How to Find Success With Your Web Service

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Make Your Web Service Work Best For You

Frustrating Web ServiceIn the industry of web development and search engine optimization you’ll hear horror stories of people paying high figures to companies to manage their website without knowing exactly what it is that the web service does for them. Eventually, and inevitably, the customer figures it’s a waste of time and money to have a service that doesn’t illustrate any progress or proof of their work. The client then drops the service and has to start/gamble all over again with a company that may end up having the same issues. While it often seems like you’re on your own with finding a good service, that isn’t entirely the case. Having a web company that provides experienced individuals who know the technology very well is a great asset, but the second and EQUALLY important trait is COMMUNICATION.

Web Service CommunicationYes, client/consultant contact is imperative to the success of any website project. You’re much more likely to get what you want out of the transaction when you keep contact with your web service, and believe it or not, the developers prefer that as well! Proper engagement always starts best with an open line of communication.

When you ask a web service company what it is that they do for you, you can gauge exactly how responsive they will be in future encounters, as well as how helpful their responses will be. Usually before hiring a web development company it is common practice to arrange a meeting to familiarize yourself with who you’re working with and what services they will be providing you. It’s a bad sign in these situations to hear jargon.

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Interpreting Google Analytics: What it All Really Means

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interpreting Google Analytics

What do these numbers mean?
Interpreting Google Analytics

The metrics reported by Google Analytics provide valuable information about how users interact with your website. This guide can help you interpret the data and apply it to your marketing and SEO campaigns.

Sessions

Google defines a session as “the period of time a user is actively engaged” on a site. Sessions typically expire after 30 minutes, but the amount of time can be adjusted as desired. High numbers of new sessions means more new traffic. Low numbers indicate repeat visitors and a potentially higher level of engagement.

Visits and Page Views

Visits specify the number of people who come to your site. Every visit is counted, but only visits from new users are listed as unique. The “pageviews” metric shows how many visits a particular page on your site has received. Taken together, viewing data helps determine the popularity of your site. Continue reading →

High Bounce Rate? Here’s How to Fix It

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bounce rateGoogle defines bounce rate as the “percentage of visitors” that leave your site from a landing page “without interacting with it.” Watch this funny and educational video by Google’s Digital Marketing Evangelist, Avinash Kaushik, calls bounce rate the “sexiest metric ever” and is a huge fan of it. As Avinash mentions, bounce rate is important for your inside pages also, not just your homepage.

A high bounce rate is often a sign that the user experience needs improvement. If your site isn’t getting the engagement you want, try these tips for lowering your bounce rate: Continue reading →

August Report on “Google’s Mobilegeddon

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mobilegeddon

It is now 4 months since Google launched it’s new algorithm nicknamed “Mobilegeddon”.
The impact of this launch is still being studied as time goes on by SEO Analysts, and Online Marketeers, and other research sources in this industry. It is my continued goal to provide research results to businesses who might otherwise lose touch with what is going on with the Internet as they might be too busy running their own businesses and day to day issues that take up all their time.

I still see complacency occurring among web site clients that it was much to do about nothing. Unfortunately nothing could be further from the truth. Here are some interesting findings as I continue my research on this subject. Continue reading →

Image Optimization in SEO

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Behind your page title, image captions get read more than full page content.

Behind your page title, image captions get read more than full page content.

There is an SEO value to pretty much everything that you do on your website. You may not realize it, but adding images, and doing the accompanying SEO legwork, can help generate loads of traffic from Google Images and other image-based search engines. It’s not enough to just drop a picture on a page. Would you create a page and not title it?? That same regard should be held when talking about images.

Image optimization is simple. It’s a simple practice that’s also simple to accomplish and the results can be through the roof. It’s so beneficial that we here at the Orion Group, ensure that every image uploaded to any website that we manage for SEO or internet marketing, is optimized.

For the noob, there are four areas of concentration that need to be addressed when concerning yourself with image optimization: file name, file size, alt text, and descriptions/captions. Continue reading →

What does Google’s Mobilegeddon really mean?

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Hello!
This is Bill from the Orion Group. I am reaching out to as many people as I can to explain, in layman’s terms, what Google did on April 21st of this year. Some of you may have heard about Google’s “Mobilegeddon”. The title is most accurate because what Google did was literally pull the rug out on the entire internet affecting every website that exists today.

For those of us who do not understand, here is what Google did.

Why is this important?… because Google does not play around and make such announcements just for fun.

Want proof this is happening?

Image3

 

All of this is because neither site was optimized to “mobile friendly” status before the algorithm update by Google.

Does this not make one think that if such a large percentage of web sites are not responsive, and only those that are will be shown in mobile search results, then we better get going and update our web site? We need to take advantage of being part of the small percentage of sites that will show up in mobile search results and capitalize while others are still playing catch up. In essence, the entire internet is starting over and only the smartest of companies that understand all of this will take advantage of such a small pool of competition showing up in mobile search results.

This is a chance that may never come around again. In order to rank higher in mobile search results and NOT be doomed to losing that traffic all together, you have to have a website that is mobile-friendly. When will Google say that they will be doing the same thing in Desktop and Laptop searches? It’s a scary thought but Google is scary.

I believe Google is forcing the entire internet to do it their way. It purifies searches and it will cost advertisers a lot more money as the field of viewership will be so much narrower for a while.

So, while you may have been putting off redoing your web sites for years, there is now an opportunity to strike while the iron is hot. When the wagons went west in the search for gold, it was the first ones there that got richest the quickest. Now this can be said for having a responsive, mobile-friendly website. If your business values mobile traffic, why wouldn’t you want to be able to cash in on being the only ones who come up on the mobile search results with little to no competition around you for the foreseeable future?

How can you tell if your current website meets Google’s definition of mobile-friendly? There’s an online tool for that. Visit https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/, paste or type in the URL of your website, and click Analyze. Does your site pass? If not, then it’s HIGHLY likely that your site is NOT showing up in mobile search results.

This was a collaborative effort by Emma Edgar, Adam Kuhn & Kevin Barnes

If your website is not mobile-friendly, Orion Group can help.
Call 262-820-9520 for a free consultation.

How To Encourage Customers To Leave Feedback For Your Business

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image of positive feedbackBusiness want more engagement with their customers. Good feedback on websites increases visitor engagement, web traffic and increases time visiting the site. This helps search engine rankings and the ability to be found on Google. It helps to foster sales, creates new opportunities, and attract loyal customers that will support businesses for years to come.

Customer engagement like feedback has already helped companies like Netflix or Amazon grow rapidly.

The most important part about engagement, however, is that it can show you where you should take your business next. Feedback, which is one of the most valuable types of engagement you can have with your visitors, can do just that.

The problem is giving your customers the means to leave feedback. You don’t want to require it from them, but you do need a way to encourage and retrieve it. Continue reading →

Adding a Puerto Rico Business to Online Business Directories & Major Aggregators

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What do Localeze, InfoGroup, Factual, Acxiom …. and Yahoo Local have in common? They don’t seem to support Puerto Rico based businesses. For a typical United States ‘mainland’ client, we would use our standard tool set to publish and/or correct online business listings, however, for companies doing business in Puerto Rico, this IYP correction task gets more complicated. Continue reading →

3 Red Flags In Your Digital Strategy

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Digital Strategy Red Flags

3 Red Flags In Your Digital Strategy

First and foremost lets be clear on one thing, simply having a Facebook page for your business is not a digital strategy.

Many small to mid-sized business owners who aren’t as immersed in their company’s online marketing don’t understand this and this lack of realization adds to their concern of why they aren’t getting the attention or conversions they want in the digital space. Digital is all-encompassing and succeeding in digital isn’t a hobby. It all boils down to actually having a clear strategy, or roadmap, to be able to achieve the goals you have set for yourself.

So, say it with me now: I will not set goals without creating a strategy to reach them in the first place. Great. Will there be bumps in the road? Inevitably. That’s why our overall strategies also need to be constantly monitored, adapted, and analyzed along the way. Continue reading →

Google To Release Responsive Mobile Update – Is Your Website Ready?

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Google Logo

Google is set to release a new mobile-friendliness algorithm update on April 21 that will impact the mobile search results of websites that aren’t responsive. Is your site responsive?! If not, it may be time for you to upgrade. Here are a few resources for you to check out from the Google Webmasters themselves and Moz who’s a leader in Google Algorithm updates. Continue reading →