Cincinnati Web Design

Register a domain name so your customers can find you. Before you register your domain name, consider a few of these recommendations.

1. Keep your domain name short so it's easy to remember and market.
2. Target your local area. For example, if you own a plumbing business and looking to build a website in Cincinnati consider using www.cincinnatiplumber.com. Including keywords in your domain name can help grow your business locally.
3. Always use the .com extension. Over 75% of websites on the web use the .com extension.
4. Don't use abbreviations or hyphens.

Choosing a web hosting company can be challenging which is why Scott Botkins offers free web hosting with each monthly plan. However, if you plan to host the website yourself, please consider these web hosting recommendations.

1. Choose a web hosting company that provides 24/7 customer support.
2. Choose a web hosting company that offers free SSL certificates and daily backups.
3. Purchase a web hosting plan optimized for speed and performance; it's a Google ranking factor.
4. For performance and security reasons avoid hosting your website with these web hosting companies; Godaddy, Bluehost, Hostgator and Dreamhost.

Website security is essential to keep user data secure and conveying trust to visitors. A good web hosting company will provide a free SSL certificate for your website. If they don't, consider using Let's Encrypt.

We are exposed to thousands of logos and brands daily, however, only a few leave a memorable impression. This is why getting a logo design should come first before you build a website for your business. A good business logo design should help you create a brand identity and distinguish you from competitors. Consider using a two-color or three-color combination and typography that aligns with your brand values.

Need a logo design? Contact Scott Botkins today and let's design a logo that connects with your target audience in Cincinnati.

Already have a logo or brand identity kit? Please send those as attachments when you're ready to build a website.

Providing an organized visual sitemap helps build a website and search engine optimization. Consider the sitemap the blueprint to your website. Once the website design is completed an XML version of your sitemap is submitted to Google to provide information about the pages, media, and other files on your website.

You may not need to provide a sitemap if you plan to build a website 10 pages or less.

Website content is the written or visual content that persuades your visitors to purchase a product or service, sign up for a newsletter, or participate in a survey. Content can include text, images, PDF documents, videos, and forms as well as other assets to persuade the visitor.

Consider researching your competitors before you a build a website to audit their content, however, make sure not to copy their content as you can get penalized by Google for duplicate content.

Target audience is the demographic most likely to be interested in your products or services. This includes age, gender, and location. You may also be interested in their job title, household income, and education.

Consider discovering the target audience before you build a website so your website will perform more efficiently.

Search engine optimization, also known as SEO, drives more organic traffic to a website than any other digital marketing channel. According to recent data, organic search results on Google delivers over 65% of website traffic.

SEO should be performed when launching a new website, redesigning a website, or when you're ready to increase organic traffic. Search engine optimization is a long-term process due to rankings always changing, your competitors are adjusting their strategies, and Google changing ranking factors.

Before you build a website consider using search engine optimization services by Scott Botkins to rank, convert, and increase business revenue.

Create a social media page for your business to build brand awareness, engage with your followers, and drive traffic to your website. Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram should be used for B2C (business to consumer) marketing while LinkedIn is great for B2B (business to business) marketing.

Digital marketing is crucial for your business and brand awareness. Digital marketing allows you reach a larger audience than you could through traditional marketing methods, and target the audience who are most likely to purchase your product or service. Digital marketing offers multiple channels to market your business such as search engine optimization, social media marketing, content marketing, email marketing, pay per click, plus much more.

After you build a website consider using digital marketing services by Scott Botkins to help reach your audience in Cincinnati.

A domain name is your website name. A domain name is the address or URL where visitors can access your website.The domain name must be registered with a domain name registrar. Each domain name is unique and you can not use the same domain name twice. While a domain name is an essential part of having a website, it's only part of the website. In order to launch a website, you'll also need content and a web hosting provider to store your files so they can be accessed through your domain name.

Web hosting is the process of purchasing or renting space to house your website on the internet. Web hosting allows your website content such as HTML, PDF, and images has to be housed on a server to be viewable online by visitors.

SSL stands for Secure Sockets Layer and creates an encrypted link between a web server and a web browser. This process is done by using a digital certificate that authenticates a website's identity. Businesses and organizations require SSL certificates for their websites to process secure online transactions and keep customer information private and secure.

Content is the images, text and videos published on a website. Each web design requires content or else it would be a blank website.

A sitemap is a file where you provide information about the pages, photos, videos, and other files on your site. It's crucial for search engines like Google to read this file and crawl your website. A sitemap tells Google which pages and files are important for your website, and also provides key information about these website files.

Responsive Web Design is the practice of using HTML and CSS to automatically adjust a website and make it look good on all devices (desktops, tablets, and phones). Every web design by Scott Botkins is responsive.

WordPress is a content management system that can be used for any type of website design. WordPress makes it easy to manage your website and more importantly, own your website. When using a web page builder such as Godaddy, Wix, and Squarespace, you don't actually own your website, they do.

A web page builder allows you to create a website without knowing code. The most popular website builders such as Wix, Godaddy, and Squarespace allow you to build a website by drag and drop, inserting some photos and changing colors. These types of web page builders have been around since the 90's when Yahoo! Geocities, however, they have not improved much and have many downfalls such as horrible code, limitations, and most importantly ownership as they own your website, not you.

CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheet and is used to define styles for your web pages, including the website design, layout, colors, font sizes, spacing for different devices.

HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language and is the standard markup language for creating websites. HTML tells the browser how to display the content elements on a web page.

Search Engine Optimization is the process of growing organic traffic on Google for various search terms. Search engine optimization requires on-page and off-page factors in order to grow your organic traffic and visibility on Google. On-page factors may include meta tags, content elements, and header tags focused on keywords related to services or goods. For example, Scott Botkins is ranked high for "web design company near me" or "web designer near me" in the Cincinnati area due to focusing on those keywords, plus many more. Search engine optimization is a long-term process and requires ongoing maintenance.

Keyword Research is focusing on terms/phrases that visitors may type in Google to find you. For example, Scott Botkins, a web design company in Cincinnati, may want to be found for "web design company near me" or "web designer near me" in the Cincinnati area so therefore would focus on those keywords throughout the web page. Remember, keywords is one out of many on-page ranking factors when it comes to ranking high on Google for organic search results.

PPC, also known as Pay Per Click is the process of running ads for your business on Google. A Google Ads campaign will help your business show up on Google search results near the top pending how much you pay per click. If your competitor is bidding $1.00 per click for the search term "web design in Cincinnati" then you're going to have to bid $1.01 per click to rank above them.