may not be a direct ranking signal, but that the presence of five reviews or more helps get higher click through rates which does send a strong signal to Google.

Many other search marketing professionals believe that reviews can help rankings. You can read about that at David Mihm’s yearly local search ranking factors.

There is no way to prove for certain that reviews help your rankings since Google does not disclose their ranking algorithm. But it’s generally believed that the number of reviews, sentiment of reviews, and keywords contained in reviews can help. This does not mean businesses with more and better reviews will always rank higher, it’s just one part of Google’s algorithm remember!

So what?

Simply put, the more positive reviews your business has, the better chance you have at ranking and converting searchers to paying customers. Having many high quality reviews can help elevate your business above the crowd.

Ask for reviews from satisfied customers. Even ask some friends or family members for reviews. If they have used your service and love it, that will come through in their review. Do not load your business page up with hundreds of fake reviews! A few authentic reviews is a better choice every time.

By the way, I chose Aloha Chinese Takeout. And it was delicious.

In this post, I will give you a glimpse into some of the items on our checklist. There is much more than can be added for each unique project, but this is a pretty general list that can apply to every project.

The Checklist

• Square away all domain and DNS information.
• Figure out the email situation so that there is no interruption.
• Make sure site can be indexed by Google. Check robots.txt file and Meta tags.
• For all contact forms, send a test to the client and make sure they respond back so you know it is working. Put their response in their file so that there is no question it was tested and confirmed.
• Validate your HTML. Don’t even do browser testing until you finish validation. Many browser issues I have come across were due to invalid markup that can easily be found with validation.
• Test in all supported browsers and devices.
• Make sure all links are SEO-friendly.
• Install spam filter on blog.
• Create HTML and XML sitemaps.
• Update Meta information such as Title and Description tags.
• Install Google Analytics on all pages. (Bonus: Set up goals and funnels)
• Set up 301 redirects (if this is a website redesign).

Post-Launch

• Redirect non-www to www.
• Create new Google Maps API key (or any API keys).
• Add account to Google Webmaster Tools and upload XML sitemap.

Bonus Checklist: E-Commerce

• Set up SSL for shopping cart.
• Create and test merchant account (Authorize.NET, Paypal, etc).
• Make sure taxes are being charged correctly.
• Figure out shipping options and make sure they are being calculated correctly.

How about you? What are some must have items on your checklist?

• Online Calendar to display available time slots
• Form that needed to be filled out at the time of scheduling
• Email notifications to all parties of scheduled appointment
• Privacy of all parties for a scheduled appointment
• Ability to display the calendar in Outlook

HDBOB already had their site built on Five Technology’s own Site Management Console (SMC) content management system.  The SMCs ability to incorporate custom programming made it possible to integrate this web application into their existing site.  In addition to custom programming in the SMC, Five utilized Google Calendar APIs to pass and store event information in a way that could easily be viewed by internal staff.

Users select an available appointment slot from the online calendar, fill out a form and submit to schedule an appointment.

The calendar is updated and the time slot is now shown as “Scheduled.”

The actual detail of the calendar and events can be viewed from Google Calendar.

Of, you can subscribe to the calendar and view it next to your Outlook calendar.

The potential of this solution is vast.  I can be used to offer your web visitors online scheduling, setup public event calendars, publish internal calendars, and much more.

Visit our website to see a working demo.

Contact Five today to discuss how and online scheduling and calendar solution can enhance your website.

Custom Programming

With the new site design also comes a new way for the city to create and manage their agendas and minutes.  Featured on the home page, and also under the Agendas, Minutes, and Videos page of the Government section are resources linking to their new City Agendas solution.

This recreated solution for their Agendas and Minutes has some major benefits, some of which include:

• The ability to enter agenda data in one central spot, and generate various dynamic content from it, such as inline displayed PDF’s, corresponding meeting videos, and even other html content to make for a more interactive experience.
• Giving the ability for the content of a created agenda to be searched up directly from the site, so people can hone in on exactly what they are looking for.
• Eliminating the need to manage/organize various PDF documents in various directories or pages of the site. Select what department the agenda is a part of and presto, it appears on the page it needs to be on.  Just check a box and the agenda/minutes are archived in a different section of the site, or even hidden from public view.  It’s that easy.

There are other possibilities for this type of document management, and we are not limiting it to creating city agendas and minutes.  On the horizon we are developing our own in-house solution for creating  proposals and reports that can be dynamically generated and linked to for sharing with others, thus eliminating the need to print things out, staple things together, or even the need to mail or fax documents.

In short we are very excited to get these kind of projects out there as they not only make things more efficient, but they also pioneer a new way to access information and give us a new way to interact with the peers, community, and world around us.

• Facebook-like functionality: The website is easy to navigate because elements of it work like facebook, which most users are familiar with. Classroom and teacher pages are similar to facebook profile pages, and teachers can make posts on pages like a newsfeed. The bonus is that you avoid actually putting your information on facebook, and instead have your own website controlled by you.
• Parent Subscribe: Parents can subscribe to have all posts from their child’s classes sent to their email address so they don’t have to search the sight each day to see if new information is posted.
• Student Log-in: Each student has a log-in. When they click “My Classes” at the top of the page, they see a list of their classes so they don’t have to spend time searching for each class. Also, students can download worksheets and turn in homework for assignments posted to a classroom page.

]]> http://www.fivetechnology.com/blog/2011/12/21/providing-a-communication-link-for-k12-the-delano-school-district-website/feed/ 0 http://www.fivetechnology.com/blog/2011/12/21/providing-a-communication-link-for-k12-the-delano-school-district-website/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/FiveTechnologyBlog/~3/8IcljNtZJeA/ http://www.fivetechnology.com/blog/2011/11/17/new-web-design-source-5-payroll/#comments Thu, 17 Nov 2011 21:11:51 +0000 Eric Mobley http://www.fivetechnology.com/blog/?p=1357 Read More]]> Source 5 is an Atlanta, Georgia payroll company that offers customized payroll services for your business.

Source 5 came to Five because their old site was out dated, some pages didn’t even work correctly, and most importantly they needed an effective online marketing agenda.  Five created a modern, beautiful design, and then built their site on a foundation of solid fundamentals that will help them rank in search engines immediately.  That will not be satisfactory for Source 5 however, as we have a 12 month agenda for their internet marketing and SEO moving forward.

Site Features

• Get A Quote form to assist Source 5 to gather information quickly, and allow them to create quotes for clients.
• WordPress blog with RSS Feeds so people can stay up to date with latest payroll and source 5 news.
• Integration into CMS allows Source 5 to easily make updates to their site without any knowledge of the back end.
• Social Media profiles were set up to allow Source 5 to easily communicate with clients.
• Case studies & testimonials pages allow Source 5 showcase their work. These can be easily added and updated with our CMS!
• SEO friendly design, coding, and structure.

Visit: http://www.source5.com

Think Insights launches with 5 main categories:

• Latest Insights
• Facts & Stats
• Research Library
• Planning Tools
• Thinking Ahead

Each category breaks down into subcategories that feature interactive statistics, videos, links, and archives. Its difficult to gauge exactly how much information is included but its safe to say don’t expect to get through it all in one night.

Latest Insights includes videos accompanied by articles about various of Google’s latest insights. The videos are very well made and I expect this section to be updated often.

Research Library is a hub containing studies, videos, and many of the supporting material that seems to be located throughout the rest of the site. Particularly useful is the ability to filter by industry and marketing objective.

Planning Tools features interactive charts, graphs, and tools. What I find amazing here is the Our Mobile Planet tool that allows you to create a chart by filtering through mobile data, country, and more.

Facts & Stats give you a bite-sized look at many different statistics. Filter by industry, media platform, and more.

There is so much information available here that this only begins to scratch the surface. It will be interesting to see how often this is updated and what is added in the future.

Mobile Web Site

Mobile web browsing is on the rise with an estimate of almost 100 million monthly mobile users browsing the web. This number is certain to rise in the coming years.

Here are a few reasons to add a mobile site in addition to your main site.

• Smaller pages for smaller screen and faster loading times
• Mobile use will continue tto rise in the foreseeable future
• Searchers are often looking for a quick way to find contact details
• People are often searching for stores and businesses close to their current location, these are high conversion searches

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search Engine Optimization is the art and science maximizing your website’s exposure on search engines like Google. Essentially, you are tying to increase the chance that someone searching for a product or service finds your website on search engines. Techniques include keyword research, content optimization, and making sure search engines can easily crawl and index your site.

Pay Per Click (PPC)

Pay Per Click is similar to Search Engine Optimization but with a PPC campaign you are literally paying to get to the top. You might be asking yourself, why would anyone pay for SEO when they could just pay to get to the top with PPC?  Take a look at the image below to see the difference.

PPC’s main advantage over SEO is that you can pay to get to the top and you only pay when someone clicks on your link. The disadvantage is the area PPC ads occupy in search engine results tend to get ignored by most users and once you run out of budget you are removed immediately from the results. An SEO campaign can have longer lasting effects even after you stop paying for it and people click on those results in search engines more often. Both have their place in the internet marketing world. The key is to find out what is best for you.

Social Media

Social media is being leveraged more and more as a way for businesses to communicate with their clients and customers. People can stay up to date with their favorite stores, restaurants, and businesses through Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and more. Having the ability to quickly communicate with your customers is a strategy worth considering.

Your e-commerce store can post promo codes, your restaurant can post daily specials, or just talk to your customers and get to know them.

The great thing about social media is the costs are very low. You can pay a professional to do social media marketing for you or you can set up social media accounts yourself. The choice is yours!

Email Marketing

Like social media, email marketing is another way to communicate quickly to your customers. With email marketing you can collect email addresses from customers, people who visit your website, people who you meet at conferences and other business gatherings.

Through social media you have to wait for people to follow you on Twitter or ‘Like’ your page on Facebook but with email marketing you can build a database of names. Of course, you want to do this within reason. Buying a list of names from another company or spamming people’s inbox will get you nowhere. Only send to people you have a business relationship with.

Analytics

Google Analytics and other analaytics programs allow you to track a great deal about your website and it’s visitors. You can track:

• Keywords that are being used to find your site
• Under performing pages or pages that are really popular
• How long people are staying and what they are doing when they are on there

You can have someone set up analytics for you but its also a great idea to have a professional review the analytics with you monthly. This will allow you to take action based on the results to improve your website continuously.

Five Can Help

We believe a complete internet marketing strategy starts with having a great website that is enhanced by these other great services. You may not want to include them all and that is fine! We can help you build a strategy and find out what is best for you and your business.

Give us a call: 763-972-5933

Web Design

Johnson-Condon’s new site features a modern and professional design that will give people a sense of trust and authority in their work. The content was updated to reflect the company, their attorneys, and their practice areas.

Take a look at their attorneys page to see how their attorneys have been highlighted. We wanted to include everything there is to know about each attorney including their practice areas, biography, contact information, and professional accomplishments.

Visit the website: http://www.johnson-condon.com

Problem

Before the project began, like most companies that do onsite work for their clients, Excel Mechanical had to haul papers with them wherever they went. Not only that but they had several steps to complete the form and send it to the customer or client. The process went something like this: 1) Fill out a paper form 2) Enter data into computer 3) Generate PDF 4) Email to client or customer. You can imagine how much time piles up weekly, monthly, and yearly to complete this process everyday.

Solution

We streamlined their approach by taking their paper forms and creating digital forms fit for their Ipad or tablet. Not only did we digitize their forms but we also created a signature capture field that can capture signatures using a stylus. This allows Excel Mechanical’s team to fill out a form, capture a signature, and then the form automatically generates a PDF version which it sends to the client’s email. Not only that but we built an administration interface utilizing the Site Management Console to view a history of each and every form submitted.

Web Apps are the Future

In the time it took to write this blog post, Five has already completed its second project with this custom web app for another client. We have always had a strong foundation of web design and internet marketing but we also believe the future is to discover new ways to leverage web apps to make time consuming tasks simple.

If you have an idea for a web app, give us a call at 763-972-5933 or visit our contact page.

]]> http://www.fivetechnology.com/blog/2011/08/25/custom-web-app-digital-forms-and-signature-capture-for-ipad-or-tablet/feed/ 3 http://www.fivetechnology.com/blog/2011/08/25/custom-web-app-digital-forms-and-signature-capture-for-ipad-or-tablet/