Are You Missing The Boat?

I have recently been in negotiations with a local business. We have been talking about having a partnership, and it looks like something that will be very lucrative for both of us. We have had to work out some of the kinks but all in all it looks like a go – and our meetings have been very productive. In the negotiation process, we discovered we are both brilliant on two different sides of the coin (if you don't mind me saying so!) – this groups talent lays in programming mine in design. That being said they were in desperate need of help with their website – and really couldn't progress until they could show the world they were great at what they did. They needed to get people past the front page – or even to read the front page (if you know what I mean)! So why am I telling you this? Because in the process of putting together a website for them, I realized that a lot of you may be a lot like them. You have a gift or talent that you need to get out to the world and some how the packaging just isn't right. You have a great idea and know it could benefit people, but you just can't get people to get past the first page of your website. If you are not seeing the success you should with you online business–if you see that people are coming to your website but leaving as fast as they land – get a professional to look at your site and see why. Is it that you took a course and built your own website, and it looks less than professional? Could it be that you had you bothers son that knows a little html build the website, and it is really substandard? Did you hire someone who was a programmer and had no taste when it comes to design, the website functions beautifully but looks really garish and ugly? Don't get me wrong I don't think you have to put the house up for sell or get a home equity loan just to get a website that you can be proud of. There are many really great web developers/designers who can do a great job for you – but make sure they do know how to build a website which is a marketing machine. Ask the right questions – it is not only the look of the site and the visual beauty that will attract you visitors to stay but the content as well. Your content, the text you put on the pages of your website must be keyword rich as well as pull your visitors in. You need to tell them what makes you unique in your industry, and what you can do for them or what your product will do for them. Keep the focus on your customer. I strongly believe I need to really start focusing on some of these key issues. As a matter of fact I am going to be writing a new report “The ___ (I don't know the number yet) most important questions to ask a web developer before you hire them!” I will let you know when I am done! Until them – Happy blogging For a FREE Website Analysis Contact Me... pamela@artistadesign.com

The 9 Steps to Launching an Effective Landing Page!

I have people approach me all the time to design a landing page, but they do not really understand that a lot more than the design goes into the implementation of this page. Of course the design is of utmost importance, you want to portray the right image as well as collect all the relevant information for your data-base. However, just like branding your image through graphic design or building a website it is much more complicated than that. Below you will find the proper steps to putting together an effective landing/squeeze page. If you find a designer who only designs the page and does not explain the rest (or do the rest) – find someone else, you will not get what you are paying for – it is worth a few extra dollars to get the results you want. If you don't get results you are throwing your money away! Before having a professional put together a page make sure you have your free item (bonus or leader) – report, e-book, mp3 (or whatever you want to give away) developed. You want to give the recipient something of quality the best you have to offer. If you don't and they perceive your free gift to be of sub-standard quality they they will not let me repeat WILL NOT buy your service or product – in fact, they will be convinced that the quality of your company is poor, quite the opposite effect of what you are trying to portray… Remember: When you make a customer/potential customer happy they may tell a few friends. When you disappoint or make a customer/potential customer unhappy everyone will hear about it. That is something you don't want to happen to your reputation or your business. Furthermore, make sure you have researched and put together the best copy for the page. Look at other successful landing pages and see how they pull people in with the benefits that are listed. If you are at a loss for verbiage, see if you website developer does that type of work or knows someone who does. For a little more money, it is well worth the cost. The 9 Steps to Launching an Effective Landing Page

1. Register a unique domain name
2. Research to find the proper Keywords that will lead visitors to your page.
3. Write the copy using the keywords found
4. Design the page\
5. Implement the auto responder/ form
6. Put together a page with the downloads so that when the person signs up for the free - stuff it will automatically direct them to the free download page.
7. Put an opt-in or thank you letter in position that will automatically go out when a potential customer sign up for the freebie's - this will thank them for downloading your free item and have a link to your website.
8. Upload your squeeze page to your domain.
9. Start your viral marketing campaign!

Once all this is done you are now ready to market your freebie to the world – collecting those names are so important to your business - remember your data-base is gold!

FYI: My company does landing and squeeze page design and implementation for $250. To see a portfolio of work - go to www.artistadesign.com (access the portfolio links)

Providing Creative Solutions & Valuable Results

How Search Engines Work

A lot of business owners are perplexed when it comes to how search engines work. Below you will find an excerpt out of my book “Search Engines from A to Z”. Search engines are the key to finding specific information on the web. Without the use of sophisticated search engines, it would be virtually impossible to locate anything on the internet without knowing a specific URL. URL: is the domain name that is in the address bar of a web site. ie: www.artistadesign.com There are basically three types of search engines: Those that are powered by robots or spiders; those that are powered by human submissions; and those that are a combination of the two. Spiders: A program that automatically goes over web pages and collects information. Spiders are used to feed web page content to search engines. Crawler-based engines send crawlers, or spiders, out on to the internet. These spiders visit a website, read the information on the web page, read the site's Key words and also follow the links that the site connects to. The spider returns all that information back to a central database where the data is indexed. The spider will periodically return to the sites to check for any information that has changed, and the frequency with which this happens depends on the search engine. Human-powered search engines rely on humans to submit information that is then indexed and catalogued. Only information that is submitted is put into the index. In both cases, when you go to a search engine to locate information, you are actually searching through the index that the search engine has created. Search engines are compiled of giant data-bases full of information that is collected and stored. This explains why sometimes a search on a commercial search engine, such as Google or Yahoo!, will return results that are in fact dead pages. The search results are based on the information that has been collected, if the information hasn't been updated, and the web page becomes invalid the search engine treats the page as still being active. It will remain that way until the search engine updates the information. So why will the same search on different search engines produce different results? It depends on what the spiders find or what the person submits. More importantly, not every search engine uses the same criteria or algorithm when indexing the web page information. Algorithm: is what the search engines use to determine the importance of the information on the web page. One of the elements that a search engine algorithm scans is the frequency, location and consistency of keywords on a Website. Another common element that algorithms analyze is the way that pages link to other pages. By analyzing how pages link to each other, a search engine can both determine what a page is about (if the keywords of the linked pages are similar to the keywords on the original page) and whether that page is considered "important" and deserving of a boost in ranking. Search engines are becoming wise to Web masters who build artificial links into their sites in order to build an artificial ranking. That is why it is now more important than ever to have content that matches the keywords in your meta-tags, to link to relevant sites and have backlinks from sites that are not only relevant but have a higher than 3 ranking in Google.

Promotional Designer! What is that ?

I am an artist at heart and love design so design is my passion, I also am aware that a great website is only the beginning - the foundation of your business – without marketing it doesn’t matter how fabulous you are – or how great your widget.

I started out an artist – became a designer – studied with the best marketers online…

Learned SEO and everything in-between So now what do I call myself? How do I get my skills across in as few words as possible? …

Hmmm – I have got it!

I am a promotional designer! Thats my name for a designer that can create promotional material and design... A promotional designer!

I do print and web... Market – social media and SEO another conundrum!. That is how this blogs name was born… My hope it this blog will fill the need of many of you who do not know where to start in marketing your website or know just enough to be dangerous (a little information is a dangerous thing!). I want all you business owners to be able to email me for resources - comments and website questions. Simple or complex I will answer them and if I for some reason don't have the answer I will find the answers… My goal is to make this blog an exchange for all who would like to be in the know – entrepreneurs – small and big companies or businesses…

Or just individuals who would like to know more…

Lets share our expertise and build this blog as a resource for all…

Pamela Jacob - Artista Design