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My company site, offering web hosting, computer maintenance, domain registration, and web site design has been launched 2 months ago. I submitted us to the major search engines, dmoz.org and a few other directories, as well as created an xml sitemap for Google.
So... what next?
I mean, I know the site needs a redesign from a professional artist, I have an artist but don't' have the budget yet. I haven't really thought about doing another web site on the side, something maybe partially related. Any thoughts?
Building a website is the easy part. The hard part is the business.
According to a search for "web designer" on Google there are 156 MILLION other sites out there.
You might get some business solely from your site with lots of online marketing work - but you probably need to hit the pavement and sell your services.
Ben, i think what will work best for you is take your SEO efforts to a regional level. Many people seek out to work with people in their local area, and instead of looking through their own yellow pages, they use google & other search engines to find people in their area.Originally Posted by Webnet
Why not focus on Web Hosting Kentucky or Web Design Kentucky etc. (noticed you offer service in Kentucky) and occupy those rankings. I mean, I wish you the best of luck in coming up high for Web Design, but i Must say, best of luck to you.
I realize that I won't be number one for "Web Design". But if I focus on just kentucky will that really do much? How do you really focus on kentucky other than just adding "kentucky" as a keyword? Speaking of which... How did you know I was from kentucky?
In my opinion, Kentucky is still probably a pretty big market. Maybe localize your SEM (Search Engine Marketing) to your specific town or county. But even still, if I was a customer that found you through the Internet and realized you were a new company with no track record I probably wouldn't bother to contact you.
That's why I suggested hitting the streets. You need to make some face to face contacts. If you don't have a past list of clients (which if you have only been in business 2 months I'm guessing you don't), then you need to sell yourself. Your personality, your appearance, your skills. It's a lot harder than making a website and hoping that somebody will find it and hire you, but also more effective (at least until you have an established reputation).
It's the Internet - we know EVERYTHING about you.
Hi there - instead of adding Kentucky as a keyword - add it as a keyphrase. For example, you might have kentucky webdesign as one keyphrase, kentucky webdesigners as another - etc, etc.
It's a lot easier to get on the first page of Google quickly for your own regional area. Also, if you use Google Adwords to advertise, you can target your regional area too.
Went to your website and noticed that you had Kentucky listed on there so i put it together.
What i mean is, you could refer to your company in your copy as "Kentucy Based Web Development Studio", "Web Development company with offices located in Kentucky", basically, various forms of that, but still ensuring that is sounds & read properly.
If you do a google search of "kentucky web design", http://www.ur2creative.com/ is the first result so you could use them as a guide.
Most people who turn to look for getting websites done, etc., prefer to deal with companies mainly in their area so they can get their sit down meeting etc. Otherwise, if they're just looking to find a firm from anywhere to do their project, they'll probably go to somewhere's like elance first before finding you.
If you haven't already, you should take a close look at your competitors' sites.
Click on their search engine ads. Click on every single link on the first three pages of several different searches.
Take a close look at each site, and ask yourself how you can do better than them.
Even the tiny things may make a difference.
For me, if there isn't a phone number, I quickly log off.
Also, ask your customers, visitors, friends, family...what they like and dislike about your site.
Continue with the link building and promotion of your site. Get more visitors and get more sales through your link building strategy
The hardest part of any business is selling.
You actually have to do it.
Potential clients do not just arrive at the door by magic.
You have to drag them in.
That means hitting the bricks, using the telephone, passing out business cards, joining the local chamber of commerce.
All of the stuff that you are avoiding.
promoting your site.. post to free ads..
be patient and keep working on that SEO
once you have the budget, get the redesign
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Enzyme Online | Professional and Affordable Web Design
Two month is very short period to evaluate success through SEO, you need to do lot of SEO work and online marketing research to figure out potential.
over time, it will increase
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Enzyme Online | Professional and Affordable Web Design
I wish it didn't take so much time. Thanks for the input.
Can the local chamber of commerce actually do anything? What is that exactly?
I hear all the time how people just put up links from PR3-5 web sites to increase their traffic and PR. I realize this is important, but how do you just "find links". It seems as though when I browse through google for web sites that would like to me I tend to have a hard time finding something since I don't really know what I'm looking for. The web site I need to get links from varies depending on the type of web site. But in any case, I dont' really know exactly what I'm looking for. What do you guys do?
you don't find links, you make them.
so many opportunities.
obviously - forums
a really good option is to write a really good article, submit it to a popular article site, and have your link on there. this will help a lot. probably my best tip
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Enzyme Online | Professional and Affordable Web Design
Great tips there. Article writing is one of the best ways to get exposure and links for your site. Most people (myself included) do not do this nearly enough. It's such a great way to get your site in front of lots of people, and it's free!
Forum sigs also work great, if you're posting in the right forums. It may be hard for you to target SEO forums in Kentucky, so I don't know how well it works on a local basis.
Press releases are another free advertising method that shouldn't be overlooked. They work especially well to get the word out about a new site, so you might see some results there.
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This is an excellent topic and Webnet, I am essentially in the same boat as you.
I have plenty of experience and have actually sold my Ecommerce site recently and decided it was time to branch off and start working in web development and internet marketing consulting exclusively - taking with me all of the skills I have picked up through previous experiences and projects.
I plan to focus locally through both paper and PPC campaigns, as well as SEO.
Best of luck.
Paul
I keep hearing about press releases
can you please show me an example?
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Enzyme Online | Professional and Affordable Web Design
You just need to find more sites to build.
Offer your services and build many high quality sites.
That will do the trick - don't worry too much about continued efforts to force your PR up - if you're active and creating good sites then it will go up - no amount of coercing will help. Just be active.
What next?
Do some business networking.
When I worked for a small web design firm we got a lot of work from other companies that did things like corporate network setup, magazine/print ads, non-internet marketing, etc. They all had clients who wanted web stuff done but they didn't have the resources or already had enough work and could pass off some to us. And we had clients who needed services they performed so we'd refer them to the above companies. It was win-win.
I noticed a few � characters on your page. As you're a web designer, you should ensure that the HTML validates. It doesn't. Check here.
Hmmm. Ever heard of whois?
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