Keeping up with the latest innovations in website design and search engine optimization can be difficult, particularly when you’re trying to juggle all of your other company responsibilities with designing or updating your neglected business website. With new software, emerging technologies and constantly evolving SEO algorithms changing the face of web design every day, it can be very frustrating to create and maintain a good company website that keeps pace with the constantly shifting marketing terrain online, but our Naperville web design company, Design and Promote, can suggest three great ways to maximize your SEO while minimizing the costs.

Keep It Simple

 Sometimes the easiest way to compete on the Internet is to be the site that whispers while everyone else is trying to out-shout each other. Naperville web design experts agree that websites with a simple design often come out ahead in search results because they are executed cleanly. A simple layout that’s easy to navigate and a “less is more” color scheme can be very attractive to visitors who already have sensory overload from browsing the ‘Net.

Choose two or three colors for your website, but no more than that. Naperville web design specialists can help you choose colors that are interesting without being overpowering. For variety, you can use different shades or tones of key colors for added impact. With more than three colors, your site might become cluttered looking, which leaves visitors with the impression you’re unprofessional or disorganized. Keep individuals with visual problems in mind as well – a color blind visitor shouldn’t have too much difficulty navigating through your site if a Naperville website design professional has developed a palette with good color values and strong contrast.

A Naperville Design Company That Offers SEO And More

You may be wondering how your Naperville web design could impact your search engine rankings. It’s pretty simple – a sleek, streamlined site loads more quickly. The speed at which a site loads is taken into consideration in most SEO algorithms. A slow site gets a lower ranking. Visitor response to your site is also crucial; if lots of people are visiting but they get too frustrated because your page loads slowly, they will quickly get bored and move on to a more interesting site. Search engines notice when your site isn’t getting any traffic that stays around for a while, and your ratings will drop accordingly. Even the greatest Chicago SEO company won’t do you any good if they give you great content that nobody ever reads because they’ve left in frustration. The best combination is a simple site with interesting content. As a Naperville web design company that’s also an outstanding Chicago SEO company, Design and Promote can give your website everything it needs for improved SEO.

Develop Optimized Landing Pages

Landing pages are the secret weapon of the best Chicago SEO company professionals. These are pages that are each optimized for a particular keyword or keyword phrase targeting individual products or services you provide. Consult with a Chicago SEO company to develop a list of strong keywords and develop a separate page for each one. To ensure plenty of traffic to each one, don’t forget to add keyword rich meta descriptions and title tags. The more landing pages you have, the most traffic you’ll get, and the more user-friendly your website will be. By providing lots of landing pages, you’re ensuring that Internet browsers can quickly go directly to the page that is most relevant to them, making it more likely that they will stay and make a purchase or request additional information.

Blog It!

Professional bloggers are increasingly being recognized as experts in their respective fields. Hopping into the blogosphere is a great way to become noticed. Regularly writing blog articles can be time consuming, but adding even a little bit of fresh content on a regular basis can give you an impressive ROI. Updating your blog every week can give your rankings a real boost and the interactive nature of blogs encourages increased incoming traffic. The web design for your blog should also include a forum where others can log in and add to the conversation. It will encourage repeat visits and can generate real buzz about your company. If you simply don’t have the time to become a regular writer, a Chicago SEO company like Design and Promote can provide the content at surprisingly affordable rates.

TEAM B2B is a Naperville Area Chamber of Commerce leads group that focuses on business-to-business relationships. This was their third year hosting the Bags Tournament, but this year for the first time, they had their very own website, which was created by Design & Promote.

“Since I was a sponsor at last year’s event I realized the challenges TEAM B2B was having for their registrants. I wanted to make the process smoother by building a website which linked to online registration for both sponsors and players. This was able to give them the ability to not only register for the event but they were also able to upload company logos, send email invitations and more,” said Bruce Jones, owner of Design & Promote.

The tournament was held in Naperville on Saturday, October 22^nd and KidsMatter’s Executive Director Idalynn Wenhold was present for the event.

“KidsMatter is so grateful to Design & Promote for the amazing website and registration process they created for the Team B2B Bags Tournament. The turnout was twice the size of last year and I believe a lot of that should be credited to the tournament’s website,’ said Idalynn.

Chicago-area SEO company, Design & Promote is no stranger to assisting the not-for-profit world. Last year the company offered Naperville website design at a nearly fifty-percent discount to all nonprofit organizations.

“After years of working in the Internet field I know how important it is for a company or organization to have a well presented and functional website. It is a great method to get your message out there and increase exposure. Creating a website for a fundraising event does just the same, and increased exposure will inevitably lead to a more successful turnout,” Jones said.

The 3^rd Annual Bags Tournament had a total of 65 bags team compete, 17 teams in the competitive bracket and 48 in the social. Some of the big winners include:

• Competitive Bracket Winners:  Team Name: Role Models- Dave Sutton & Chris Novy
• Social Brackets Winners: Team Name: PhilOlsen- Ryan Philo & Kris Olsen
• Men’s Long Toss Winner: Jim Gedvilas
• Woman’s Long Toss Winner: Cindy Rowsey

The new  Bags Tournament website donated by Design & Promote is http://www.napervilleb2bbags.com

Only Search Engine Optimization Provides Continuing Benefits After The Campaign

When ads run on TV, there is always an expiration date after which they fade from view. SEO in Chicago doesn’t follow that pattern. The very heart of SEO is the creation of new content, the development of new web pages, and particularly the generation of articles, press releases, and more. This new content is hosted on the web by other sites, and is unlikely to be ever taken down (assuming it meets basic quality standards.) Because this material is worthy of being linked to by other sites, it will keep boosting your SEO in Chicago long after its initial creation. In addition, it will improve your inbound marketing by providing another way for individuals who are interested in your field to find your company and become a client.

People Trust Natural Search Results

Some companies have argued that organic SEO is inferior to paid search options like Google AdWords and other campaigns. Some businesses have even tried to advertise strictly through AdWords, neglecting SEO in Chicago completely. While some may see short-term success, there is a reason why every Chicago SEO company recommends using both paid and organic results: people trust natural results a lot more. Think about your own use of a search engine. How often do you click on anything that looks like an ad? You’re much more likely to choose a non-sponsored result, meaning you’re more likely to choose the website that uses SEO rather than pay-per-click.

Chicago Inbound Marketing Is A Powerful Force

Individuals who use search engines are looking for specific information or providers of a particular product or service. They don’t have to be convinced that your industry can somehow benefit them; they already know what they’re looking for. The role of SEO in Chicago is to help consumers see why your company can best fill their particular need. This technique is part of a fledgling type of marketing that is just becoming a force in Chicago: inbound marketing. Unlike the traditional push of advertising and classic sales, Chicago inbound marketing focuses on drawing people to your company. The end result of a successful inbound marketing campaign is a substantial increase in traffic, increased awareness of your brand, and stronger positive opinion.

Search Engine Optimization Isn’t A Jarring Interruption

Old-style marketing techniques like conventional advertisements were always jarring. They were designed to make anyone who heard them sit up and pay attention, with the result that they ultimately antagonized potential customers and annoyed the buying populace throughout Chicago. Inbound marketing and SEO is quite a different story. There is no risk of antagonizing your clients because you’re not pushing anything at them. You are using inbound marketing, connecting them with a great way to get a product they’re already thinking of purchasing.

These many advantages set search engine optimization far above its competing marketing methods. The wise Chicago SEO company will use all of these methods in concert, but it’s increasingly clear that SEO must be an element of any smart modern marketing plan.

SEO Never Stops Providing Value

One of the major components of successful SEO in Chicago is the creation of a lot of new content. This content includes a lot that is put up for public use with attribution, helping establish companies within their industry while simultaneously helping with link building for SEO. Chicago businesses often don’t host this content on their own website. Instead, it is put up on article sharing sites and other common knowledge areas, where it can be freely shared by anyone who is interested.

These articles are powerful tools for SEO when they are first published, but they have another advantage: they never expire. For as long as they are hosted (typically forever, especially if well written), they provide added value to the initial investment in SEO. Chicago companies benefit from the Windy City’s active news and discussion networks, which can further bolster SEO of Chicago companies by circulating links even longer.

Organic Results Are The Most Trusted By Searchers

Do you click on sponsored links? If you’re like most Americans, the answer is rarely, if ever. The vast majority of people will choose organic links every time, which means that any company not using SEO to their advantage is potentially missing out. Using paid search advertising isn’t enough anymore; it takes a skilled Chicago SEO company to help companies break into a tough market, but the results are usually well worth it.

Talk To The People Who Want To Hear You

The days of push marketing are over. Now, it’s all about inbound marketing. This new technique is crucial, even in a big city like Chicago. Inbound marketing uses the pull method, attracting those prospects that are already searching for your services, around the world and locally in Chicago. Inbound marketing is a highly positive way to make first contact with new clients.

SEO in Chicago allows businesses to become visible for potential clients who are already looking for them. This is inbound marketing in its most pure form, with almost no pushy, overly traditional marketing component to worry about. Before SEO in Chicago really took hold, years of aggressive advertising sensitized the public to anything other than pull, or inbound, marketing. Today, the smart Chicago SEO company is taking advantage of this and working overtime to connect with visitors on their terms.

A Chicago SEO Company Can Help You Get Started

The new marketing model revolves around SEO in Chicago, throughout the country, and around the world. From inbound marketing to local search and viral marketing, everything increasingly begins and ends with search engines. If your company can’t be found or has weak SEO, Chicago customers won’t be able to give you their business. Make an investment in your business, strengthen your marketing, and the results might surprise you.

Diane Overgard of Find Joy Life Coaching www.FindJoy.org recently won our raffle prize at the Naperville Chamber B2B Bags Tournament that we helped to sponsor for KidsMatter.

The prize was a $1000 value local search engine optimization package and it could not have been won by a better person. We had designed Diane’s website for her about a year ago.

After doing some keyword research we decided that one of her main keywords should be “Chicago Life Coach” with approximately 1000 people searching in Google per month using this phrase and 3660 other sites competing for this same term.

One of the tools that we use for search engine optimization are search engine optimized press releases  wrote a PR for her and distributed though our normal distribution channels, you can check it out  Here.

Here are the results of that press release a few days after it was submitted, notice that it is  currently showing up on about 4500 other websites.

Click To Enlarge

You can do the same sort of search using the press release title in quotation marks like this: “Abundantly Single – Chicago Life Coach Diane Overgard To Help Women Find Joy In Life After Divorce”.

An added bonus was that this story was also picked up by the Chicago Tribune Here and shown to their thousands of subscribers and website visitors.

OK, so now for the results, do a search in Google for “Chicago life coach” and you will see Diane’s website FindJoy.org now on page one, a few months ago Google was not even indexing her site for that specific keyword.

If you would like to see similar results for your own website using search engine optimized press releases and more please drop us a line.

The idea of traditional marketing is you are putting your ideas into the world and hoping someone who needs your services comes upon them.  This includes ideas such as trade shows, email blasts, cold calling, advertising etc.

What Is Your Inbound Marketing Strategy?

The idea of inbound marketing is you work to “get found” by people who are looking for exactly what you do.  The way it’s accomplished is by setting up your website in such a way that it naturally attracts potential clients through channels such as the search engines, the blogosphere or social media sites.

So how exactly does inbound marketing equal more qualified leads?  It’s because the people who find you were searching for you rather than the other way around.  They need your service and you are much more likely to land a customer who needs what you are selling and actively sought you out than one who didn’t.

Additionally, by working to sell your products or services to people who have come to you for help, you are going to be spending less time and money convincing them.  After all, they came to you  already half way there.

If you are deciding to make a switch, and put more of your company’s time and money into inbound marketing efforts, keep in mind these three components:

1.      Content (Blogs, Videos, White Papers, Ebooks, Websites)

2.      SEO (On-page, Off-page, Link-building, Keywords)

3.      Social Media (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn)

For even more convincing, think of it this way.  Inbound Marketing costs less than traditional marketing, targets better, and actually works.  What do you think about Inbound Marketing?  Do you already use it?  Do you want to start?

Here are 3 easy tasks that you can do in Linkedin to help with the search engine optimization of your website. SEO at it root is all about keywords and back links and here is how you can leverage your Linkedin profile for both.

1. Add Your Keywords To Your Personal & Company Profile

Once you log into Linkedin go to top menu Profile | Edit Profile

The Summary Area should explain what you do in detail and the description should include some of the keywords that your website is focusing on. If you have mostly local customers, don’t forget to include the areas that you serve.

Under the Experience Area make sure that it links to your company LinkedIn profile, create one if it is not already listed.

2. Add Keyword Links to Your Website & Inner Pages

Under the Websites Area take advantage of all 3 links and add them as the other link category using the right keywords.

A few examples that I might use for my Chicago area internet marketing, web design and search engine optimization company are below:

• “Internet Marketing Chicago” pointing to my home page.

• “Chicago SEO” pointing to my page about search engine optimization.

• “Web Design Chicago” pointing to my page about website design services.

The important thing is to use all 3 links along with a good keyword, not just the usual “My Company” or My Website.

Below is a video on more effective links for SEO

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8xfiVtAbXk

3. Add the Linkedin WordPress app to point to your blog.

Back to the top menu in Linkedin, go to More | Application Directory and add the WordPress application pointing to your WordPress blog.

Don’t have a blog yet? maybe you should talk to me about creating one for you, it is a great way of adding fresh relative content to your website, staying in touch with customers &   prospects and you can focus on new keywords with every post.

LinkedIn Extra Credit

Join local and related groups, add and interact in any groups that your prospects may be in, I’m sure there are some local groups that you can identify and join. Ask and answer any questions in the discussion area, add links to your latest news etc. I suggest that as you join groups you can have updates sent to you weekly instead of daily unless you want to be bombarded with emails.

Recommendations: I suggest first connecting to all of your clients and prospects, not just your peers.

Adding a Linkedin recommendation to your client right after you sell a large project is a great way of saying thank you, most likely they will reciprocate and you will receive one back in return. Better to do it this way than the lame way of asking for recommendations I feel.

Status Updates: It is good to post status updates on a daily or weekly basis and if you link to a good resource on your website all the better.

I hope that I explained these 3 steps that Linkedin can help with SEO  so that you can put them into practice easily, if you get stuck on anything just let me know and I’d be happy to help.

My personal LinkedIn Profile is: http://www.linkedin.com/in/brucejones630 Feel free to add me as a connection and any recommendations will be reciprocated.

Design & Promote Company Linkedin Profile

When attempting to improve your site’s ranking, it can be productive to examine your URL structure and do what you can to make it more SEO responsive. Namely, if your URLs are dynamic, it would be in your best interest to change them to static.

What is URL Structure?

URL structure is one factor that helps search engines find you.  Search engines generally find “clean” URLs faster and easier, which would translate into a static URL, or a URL that never changes, doesn’t have symbols, and uses keywords.  Some examples of dynamic vs. static:

A dynamic URL, which changes based on what database it was found by:

http://www.example.com/forums/thread.php?threadid=12345&sort=date

A static URL on the other hand, is a URL that doesn’t change and ideally uses keywords. It looks like this:

http://www.example.com/forums/the-challenges-of-dynamic-urls.htm

Dynamic URL vs. Static URL

A dynamic URL structure means that your URL is stored in a database and can change based on what database led the reader to your site.

The downside to a dynamic URL is that search engines don’t like them as much as static URLs, meaning they have a lower click-through rate and they can lead to duplicate content problems.

A static URL means that the URL cannot be changed unless the HTML code is re-written.

The advantage to a static URL is that search engines find them faster, and they help to keep your server more organized.  Additionally, it’s easier to use keywords in the URL, which attracts users, and results in more click-through.

Should You Switch?

If you use dynamic URLs you should switch to a static URL structure.  It will help keep your site more organized, increase your click-through rate, and help your site get found faster and easier by search engines.  Additionally, you would only have one URL assigned to each page and product.

When you make the switch, you should make sure your URLs are more consequential and use keywords.

For example, instead of having a URL that says www.example.com/store/prod1.html, you could have a URL that uses a keyword and looks more like this:  www.example.com/websitedesign.

When a customer sees this URL, they will know exactly what the page will hold — a page on web site designs.

The Bottom Line

Static URLs have an advantage.  They are easier for search engines to read and your users can easily figure out what the URL will lead them to.  Using keywords within the URL structure gives static URLs a lead over dynamic URLs. To increase your click-through rate and help out your SEO, I suggest you make the switch.

Notice the difference in the number of clicks between having your website in the top 3 results as opposed to being at the bottom of the page.

So you see that just being on page one of Google is not enough if you really want your website to stand out above the rest and get more clicks than your competitors.

Over 75% of the clicks go to the sites that are in position #1, #2, or #3.

Do you know where you rank for your keywords? contact us for an in depth report and analysis of what it would take to get your website to the top.

I understand some companies would like to handle SEO in house and feel that if they just had an instruction sheet that they could hand to their marketing manager or website guy or girl and everything would be peachy.
There are quite a few steps and many rules and best practices to follow to be successful at inbound marketing but here is a primer for you.

To learn more about search engine optimization or to get a free seo analysts of your website just give our office a call. 630-995-7109

On Page SEO

1. Add Statcounter and Google Analytics – You will want to benchmark where your site is before you start improvements and you will also want to take note of what keywords are already possibly ranking well.
2. Keyword Research – Search for high volume related keywords using the Google Keyword tool , select exact match on the left and check the ones that fit. Export these to a spreadsheet and do a Google search using allintitle: in front.  This search will give you the number of competitors online.  Do not pick keywords that have too much competition, better to be on the top of a small mountain than at the base of a large one.  Add town modifiers if you have a local business.  Time spent here will make or break your seo campaign. Check your competitor’s keywords and back links.
3. Change Page Titles – These should be up to 70 characters in length and contain keywords and be relative and different for each page of your site.
4. Change Page Descriptions –These should be up to 150 characters or less in length and have keywords, a call to action and be unique for each page.
5. Change Page Keywords – You should add no more than 10 keyword phrases separated by commas and be relative and different for each page.
6. Add Alt Image Tags – Add an alt description tag to every image that includes a keyword phrase. For a bonus change the name of images to match your keywords separated by dashes such as keyword1-keyword2.jpg.
7. Add Keywords To Page Content – Judiciously add keywords to all page content taking note of keywords used in title and keywords tags for each page. If you can include your keyword in a header or sub header font  all the better.
8. Landing Pages – Create landing pages that offer high value advanced information such as a white paper in trade for contact information using an email form. The goal here is to capture at least an email address that you can use to follow up or add to your newsletter.
9. Site Navigation – All navigation should include http://www. Not just /
10. Create Site Maps – Add an html and xml site map and submit to Google, Yahoo and Bing.

Off Page SEO

11. Record Existing Back Links – Use Yahoo Site Explorer to export a back link report and save for later comparison.
12. Universal Business Listing – Add your site including a description that include keywords from above $30 http://www.ubl.org
13. Blog Comments – Comment on blogs related to your website’s topic that are meaningful and try to include your keywords in the comment text and your name field.
14. Directory Submits – Locate free niche and local directories related to your website’s topic and submit your site to these.
15. Press Releases – Write a press release where the title and content contains your keywords and provides anchor text links within the body of the release, submit to many online press release sites including the $12 option at http://www.onlineprnews.com  I suggest reading their instructions before submitting. One press release per month is optimal.
Social Media.
16. Linkedin – Add your link in your Linkedin profile and update your profile to include a pretty large description including keywords. Add connections and join groups related to your main topic. Connect to your customers and not your peers. Add recommendations to your best customers and business partners. Update your status regularly and sometimes include links to your site or other related resources.
17. Facebook – Create a Facebook page and add links to your website pages, add friends and suggest to friends. Update your status regularly and sometimes include links to your site or other related resources.
18. Social Media Bookmarks – Create an account in Digg, Stumbleupon and as many other sites that time affords and add links to your pages that include your keywords in the title and description.

Extra Credit

• WordPress Blog – Add a WordPress blog to your site and write one post a week taking note to include your keywords in the title and content. Use All In 1 SEO, Google XML Sitemap and ShareThis plugins. Change the Permalinks to Post-Name and add sites to ping list.  Link RSS feed to Linkedin, Facebook & other social media sites.
• Article Writing – Create informative articles and submit to http://www.ezinearticles and http://www.goarticles.com
• Hub Pages – Create a Hub Page about your topic and use anchor text back links to your site.
• Squidoo Lens – Create a Lens about your topic and use anchor text back links to your site.
• YouTube Video – Create a video with a title and credit screen that contains your contact info including website and add to http://www.youtube.com and other video sites.  Make sure you include a title and description that includes your keywords.
• 301 Redirect – Direct all visitors to www not without by using special code otherwise you will have 2 sets of back links not one.
• Auto Responders – Create a drip marketing email campaign using contact forms.

Reporting  & Notes

• These items are arranged in order of importance and should be followed step by step for best results.

• Keep track of your keyword ranking, back links and traffic counts weekly or monthly and adjust accordingly.

• You can’t improve what you can’t measure.

• The top 3 website that come up for each search get 70% of all the clicks.

• 90% of people do not go past page 1 in the search engines, they just search again using a different phrase.

• Over 80% of people use Google for  online searches so Yahoo 6%, Bing 4%, and the other search engines don’t matter much.

• Many visitors and no sales means you need a better call to action on your site.

• Until you get more back links than the website in any position you will never top them.

• Link exchanges give away as much power as you gain so the net result is usually not much more than 0.

I hope this helps you understand the many steps it takes to succeed in inbound marketing