Being visible on page 1 of Google for the keywords that matter to your business drastically changes the volume of leads in your sales funnel. Contact us a call sometime at 800-277-9587 to find out what we can do for you to increase traffic to your site and generate more sales leads.

1. Content – Web designers are in business to design your website, not invent your content. So do you have the pictures and text organized for each and every page? We have a full time copywriter and can refer you to a few local photographers, but plan for that extra expense. Each page on your site will have 3 things. TEXT, IMAGES, and FUNCTIONS. For example, your contact page will have text for your address, email, phone; an image of a google map or maybe of your office; and the site will function in a certain way by allowing users to fill out a contact form. Make sure you have thought about the text, images, and functions for each page. These are not light decisions, think hard.
2. Logos – This is sort of like content. Too many companies don’t have logos or they have a logo from some guy and they can’t find the cd or the guy who made it doesnt return phone calls, etc. A logo is key to your image, your brand, your message. Get a good logo and make sure you have a high res full color version to hand to your web designer. This logo will play a role in the design of your site.
3. Traffic Plan – So many people think that if they build a site, they will magically land on page 1 and all internet traffic will make a sharp left turn towards their site. Wrong! The reality is you need to develop an action plan for how you plan to get traffic to your site. Some options are a) business cards, billboards or other offline media b) Google Adwords c) search engine landing pages d) blogging e) lots of inbound links f) telling every one and their brother g) good PR h) social media. Please plan to have an ongoing internet marketing strategy that will continue to evolve and push traffic to your site. Don’t just build a site and then walk away!
4. Keyphrases – Most clients do not know what keywords are important to their business or think unimportant ones are important. If you are a plumber, the word plumber is key, but what about HVAC contractor or heating and cooling contractor? What towns will you be servicing? Now you need town + all they keywords that matter. It is vital to your organic and paid ad visibility online that you define a set of keywords that MATTER TO YOUR BUSINESS. Once you have a list, you actually have something you can attack.
    
5. Budget – Good websites don’t cost $500. Period. That doesn’t mean 10K. Just have a realistic plan of what you can spend. 3-5K is a solid budget for a small business website. 7-10K is a great budget for a much larger, perhaps more dynamic small business website. These budgets could swing largely depending on the functionality, design intensity, and SEO requirements of your site. The main point is that having a budget helps you decide on what you have to spend. You can work with your web designer to figure out what you can get for that budget.
6. Maintenance – A site that doesn’t get updated is a site that will not perform very well. Every site we build runs on WordPress which enables all customers to update their sites on their own. So no more excuses! Users expect fresh (not updated last year) content.

• “selinsgrove mattresses” for Sleep World
• “williamsport heating oil” for Mid-Penn Energy
• “lewisburg accountant” for Jeremy St. Clair CPA
• “williamsport heating contractor” for Eco Air
• “williamsport engineering” for Mid-Penn Engineering
• “lewisburg solar” for Brian’s Heating & Electrical
• “selinsgrove heating oil” for Affordable Fuels
• “mifflinburg apartment rentals” for Bowen Agency
• “molded brick” for Watsontown Brick
• “pa gas field service” for Minuteman Environmental Services
• “allentown small business accounting” for Molinari Oswald CPA
• “lewisburg office space” for Brynwood Rentals
• “sunbury insurance agency” for Sholley Agency

If you are not actively promoting your business with options like Google+ signals and LinkedIn recommendations, you might as well be back in the dark ages. Before you decide to bite the bullet and set up social media accounts for your business though, there is one important factor that you need to be aware of.

Changes to Facebook

With recent changes to sites like Facebook, being socially savvy is not as simple as strictly having a social media presence. For your social efforts to pay off, you are going to need to stay on top of your accounts on a daily basis and you are going to need to focus on the needs of your customers in order to see any return on your investment. Without being aware of the efforts you will need to put in, you might want to think twice before embarking down the social media speedway.

It used to be that all a business needed to do was to set themselves up a Facebook business or fan page and then add business related content on a regular basis. In order for potential customers or existing clients to comment on a company’s Facebook page, the individual would first have to “like” the page before being allowed to post a comment. With the recent redesign of Facebook following the F8 Facebook Developers conference, the need to “like” prior to posting is gone. Now both happy and unhappy customers can instantly post their comments on your business page without “liking” your page first. Not only does this give unhappy customers instant access to your company, but it also removes an opportunity for your content to appear on the Facebook wall of some comment posters. It used to be that if a customer liked your page, then any new posts that you made to your wall would appear on the Facebook pages of your followers. Since customers no longer need to like you first prior to commenting, a business page administrator is going to have to make extra effort to turn “lurkers” into “likers”. Without your comment appearing on Facebook walls and timelines, the chances of your content spreading organically greatly diminish.

Facebook Comments

Due to this recent change to comment posting policy, Facebook business page administrators that fail to stay on top of daily comments run the risk of not only lost opportunities at sales conversions but also the missed opportunity of turning negative feedback into a winning recovery for their firm. Rather than leaving negative feedback unattended on their page for even one day, it is vital that a company be proactive and turns that negative feedback into an opportunity to do better. By providing exemplary customer service right on their Facebook page, it gives a company the opportunity to not only recover that lost customer but to impress others with their swift response and customer focused attitude.

Another recent change to Facebook pages that will have a significant impact on Facebook business page administrators is the ability of followers to vote your content up or down in their timelines. If all you ever post on your business page is self-serving advertorial type of posts, chances are good that those who have “liked” your page in the past will simply “x” your content out of their timeline. If they vote down your posts on a regular basis, the Facebook algorithm will learn their behaviour and will soon start to not even show your posts in their timeline. There goes yet another opportunity to connect with an existing client. By the same token, if you continually post valuable information that is enlightening, informative, or humorous, chances are good that your followers will comment on your posts or “like” them which will then make your content appear in the timelines of your clients’ followers. Unless you keep your content fresh and engaging on an ongoing basis, you will be losing out on an opportunity to increase the exposure of your business.

With social signals like Facebook “likes”, Google +1’s, and Twitter retweets having an ever-increasing influence upon where your business lands in search engine results, it is absolutely crucial that businesses now stay engaged with their customers. Simply socially selling your services online is no longer enough; you now need to give your audience what they want, and deliver it to them in a way that they are likely to engage with it. Give them what they want and they are likely to return the favour with increased business for your firm.

Layout Design

Instead of thinking of your website as a page in a book think of your website as a photograph. Like any photograph, the layout composition and appearance must be taken into account. Images should enhance the information, not distract from it. The background should not clash with the font color or graphics. One key point to remember is that as the human eye moves in such a way over a graphical image, it does not always take in the correct information in the order you might think. Your website should direct the eye accordingly, to ensure the data is absorbed in the proper order you intend.

Above the Fold

Another thing to consider is the layout of your page. If a person has to scroll down on a single page more than a few times it can become cumbersome, especially if the page is being viewed from a mobile browser. Keep your pages short in length, so that no more than 3-4 scroll downs will be needed. If you have more information, make use of hyperlinks and other pages on the site to discuss key concepts. Avoid cluttering up your page and try to keep the most important information “above the fold”. In the days of newspapers, this referred to where the newspaper was folded. The most important story was above the fold because that is how they attracted the attention of potential buyers. The same can be said of a web page that requires scrolling because it may mean that important information is relegated below the fold. If your data will be enhanced with graphics, and you have many graphics to choose from, it will require you to make some executive decisions about which ones, instead of all, to use.

There was an interesting study that was done by Jacob Nielson (read more about it here: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/reading_pattern.html) called “F-Shaped Pattern for Reading Web Content.” Basically, users scan the page quickly in an “F” shaped reading pattern. See the heat map image below. The implications of this study are that:

• Users won’t read your text thoroughly in a word-by-word manner. Exhaustive reading is rare, especially when prospective customers are conducting their initial research to compile a shortlist of vendors. Yes, some people will read more, but most won’t.
• The first two paragraphs must state the most important information. There’s some hope that users will actually read this material, though they’ll probably read more of the first paragraph than the second.
• Start subheads, paragraphs, and bullet points with information-carrying words that users will notice when scanning down the left side of your content in the final stem of their F-behavior. They’ll read the third word on a line much less often than the first two words.

Fonts, Headings, and Text

To better organize data, make use of headings and subheadings to keep the words on the page from jumbling together in an endless stream. The human attention span will often lose interest after about four paragraphs of endless words. Well-written papers often make use of headings, subheadings and bullet lists to better organize data because it makes it easier for the reader to absorb and remember the information. On this same note, remember to be uniform in your use of a font, making sure not to use more than two fonts as this can cause some visual confusion.

Remember, just like in life, first impressions make a huge difference. It doesn’t matter if your website contains the best data on the planet about your subject. If it is not easy to look at, and is confusing to follow, visitors will quickly become discouraged and leave. Remember these few key pointers during your website development. It is also a good idea to take a look at other successful websites and determine what aesthetic methods they employ to make your own website the most user-friendly and appealing it can be.

What Visitors Do Not Want To Read

The first composition visitors should not see, is endless paragraphs of what essentially equates to the company business plan/model. They are not concerned with the mission statement or combined managerial skills and training. Additionally, they don’t want to wade through long-winded descriptions of the website owners. If this is all they see, they may leave the site immediately.

When dealing with offline stores, customers are never treated this way. Traditionally, what happens is the customer is asked how they can be helped. The salesperson does not walk up and start reciting their Resume. The internet is no different. In fact, when visitors initially arrive on a website page that is exactly all they want to know – how they can be helped.

What Visitors Are Looking For

The first thing they should see, is text that grabs their attention. A precise description outlining their dilemma, followed by the way the website’s product or service will provide them relief. The breakdown should fit their situation perfectly. They should be nodding their head up and down, in agreement with what they are reading. This is what will keep them there, and turn them into paying customers.

The web page content should also read in English that is easy to understand. Technical jargon and elaborate words, only prove to provide aggravation. No one will want to stick around to be more aggravated than they already are.

4 Questions to Ask Yourself

You designed your website to be in business. You want to provide excellent products and services, and you probably do. However, you want to ensure that your visitors are aware of the significance of what you have to offer. Go to your website now and ask yourself the following four questions, with the mentality of a potential customer, not yourself:

• Is the content written in easy to understand English?
• Does the readers dilemma jump out at you, as if the page is speaking directly to you?
• Does the answer to the dilemma jump out next?
• Does it entail an offer explaining how your visitor’s problem will be solved?

Initiate Changes

If there is any content that is not relevant to the questions above, delete it now. Alternatively, move it to a different page. Proofread each sentence for unnecessary word usage. Pretend that each word costs you ten dollars, this will help you weed out any extra fluff.

Mindset Adjustment

Now that the your website home page reads properly, take the time to change your attitude, as well.

From this day on, as your business grows, always remember that your website is not actually about you.

Simply put, Web standards are our guide to the World Wide Web. They make business websites more accessible to Web users and more visible in searches. They also allow for easier website development and maintenance.

Web Standards Make Your Website More Accessible to the Public

Compliance with Web standards will help you reach out to more people and expand your target market.

Standards-compliant websites can be magnified or read aloud by voice browsers for visually impaired people. This means that your products and services can be accessed by people with special needs.

Standards-compliant websites can also be accessed on Web-enabled devices such as mobiles and handhelds. In addition, they can be rendered properly on all Web browsers both new and old. By complying with Web standards, you can market your products and services to mobile users and Web users with older software and browser technologies.

Compliance with Web standards also gives your websites greater public visibility through higher search engine rankings. Standards-complaint websites are easier for search engines to evaluate and index.

Web Standards Make Your Website Easier to Design and Develop

Web standards are based on universal rules which simplify website development. Because your code follows a standard, you do not have to rely on one Web developer to work on your website. A standards-compliant website can be designed and improved by any Web developer with a good working knowledgeable on Web standards.

With Web standards, you only need one version of your website. Your Web developers do not need to work with different codes to achieve the same goal. This greatly reduces the time needed to build, design and maintain your website.

At Summit Design Studio, we design websites that are standards-compliant. We make sure that our websites are accessible to all Web users. The finished websites that we deliver to our clients are very easy to maintain and improve.

So, is your site meeting website standards? You can check your website for errors with the World Wide Web Consortium’s free validation tool which can be found at http://validator.w3.org/

Having a website is all about visibility and offering your products and services to as many people as possible. Web standards allow you to do this and more.

• Social media spending is estimated to be 10% of marketing budgets in 2011 (source: CMO Survey by Duke University)
• StumbleUpon, despite having less than 1/10th the US users of Facebook and ~1/100th the engagement, sends more outbound traffic (source: Statcounter via The Next Web)
• Quora, the social Q+A site is nearing 500,000 users and momentum is growing (source: TechCrunch + FastCompany)
• Stackexchange, a platform for Q+A sites, already exceeds 650,000 registered users (source: StackExchange)
• Reddit grew 230%+ and now receives nearly 1 billion pageviews/month (source: Reddit via Mashable)
• LinkedIn has likely passed 100 million users; they were at 85 million in November, adding ~1million/day (source: CNN Money)

If you have the task of promoting your company’s brand through social media, then you should begin participating in all the platforms that might matter to your company. The following are some recommendations for the average social media marketer to consider, grouped by users:

100 Million+ Users

• Facebook
• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• YouTube
• MySpace (though they’re fading)

25 Million+ Users

• Reddit
• Flickr
• Yelp
• Wikipedia

10 Million+ Users

• Tumblr
• StumbleUpon
• Care2
• Slideshare
• Scribd
• DeviantArt
• Digg (fading)
• Delicious (fading)

Coming Up

• Posterous
• StackExchange
• Namesake
• Quora
• FourSquare
• Hunch
• Forrst
• Dribbble

Remember, it’s important to know who you are marketing to and what industry you are marketing to as well. Answer questions like “where is my audience online?” and “how do I interact with them?” For video, use YouTube, for music, think about Myspace, for photography, you should be on Twitter.

The Lewisburg Downtown Partnership (LDP), a nonprofit whose mission is to bring together diverse community interests and to promote downtown Lewisburg as a destination, launched a new website last week. The address will stay the same, LewisburgPA.com.

The website embraces the LDP’s tagline, “There’s Still a Place…” and features vivid panoramic images of the downtown. A new feature, “Lewisburg Stories”, includes testimonials from business owners, customers, and local residents.

The goals of the website are to create buzz about the downtown, promote the downtown Lewisburg business community and their unique offerings, and to convert interest into customers.

The site was designed by Mike Matukaitis and Conor Quinlan, owners of Summit Design Studio, LLC of Lewisburg. Summit Design Studio provides web design and search marketing strategy to businesses in Central PA. Summit works with companies serious about growing their business online.

The site includes information about Lewisburg’s history including the three-globe lamp posts, local museums, and Market Street’s history. It also includes an extensive calendar of events and a section for businesses to post promotions and sales. An extensive business directory breaks down each business by category and location with complete contact info.

Brand new elements include a list of “100 Things to Buy in Downtown Lewisburg” and themed itineraries for girlfriends, families, and couples.

There is also a section devoted to the downtown’s gift certificate program which can be used in almost every store downtown. Certificates can be purchased at The Gingerbread House (322 Market St), Robin’s Nest Boutique (234 Market St), or from the website.

For more information about the LDP and to view its new state-of-the-art website, go to www.LewisburgPA.com or www.Facebook.com/DowntownLewisburg

As a business owner hoping to sell goods and services through your website, you’re asking potential customers to trust you—despite the unscrupulous sales tactics that take place throughout cyberspace. So how can you convince skeptical buyers to trust you? One word: Testimonials. Effective testimonials establish credibility and trustworthiness… and they signal to shoppers that you’re more than just an anonymous website. Testimonials are the best way to build credibility—and they allow you to promote yourself at the same time. Below are several tips to keep in mind when requesting and using testimonials:

1) Ask at the right time.

Asking for a testimonial is all about timing. If you have long-term clients that you know are happy with your work, ask them for a testimonial. When it comes to new clients, wait at least a couple of weeks, until you’ve had a chance to blow them away with your service. When you know they’re thrilled, that’s the time to ask.

2) Include contact information.

A testimonial that doesn’t include some form of contact information is virtually useless. Listing contact information proves that the testimonial came from a real person—otherwise, it could have been made up. At minimum, include the name of the customer giving a testimonial, as well as the name of their business and a phone number.

3) Be specific.

When you’re asking for a testimonial, ask the writer to talk about specific qualities of your work. Vague comments such as “XYZ did a fantastic job” are much weaker than specifics such as “Within three months, XYZ nearly tripled the traffic to my website—and my sales improved by more than 400%.” In addition, be sure you ask for testimonials in a variety of areas so they don’t all sound the same. Ask for testimonials about your customer service skills, your professionalism, your timeliness, etc. Put yourself in your customers’ shoes and ask yourself “what would I be worried about?” Ask for testimonials that address these concerns.

4) Keep them short and to the point.

Nobody is going to read a 500 word testimonial. Keep them brief and on topic. If a client provides a testimonial that is too long, ask for permission to edit it. 4-6 sentences should be plenty in most cases.

5) The more, the merrier.

Don’t limit the quantity of testimonials on your site. A huge list of testimonials makes it clear that you’ve been in business for a long time and that you do a great job. Just make sure to put the best ones at the top, because most people aren’t going to read more than a couple. And make sure that each testimonial has contact information for the writer.

Website owners are always looking for secrets to increase the effectiveness of their site. Oftentimes, they overlook an obvious and powerful tool—testimonials. Don’t make that mistake. Dramatically increase your credibility by adding testimonials to your site… and watch your conversion rates trend upwards.