It cannot be overstated that whom you choose to build and maintain your website is of critical importance. In this case, what you do not know can hurt you. The primary reason for this is business owners by definition are not web designers or developers, meaning they are not tech experts and are more or less shopping blindly. To illustrate what can go wrong I choose four real-life examples of problems I have seen you so may avoid them.

Do You Legally Own Your Domain?

The most significant issues I have seen and potentially one of the most costly to remedy is not legally owning your domain. If your current website is a “free website” or a very low-cost website and under some other circumstances you may not be the registered owner of your website domain address. In the lifetime of your company you will want to update and upgrade your site, and if you choose a new web developer or agency, you can run into problems getting control of your domain address. If you as the owner of the company purchased your domain independently with your credit card and paid the annual fees, and provided that domain to the developer you are probably safe. To be certain go to https://whois.icann.org/en and check the “Registrant” section. If you find that you are not the registered owner of the domain contact the registrant listed and request ownership. In most cases, they will work with you.

Do You  Own Your Website, and Is It Transferable?

Because business owners are not tech experts, they almost never know if they own their websites. In other words what platform is their site build upon and if they decide to change the hosting can they transfer the files of the site elsewhere?  In many cases, especially the low cost or no cost websites, sites are built upon a proprietary CMS (content management system) owned and controlled exclusively by the website supplier. In those cases, business owners are in a real jam. When you stop paying that company, your website will be lost along with its SEO ranking, and history. Sites build upon open source code CMS like WordPress is portable. Always ask the developer if you own the data/files and what happens if you decide to move your website hosting to another hosting company and if there are fees involved and how much those fees are. Find out if your site is built with an open source CMS like WordPress  https://www.isitwp.com.

Is The Website SEO Optimized?

SEO or Search Engine Optimization on the web pages themselves is essential for ranking higher on search engines. Google and other search engine bots routinely scan your website for information. We help the bots with on-page SEO consisting of a sitemap, H1, H2 and H3 tags, meta and image tags, descriptive web page names and well-written content. Many web designers often scrimp when it comes to on-page SEO, and most of the free sites have no on-page SEO at all. Read more on my blog post- The-Top-Six-Considerations-for-Updating-Your-Website.

Do You Have a Plan To Use Your Website?

Years ago most business owners started realizing that they needed a website, but very few ever thought about website usage for growing their business or a strategy for the promotion of the site. To be sure of, having a website that functions as a company brochure has some value. People can find you through your domain address on your business card or look up your business online if they know the exact name and spelling of the company, but a well thought out design and promotion plan can make your online presence a strategic part of your company’s success. By asking questions like what do I want people to do when they reach my website such as making a phone call, chatting, texting, booking an appointment online or requesting a quote, it is possible to make your site a viable sales tool to grow your business with the right strategy and tools. Second, you need a plan to promote your websites, like social media linking and Facebook Ads, Google Ads, and Reviews Generation Marketing, Listing Distribution Services, Blogging and more.

Conclusion

There is literally more than meets the eye when it comes to website design and promotion. Do yourself a favor and save time, frustration and money by hiring a trusted expert to handle your online marketing, you’ll be glad you did.

Tony Roland is a serial entrepreneur and CEO of Trusted Partner Marketing, Inc in Buford, GA.  His passion is helping local entrepreneurs grow their businesses. www.trustedpartnermarketing.com

Advertising on Facebook is one of the best marketing values for many business owners. A well-constructed Advertising Campaign can create new leads, boost website traffic, increase brand awareness, increase store visits, or grow the readership and subscribers for a blog. Marketing success on Facebook requires expertise in several disciplines like online marketing principals, graphic design, copywriting, video production and Facebook Power Editor/Ads Manager. Facebook’s power comes from two things the massive number of users, over 218 million users in the U.S. or 68% of the American population Pew Research Center, and the use of the highly advanced Facebook Ads Targeting features.

Facebook Ad Targeting

Unless you are living off of the grid, Facebook knows literally everything about every US citizen. It is odd that almost knows one knows it. Facebook uses its vast database for Ad targeting to help advertisers get the right Ads to the audiences that are most likely to engage with the Ad. Not only does Facebook collect data from Facebook user profiles, but also user’s likes, follows and comments, and all of the activity on Instant Messenger. Facebook also purchases data outside of the platform. Facebook buys data about your offline purchases. The next time you pay for dinner or clothes shop with your credit card, Facebook will know – learn more.  The bottom line Facebook learns who their users are and what their interest is so they can deliver the right Ads to the right potential customer.  Using Facebook ad Targeting requires serious expertise if you are to get the best results.

The Rise in Facebook Video Viewing

For better or for worse consumers are opting for watching a video presentation online over reading. According to Cisco, 75% of the world’s mobile data traffic will be video by 2020. By utilizing fun, informative or otherwise engaging video content in Facebook Ads business owners will continue to get their target audiences more and more engaged. Video usage is a trend that will continue to grow in the years to come.

What Kind Of Businesses Do Best With Facebook Ads?

Any type of business can use Facebook Advertising successfully if they have the right objectives and expectations in mind. In my experience, B2C companies have an easier time targeting customers than do B2B businesses. I use Facebook Ads to target business owners B2B, but business owners are a small segment of all Facebook users, and it is easier to target customers that comprise larger groups than business owners.

Conclusion

Facebook Advertising is a great way for business owners to reach their customers, and at a lower cost than Google PPC. The best way to see if Facebook Advertising is right for your company is to work with an experienced Ad agency with a proven track record. Be sure you have a plan in place with well-defined objectives and give it a try.

If your website has not had an update or overhaul in the past 3 – 4 years here are a few things that must be considered in website design to stay competitive online.

1. Is Your Current Website Mobile Friendly?

If your company’s website is over three years old, it may not be “Responsive.” Responsive means the site will display correctly on any device regardless of screen size. Many older sites are not MOBILE FRIENDLY designs making them difficult to view and navigate on smaller screens.

Example: Non-Responsive Website Design

2. Does Your Website Have The Newly Required TTPSHTTPS/SSL (green padlock) Security Certificate? 

As of July 2018 Google will begin marking websites that do not have HTTPS security as Unsafe. 

What this means for millions of websites without the required security certificates is a loss of websites visitors and a loss in Google ranking. If your current website does not display the green padlock next to HTTPS in the address bar contact us today 678-333-3179.

Negative Effects For Non-Secure Websites

 3. Was Your Website Built For Search Engine Ranking? 

Properly designed websites must function well on the customer-facing side, but also must be planned well for search engine robots on the backside. The search engine bots look for the proper structure that must include a sitemap, meta tags, image tags, H1 and H2 headers, quality URL page names, quality keyword content, and more. The whole of this work is called on-page SEO. For sites targeting local business, proper Geo-Targeting (Local SEO) is a must! Every website page we build is designed for search engines as well as humans.

4. Is your Website Registered and Verified with Google My Business, Bing, and Yahoo? Is Your Site Registered with Listings Distribution Services? 

Most business owners have no idea what it takes to have a proper website on the Internet; one that is designed to rank well on search engines. One critical factor that we constantly see overlooked by business owners and website designers alike is the necessity of listing and verifying your website on search engines like Google and Bing, and with registering with the four major data aggregators:

• Neustar Localeze
• InfoUSA
• Acxiom
• Factual*

Search engine verification tells the search engines that the info published on the Internet is correct and legit which is a ranking signal and helps people find your location and correct phone numbers. Listing with the four major data aggregators sends the accurate NAP data (Name, address, phone & website address) to all of the virtual world over time. The correct NAP data is also a strong ranking signal as well as supplying right data to everything from automaker GPS location systems to business location services like The Yellow Pages®.

5. Do You Have A Conversion or Lead Generation Strategy? 

All modern websites need a strong call to action. Ask yourself what do I want my site visitors to do? Should the primary call to action be a phone call, or complete an inquiry form? Should I use a pop-up offer or a free e-book?

6. Do You Inspire Trust by Using a Reviews Display Feature? 

Most new customers will check out your reviews online before doing business with you. You might as well make that easy by showing them your most recent reviews right on your website. This social proof (reviews) often makes the difference in winning a new customer or not.