The decision to go with Drupal is further testament to the power, reliability, security, and just pure awesomeness found in this open source application. Not only does Drupal give developers a powerful tool for creating dynamic and creative websites, it also gives website owners the ability to maintain their website with little or no technical knowledge.

At Digital Stax, customers are amazed by how easy it is to add and change content on their new website. The Drupal CMS is included with all of our websites. Those considering creating a new website or switching their old website to Drupal are more than welcome to contact us for a free consultation.

There are two major components of SEO:  onsite SEO and offsite SEO.

Onsite SEO involves optimizing the content, coding, and other aspects of your website to make it search engine friendly.  Some activities in this category might include adding keywords to the text of your website, reorganizing the content of your website, and optimizing your HTML code. All of these activities allow your website to better “communicate” to search engines what your site is about and the quality of your content. This is sometimes an overlooked aspect of SEO, but is a critical step when conducting your campaign.

Offsite SEO is the part of search engine optimization that most people are referring to when they use the term.  There is a lot of controversy and differing opinions and ideas about Offsite SEO, but everyone can agree on one thing: Links are important. Very important. More specifically, when conducting an SEO campaign you want to acquire links on quality websites and ideally on websites with content similar to your own.

The keywords used when creating these links are especially important. To demonstrate this,  go over to Google and type “click here” and then look at the first result.

Are you surprised by the result? The website isn’t clickhere.com, there’s no mention of “click here” in the title, description, or anywhere on the web page. So, why is this?

There are links all over the web that look just like this: click here to download Adobe Reader. There are likely millions of these links that have the words “click here” and are pointing to Adobe’s website. Of course, there’s little value in ranking high for those keywords, but it definitely demonstrates the importance of keywords in your links.

So back to our example of a barber in Springfield, Missouri, he would probably want to create links that look like this:  barber springfield, mo or something similar. And he would want to choose wisely where these links should be placed and how many.

There’s much more to SEO than what I’ve covered in this post. And regardless of the activities undertaken, it’s important to remember that all of this takes time. In fact, somtimes it takes a great deal of time and effort before you will rank well in search engines such as Google. But, in the end, your persistance will pay off.

A lot of the work we do involves fixing the mistakes made by other web designers. For example, a business owner will call us up and tell us that some guy he knows created him this really nifty website. The only problem is that their website is not coming up in Google results. The story is often the same: there’s a lot of good things about the website they have, but the original designer failed to dot all of the i’s and cross all of the t’s.

We make sure that your website is what you want and what your customers need from the outset. When we create a website, we’re not just creating something that we want you to be proud of. We’re creating something that we want to be proud of.

One thing that surprised me when I began offering web design services was the suspicion and mistrust that a lot of people have toward web designers. It seems that so many people have been burned in the past. Website owners are worried that we will abandon them in the middle of the project or that we will not actually perform the services that we promise.

It’s sad to witness this mistrust because there is a story behind each of these concerns. We realize that we have to earn your trust. One way we help deal with this is by not requiring payment until the project is completed to the customer’s satisfaction. We also try to go above and beyond expectations and hopefully even make you smile from time to time.

We look forward to becoming a partner in your success. Not only do we enjoy creating websites, we love helping people. You feel a lot better about your work when it actually helps people improve their businesses and lives.

Contact us and let us help you out. Do it right the first time.

Okay, I see your point. But here’s my response.

There’s always room for improvement

Even the most successful businesses can improve. Your business could attract new customers, better communicate with existing customers, and offer new services that can only be provided on the web.

The Internet offers so many opportunities to improve what you offer to potential and current customers.  You can provide information on your website about products and services available, prices, and basic information like hours of operation and what credit cards you accept. Providing this information not only helps your customers, it can save you and your employees a lot of time that would otherwise be spent taking phone calls and answering questions.

But that’s just the beginning of the possibilities offered by a website. How about taking your business worldwide by offering products for sale on the Internet? Maybe you’re a bit of a writer and would like to blog on a topic related to your business? If the content is of interest to others, they will read and recommend to others. You’ll have an entirely new audience who may just be your next customers.

A website gives you more control of your web presence

If you’ve been in business for any time at all, there’s likely something about your business already on the web. But who created this content? And what are they saying? You often have no control over this and you definitely have no control if you’re not making an effort to craft your business image on the net.

If you create a website using a good domain name (and you have a competent web designer) your website will most likely be ranked number one in Google for your business name. So when someone types in your business name, the first thing they see is your website with your message.

The Internet is the phonebook of the 21st Century (but better)

I don’t think I’ve used a phonebook in at least five years. As a thirty-something, I’ll tell you that most folks my age and younger use the web for almost all of their information needs. Google is a much faster and more efficient tool than the antiquated yellow pages. If you want to attract younger customers, a website is a necessity.  And older folks are taking to the web in great numbers. As already mentioned, you want to control the message that all of these people are going to find when they Google your business.

A website is a good investment in tough economic times

You might think that it’s a horrible time to spend money when the economic climate is so uncertain and maybe a bit scary to some. But this is the time to take advantage of opportunities. Many web designers are lowering their prices to entice customers right now. Those prices are certain to go back up as soon as the economy turns around.

There’s also no better time to get a leg up on your competition. There’s a lot of competition out there to get a piece of the shrinking pie of consumer spending. It makes sense to do whatever possible to maintain or increase your share.

It’s the most affordable advertising around

Have you checked the prices of newspaper ads, tv ads, or billboards lately? It’s not cheap. And many, such as newspaper ads, are one-time ads that will soon end up in the city dump. But a website is there for the long haul and it is still the best bargain for your advertising dollar.

Digital Stax has website design packages that start at $250.  Really, the only other costs involved are web hosting and domain name registration. Hosting is only $9.95 a month and your domain name will only cost $14 a year. It’s a bargain that can’t be matched by other advertising mediums.

A website adds to your business’ credibility

Mr. or Mrs. Established Springfield, Missouri Business Owner might have something to say about this statement as well. They might say “Raymond (if that is your real name), I’ve been in business here in Springfield, Missouri for over 20 years and everybody knows that we are credible and are the best in the business.”

Well, what about people new to the area? Or people like me that live in a proverbial cave? If you’re an established and credible business in the community they would expect you to have a website. Because every business should have a website, right? It’s just a reality of modern times. People expect any credible business to have a website.

There’s much more that could be said about the value of having a website for your business. But, I think these are the most important reasons why every business needs a website. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions or comments.

So, if you’re a business or organization in the Springfield, Missouri area or beyond and need a new website or a redesign, stop by digitalstax.com for more information. You can also call us at (417) 866-8738, Mon-Fri 9am-7pm and we’ll get you on the path to creating your new website in no time.

When a website owner purchases web hosting, they are paying for the right to store their website files on a computer (called a server) at a remote location. This allows your website files to be accessed by people using the Internet. The web host also handles all of the technical aspects of installing necessary software on the server and making sure that the server is working 24 hours a day.

It’s similar to how some antique stores or flea markets work on a consignment basis. If you wanted to sell your antiques, you could rent out a booth in an already established antique store. You wouldn’t have to worry about utility bills, building maintenance, or any of the other concerns that arise when you own a building. This is what you are doing when you sign up for a web hosting account. It might be very expensive and time-consuming to set up your own server and have to deal with everything involved with that.

I hope this makes sense. If not, click on the “Contact” button above and ask away.

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That’s just the beginning of what you can do with a CMS. But the greatest advantage that it offers my clients is the ability to update content after I have created the design and made all of the configurations for them.

There are many CMS options available. Some are commercial applications and others are Open Source. For individual website owners, nonprofits, and small- to medium-sized businesses, the latter is usually the best way to go. That’s because Open Source means free! Open source software is developed and maintained by communities of programmers and is available for anyone to use.  And just because it’s free doesn’t mean that  the quality is in any way inferior. The CMS that I primarily use (Drupal) is even being used by some of the largest players in the corporate world such as Yahoo!, AOL, Warner Brothers Records, US Magazine and many others.

I can’t count the number of times that I’ve worked late into the night fixing a problem with a website because of bugs in different versions of Internet Explorer. For a site that I am currently developing, the client wanted a simple calendar to share upcoming events with visitors. I decided to embed Google Calendar rather than reinvent the wheel and create a new application. After installation, it looks perfect in Firefox (and, surprisingly, even IE6). But, of course, it looks absolutely awful in IE7. Perhaps another late night is ahead of me

EDIT:  OK, it turns out that it works in IE7 after all.  I was running IE8 instead of emulating IE7. But whatever, my point still stands.

In David Viney’s book, Get to the Top on Google, he reveals that Google tracks what is called “timed-out_queries_total”. Although it is not known for sure why they track this variable, the logical conclusion is that this is factored into how Google ranks the importance of websites. When a site performs poorly in this area, it is perceived to be a low quality site without much importance. Having a poor hosting provider could very well have a negative impact on your Google ranking. And it also doesn’t encourage users to frequent your site if the pages load slowly or they constantly receive server error messages.

The best advice is to choose a hosting provider that has been around the block for a while. New hosting companies turn up every day and many bite the bullet every day too. Many of these providers over-sell their technical capabilities and thus under-perform when you need them most.

Check out Internet forums, such as Web Hosting Talk, and find out which hosting companies to avoid and which have a proven track record. Ask fellow webmasters what hosting providers they use to help you make your decision. Make this decision carefully because it could be one of the more important SEO moves that you make.