Blog
Optimize Your Site for Local Search
A large part of the misunderstanding of search engine optimization (SEO) with small and local business owners is their target market. Many business owners believe that they have to be ranked number 1 in order to be seen for their specific business, which may be true. What they do not realize is that they do not have to do it nationally (in most cases).
If you are a local business and primarily or only sell to the local community, you do not need to try and optimize your site to get ranked nationally for your targeted keywords. Not only is it very difficult to get ranked nationally, but it would be a waste of time when you can spend probably 20% of the time you would to get ranked nationally, to in fact get ranked locally.
Many business owners don’t even know that local optimization is even an option. For example, if you are in Sacramento, CA instead of trying to get ranked nationally for HVAC or Heating and Air Maintenance where you may be competing with some of the largest HVAC companies throughout the world, you can target your keywords to something like HVAC in Sacramento, or HVAC Maintenance in Sacramento. With these terms you are specifically targeting your area, therefore driving people to your area to your site, because who wants someone looking for HVAC maintenance in New York if your business is in Sacramento?
Just remember, when creating the content for your site, target your audience not only by your service or product, but by location of audience as well.
Growing Your Business
Recently, we have put a lot of thought into what it takes to grow a web design business, or any business for that matter. Not only do the numbers have to add up, the t’s need to be crossed and the i’s need to be dotted. In other words, many things must fall into place before jumping to the idea of expanding or growing your business.
Now don’t get me wrong, everyone wants to grow their business in one way or another, but in the terms I am speaking of, I specifically mean taking it to the next level. Whether taking it to the next level for you means adding an extra client or adding an extra office building, you have to be prepared and have your funds set in place to do so.
Don’t be afraid to lose money. Your business is an investment. If you are afraid to lose money then you do not have faith, or trust yourself in business. Crunch some numbers to see that yes, you may lose x amount of dollars in the first six months, but the next two years you will make over $100,000 or more. Or you may make less, but as long as the numbers are right for you then go for it. Set goals and accomplish them. Strive to beat your goals, the more often you beat your goals the quicker the investment turns into a profit.
Growing your business is great, just make sure you have done the research and have the resources to do so, and by resources I mean – you ALWAYS need to have a website. 馃槈
What to do if your Website Breaks
In today’s online world things are constantly being updated and upgraded as with most technology out there. This can prove to be very good in many cases, but on rare occasions this can be a dreadful process as well. In the event of an update to a web programming language, browser, or text editor many things can go wrong. Functions for the language may be depreciated, your text editor may have changed, or worst of all, your website may no longer be functional on the internet. So what do you do if something like this happens?
Well, hopefully you still are able to contact your web designer. It is always good to build a strong relationship with your designer, and even prior to purchasing a website make sure that they will be around when you need them because you never know when something will go wrong. If you are unable to contact your web designer or programmer there are a few things you can do.
First and foremost, preferably, I would contact the hosting company for your website, and have it taken down temporarily until the corrections are made. Next find a company who can make the edits needed for your website. This may be a tough task in many cases, if the website was custom coded the new company will have to go through the code and understand the previous coders work to be able to fix certain things. Get a basic assessment from a new designer prior to agreeing to anything. Let them tell you how long it will take to make the modifications and if it is something that will be a smooth process. If they are hesitant about the work they are probably not the right company for you.
Lastly, if this is ever the case with your website you can feel free to contact us as well, as we will be more than willing to give you a free site assessment and let you know our best input.
Web Design Yuba City
SavePro Designs is based out of Yuba City, California so we figured we would write a bit about the area and what it has to offer design wise. Yuba City is a population of about 70,000. The town is on the outskirts of the capitol of California – Sacramento. We are kind of a smaller town and with many small businesses in the area we have a good market to 聽choose from as a small business web design company.
According to Manta, Yellow Pages, and a few other business directories, there are about 6 local web designers including SavePro Designs. Different from other web design companies, we聽acquire聽clients nationwide. Though the local market is easy to get and great to have a hold of, you are limited in the amount of clients you can obtain in such a small area. SavePro Designs looks at the bigger picture, we build our local clientele as well as grow our national clientele. Our vision is broad and will remain that way.
We also offer hosting services which not a lot of web design companies offer either. With this we can take full control of all of your online needs to get your website up and running in a timely manner, while not having to fight with going back and fourth between a domain registrar, hosting company, and design team. We put it all together for you so that the job can be done when you need it to be!
Ultimately, here at SavePro Designs, our local Yuba City clients are our foundation for the business, as we are always trying to bring both local and national clients in; we couldn’t be here without them. At the same time we need to build the foundation up with both local and national clients, which is our ultimate goal.
The Importance of a Portfolio
A portfolio is everything when it comes to trying to close any graphic design sale. Oddly enough SavePro has just completed their portfolio, for the new site design, which you can find here. So what exactly should a good portfolio entail? Well, not to sound cocky, but take a look at ours real quick. On every individual portfolio item we list the client, date completed, type of work, and of course, images of the work! All of these are key in having a good portfolio lined up. You may also want to add client testimonials or quotes about your work that you have completed. On a side note, testimonials are great to have but are unneeded, as your portfolio should speak for itself.
So why exactly is a portfolio a MUST in today’s sales age? Well it is simple, design fields are so saturated now days that you must have something to show for before someone forks over a few hundred or thousand dollars for you to do work for them. Design is unlike many things, you should not purchase it before you see examples. If you do, you could end up with something聽totally聽unexpected as well as unwanted, and this is never a good thing. Build a portfolio, it will help you instantly.
But I don’t have any clients yet, how can I create a portfolio? Well this is a good point that many聽people聽try and use, however there is always an answer. If you are a web designer, designing templates are always a good wayto get a portfolio started. A portfolio does not always have to be client work. Portfolios are meant to show exactly what you can do, expand on your design abilities and just take a week to build a portfolio, then try to go and get clients. It will make your life much easier as a result.
