Lytron, Author at Lytron Fort Lauderdale Web Design & SEO Agency

Search Engines Are Measuring and Weighing Your Website

When you post a business website on the internet, your aim is for customers to find it easily and quickly. But in order for people to find your website, it has to be appealing to search engines.

Google, Bing, Yahoo and other search engines are what connect customers with your website. So if your website doesn’t provide search engines with what they want, it won’t be ranked high on search engine results pages. And if that happens, people are going to have a hard time finding your business website.

Search Engines Are Measuring and Weighing Your Website – SEO Florida – Search Engines

Like your business, the goal of search engines is to give their customers what they want. So when they scan through the internet looking for new websites, what they are really looking for are those websites that provide the most relevance for their users.

When the come across your business website, search engines use an algorithm to scan through it to measure and weigh its relevance to their users and then assign a rating, or ranking, based on what they find.

Essentially, search engine algorithms are looking for content that their users can genuinely use. But they also are looking at your website’s performance, such as how fast it works and if it is easy to use.

Search Engines Are Measuring and Weighing Your Website – Authority and User Experience

Search engines also want to make sure your website is authoritative. In other words, would people likely to go to your website to seek answers for the questions they have related to your content? If so, or if your website is linked to authoritative sites that do provide answers, it will be ranked higher.

Finally, search engines consider the overall user experience when people land on your website. If your site attractive? Is it easy to navigate around your web pages? Does it look trustworthy? If the answer is “yes” to all these questions, your business website is more likely to rank high on the search engine results pages for people looking for businesses like yours.

5 Web Design Obstacles That Could Frustrate You

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Thanks to the many all-inclusive web design apps out there, anybody can create and design their own highly effective website that is guaranteed to go viral, right?

Not so fast. Even though places like WordPress, Weebly, and Squarespace certainly make it easier to design websites, they don’t do everything … at least not everything you need.

Web sites need to do more than just exist. They also need to look great, be easy to navigate, and easy for people to share.

Language Barrier

One of the first obstacles most amateur web designers face has to do with language. Not English vs. Spanish or another language, but HTML and CSS, the two most popular programming languages in use today.

Effective web design requires knowing how to read, edit, and troubleshoot basic HTML. And to do more with your website, you need to know more.

Photo Editing

Introductory web design sites tout their “drag and drop” photo editing capabilities. But including highly effective photos that both appeal to visitors and drive traffic takes more than just dropping and dragging.

At the very least, you need to know how to crop, size, clean up, and adjust image quality. None of these things are brain surgery, but they are skills web designers use all day, every day.

5 Web Design Obstacles That Could Frustrate You – Making a Print

Wait, this one sounds easy. You just hit the “print” button, right?

Not really. Web design requires you to create and convert design elements so that they are print-ready for flyers to business cards, brochures to press releases.

Key skills including understanding printing resolutions for different media types and colors, working with typefaces and bleeds, and more.

5 Web Design Obstacles That Could Frustrate You – Trusting the Professionals

Learning these and other web design skills is a lot more complicated than the “EZ” websites would have you believe. If web design were really that easy, everybody would do it!

Fortunately, the web design professionals at “Lytron Lead Generation” already have the skills, experience, and knowledge to handle all of your web design needs.

Why Does SEO Matter So Much, Anyway?!

Small businesses with an online presence have to think about SEO all the time. Why?

It’s because Search Engine Optimization, techniques that boost your business website’s online profile, are how most consumers find your business today. Without constant vigilance on SEO, those customers are going to go to competitors.

Rising to the Top

SEO techniques include things like insert keywords into your web content, posting photos and videos that attract more click-throughs and generally doing everything you can to make your web pages more appealing.

Appealing to who? Customers, but also search engines like Google, Bing!, Yahoo, and others. These are the primary tools that people use today to find the products, services, and businesses they want.

The Evolution of SEO

Forty years ago, people used the phone book to look for things like plumbers, car mechanics, florists, and more. But beginning about 20 years ago, people started using computers in their home.

Soon, these were replaced with laptops. Then came smartphones. Then tablets.

Today, most people use all of these devices to not only search for but also to buy things they want and need. That makes SEO an essential factor for any business that wants to attract customers online. In other words, any business!

Getting the Help You Need

By this point, most business owners understand the importance of their online profile and web reputation. It’s hard to think of a business that doesn’t benefit from trying to attract customers via their portable devices. It’s simply how business is done today.

But not every business owner understands the importance of getting help with their SEO. Managing your online reputation is too complicated to try and do on your own. Instead, you need the help of professional SEO experts, such as “Lytron Lead Generation“.

We can help you boost your business’s SEO and attract more customers both online and in the real world. Web-based SEO marketing is simply a fact of life in today’s business environment. Get on board with “Lytron Lead Generation”.

Photos Add the Personal Touch to Your Website

Generally speaking, anything you publish on your website, blog, or elsewhere online should include at least one photo or image.

Photos not only give visitors a visual cue tied to your content, but they also can help improve your page rankings. Search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing! and others assign more value to pages that have good, high-quality photos or images that are related to the page’s content.

What Type of Photos to Include

The best photos are ones that add to the story you are trying to tell with your content. If you are posting on your business website, these could include images of your business, your employees, your products.

If you are posting a blog, the photo probably should be related to what you are writing about. For example, if you are writing about how much you love your family dog, including a personal photo of you with your dog is not only heart-warming, but adds more value to your blog’s content.

Photos Add the Personal Touch to Your Website, Where to Find Photos

The more personal the photo, but more impact it tends to have. Whenever possible, include photos or images you take yourself. Not only do they connect better with your intended audience, but you also own the rights to publish them.

Posting photos that somebody else took without asking permission is not legal. If the author of the photo finds 0ut about it, you could face some problems.

Photos Add the Personal Touch to Your Website, Paying for Photos

There are many websites that sell stock photos you can use for a fee — usually either a monthly subscription of a per-photo charge. If you publish a lot of content, this can be a good option if you don’t want to spend a lot of time taking your own photos.

A picture says a thousand words. Including photos with your web postings can improve their value to your readers.

Life’s a Beach. Enjoy It!

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Life’s a Beach. Enjoy It! One of the best things about living and working in Florida is that you are never more than an hour or two’s drive from the beach. Pretty much any direction you go — except due north — if you just keep going, sooner or later you are going to run into an ocean.

Florida also has some of the best weather of anywhere in the world. So not only are you constantly near a beach, but it’s also going to be warm enough to enjoy it.

Break Out of Your Normal Routine

Despite this, there are still plenty of people living in Florida who rarely put their feet in the ocean’s warm waters. In fact, many Floridians follow the same routine over and over again, never escaping the dullness of their everyday lives.

And that’s too bad because living in Florida truly is a blessing. Sure, it can get pretty hot and humid in the summer, the southern tip of the state is mostly impenetrable swamp, and a lot of crazy things tend to happen here.

But Florida is still one of the best places to live for a lot of reasons besides all of its beaches. Although they certainly make it a lot better.

Pick Up and Go

Right now is one of the best times of the year in Florida. While the state is still warmer than just about anywhere else up north, it’s has not yet gotten so hot and humid to the point where you even need to turn on your air conditioning if you don’t want to.

While the beaches can fill up during spring break, especially those near the places college students traditionally visit for their annual partying, pretty soon you can mostly have them to yourself. Just be patient.

Life’s a Beach. Enjoy It! – Living and working in Florida is the best. We all need to appreciate it more.

Split Testing Measures Success of SEO Efforts

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Split testing is a technique used by online marketers to measure the effectiveness of specific changes to such things as SEO keywords, marketing campaigns, and even the images used on websites.

In essence, split testing is based on the approach scientists use to test a theory by using clinical trials. An experiment is set up into two groups: One control group and one test group.

For example, pharmaceutical researchers might give one group a new drug they are testing and a second group a placebo. The use of this “control group” structure allows them to keep everything else the same to see the precise effects of the drug they want to test.

Split Testing Measures Success of SEO Efforts – Measurable Results

Website designers, online marketers, and internet-based businesses often use the same approach. But instead of using human test subjects, they split testing to measure the effects of small changes to their web content.

For example, a business with an established website might want to see how well a new marketing campaign works. So they could use split testing to see if it encourages customers to spend more or less than they spend using the business’s existing marketing effort.

Two versions of the business’s website are set up: One with then new marketing program and one with the existing campaign. Some customers are directed to one page while others are sent to the other.

Split Testing Measures Success of SEO Efforts – Achieving Results Faster

Then the business measures the average amount spent per customer for each of the two pages. If the new marketing campaign earns the business more money, it can replace the old program. But if it earns less, it’s back to the drawing board.

Split testing can be used to measure the effects of any type of change to a website. It can be something as big as a new marketing campaign to something as small as the wording on a headline or which of two pictures gets a better response.

By using split testing, web page designers can optimize the content of pages in order to achieve the results they want faster.

Blogging Keeps Customers and Clients Engaged with Your Business

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Blogs are short, informative articles that usually are distributed through social media to a targeted audience, such as to a mailing list of customers.

Blogging is a relatively new and highly effective marketing platform that helps build loyalty bonds between businesses and their customers. It both informs and engages people simultaneously by providing value to the business-customer relationship.

Creating Relevant Content

There are essentially two types of blogs. The first is original content that is either created by somebody within the business itself or by somebody hired by the business to provide informative articles for their clients.

The second is blogs that are composed of articles, links, and other content that originally was created elsewhere, such as on another website, in a magazine or newspaper, or a video that was posted online.

Generally, the content of these “secondary blogs” is somehow related to what the company does or the types of products it offers. For example, customers of a local car showroom might receive both original blogs as well as blogs that contain promotional videos from the major car makers.

Business – Why Customers Want Blogs

People are typically highly open to receiving and reading your business’s blog posts because they perceive it as receiving something of high value for nothing. Customers don’t pay for blogs. They are simply something they receive if they opt-in by giving their email address, cell phone number, or other contact information.

While the customer’s investment is minimal, the return from the business is high. Blog postings can often provide helpful and useful information they can use immediately in their everyday lives.

Business – Low-Cost, High Value

And the benefit to businesses also is high. Blogs not only make customers more loyal to the business, but they also can occasionally include promotional offers and information that can lead to short-term future sales and a longer term relationship with the customer.

If your business doesn’t already provide its customers with regular blog postings, it’s something you absolutely should consider.

Maintaining Your Website Doesn’t Have to Cost a Fortune

“Cost of entry” is a concept that has killed millions of potential businesses before they were ever born.

It’s the idea that says starting up a new business — even something as simple as launching a web-based business — simply costs too much. And if you don’t have the initial capital, you can’t get into the game.

But technological advancements, increased competition for web-based services, and significantly lower start-up costs have essentially eliminated “cost of entry” as an obstacle for many potential business owners.

One-Time Charges

True, you probably will need to pay somebody to create a highly effective website for you. But the cost of designing and launching your own website usually is a one-time charge.

The way many web maintenance businesses keep their clients paying is by requiring a monthly subscription fee for services they don’t need and can’t use. Once your website is up and running, you generally don’t need to keep paying the graphic artist or web designer who created it.

While there are some minor recurring charges, such as web hosting, these can cost as little as $5 per month. So what exactly are you paying for?

Maintaining Your Website – Maintenance Fees

If you ask many unscrupulous web page providers, the answer is often “maintenance fees”.

But think about it: What maintenance does a website actually need? If it was properly designed and fully functional in the first place, it should run flawlessly starting from the very first day.

Even if you do want to upgrade your website, the content management system you use, such as WordPress, often will let you implement updates yourself with the click of a button at little or no cost.

Maintaining Your Website – Ask Questions

If the company you pay to manage your business website tries to sell you a maintenance package, try this experiment: Ask them to provide for you in writing exactly what they will do for the money.

Then search Google for those exact same services. Odds are, you will find easy, simple to use instructions for doing everything they are offering on your own, and for free.

With today’s technology, website maintenance doesn’t need to be complicated or difficult. In many cases, you can do it yourself.

Capture More Traffic with Geo-Specific Keywords

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Keywords are what search engines use to rank websites. They are specific words and phrases that best describe what a particular website is all about.

For example, if your website promotes your dry cleaning business, you want to include keywords such as “dry cleaning”, “clothes cleaning”, “one-hour dry cleaning”, and others.

Search engines such as Yahoo!, Bing, and most importantly Google will scan your website, using sophisticated algorithms to determine what keywords within the content of your site best describe what it is all about, and then rank your web page.

Then, when users of that particular search engine use it to look for business websites using those specific keywords, your page will show up on the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) for those specific keywords.

Capture More Traffic with Geo-Specific Keywords – Getting Ranked Higher

But think about how this works for a moment: Not many people are probably going to use their smartphone, tablet, or laptop to find a dry cleaner by typing in the keywords “dry cleaner”. That would probably give them results from all over the world!

Instead, they are much more likely to type in geo-specific keywords such as “Miami Dry Cleaner” or “Fort Lauderdale dry cleaner.” Or they would type in search words like “dry cleaners near me”.

Capture More Traffic with Geo-Specific Keywords – Make Your Content Geo-Specific

That’s why you want to be as geographically specific as possible in your website content. Rather than making your keywords “dry cleaner”, you want to include the state, city, or even neighborhood in which your business is located.

Including geo-specific keywords will help your web page show up on the SERP of prospective customers in your specific area.

And that makes perfect sense. After all, you don’t need to market to customers in another city or state. You want customers who are nearby right now.

Cross-Marketing on Your Website Can Boost Sales, Reputation

The objective of most business websites is to promote the product and services that the company offers, as well as reinforcing the brand the organization wants to establish.

But should you consider promoting other people’s businesses or other organizations on your website? Maybe.

Cross-Marketing on Your Website Can Boost Sales – Reciprocal Marketing

Reciprocal marketing is when you promote another person’s business or products on your website in exchange for their promoting yours on their web pages.

It simply requires entering into an agreement with another business in order to promote both businesses for the benefit of each other.

Obviously, you probably wouldn’t enter into an agreement with a direct competitor. But there may be products or services that complement yours that could be a perfect fit for reciprocal marketing.

For example, if you own a health spa you might enter a reciprocal agreement with a company that offers relaxing lotions or aromatic candles. That company would then promote your spa on their website.

Both businesses benefit because consumers who are interested in one type of product probably also would be interested in the other.

Cross-Marketing on Your Website Can Boost Sales – Community Outreach

Another related type of cross promotion on your website is community outreach. This is when you use your website to pledge your support for a local charity or cause you are passionate about.

For example, if your website promotes your local business, you might include a badge that supports a local charity such as the Ronald McDonald House. Or you could include a pink ribbon that signifies breast cancer awareness.

Community outreach has the dual benefit of supporting an important cause or charity while affiliating your business with doing good in your community.

Both cross promotion and community outreach don’t cost you anything more to do, but can bring additional sales and more customers to your business, as well as enhancing its reputation within the community.