Tag Archives: search

Good character and good reputation, not always synonymous

There is a fundamental difference between having a “good” character, and having a “good” reputation. Your character is composed of many internal factors that may or may not be expressed publically. Your reputation is how the outside world perceives your character. The interrelation between these two can be very complex.

For example, for a long period of time Bernie Madoff’s financial reputation allowed him to literally steal millions of dollars from investors. He was able to maintain a public persona as a sound investment advisor, and to garner trust from his clients.

As we now know, his character was less than admirable, and it was a long time before that became evident to investors and regulatory and legal organizations.

On the other hand, actor Mel Gibson’s career has been brought to its knees by anti-Semitic rants and abuse of a female companion. His public image is such that he was recently targeted by a fundraiser for a California synagogue by implying that a donation would testify to his claims that he is not anti-Semitic. This would supposedly help repair his public image.

In fact, regardless of what may or may not be character flaws, Mel Gibson performs charitable works regularly, but quietly. His 5 million dollar donation to Mount Sinai Hospital, a Jewish medical institution, speaks to his generosity.
While Bernie Madoff’s reputation is definitely not salvageable (and rightly so), Mel Gibson should consider taking advantage of some reputation repair. Especially online, where the reach is global and immediate.

Companies such as List My Business offer ORM (Online Reputation Management) services to individuals and companies who have taken a hit from online press or posts. Unfortunately, as rich a source the internet is for information in general, it can be a vicious beast where attacks are not policed. Large forums have huge amounts of traffic, and whatever the posting it will rank highly on any search. Typing your name, or the name of your company, into Google or another such search instrument, could bring you a very bad surprise.

ORM companies such as List My Business, perform a dual task. They not only try to bump the negative postings to the bottom of the search lists (where they are virtually invisible), but they also work to improve your online image.

Your character, probably well known by your family, friends and business associates, is not what the huge audience on the internet sees. They can only know your reputation, the external exhibition of your internal character. For the world in general, that is all that exists. If that reputation is damaged, it is of huge importance that companies and individuals exercise immediate damage control by consulting a company that specializes in ORM. If your character shines like a bright light to your immediate circle, make sure your public image has been polished to mirror quality.

How To Achieve Free Backlinks And A High Search Engine PR In Express Time

Once you have created a website for your company, your next objective must be to achieve an indexing on every major search engine. To watch your website climb up the Google rankings is a target that all website owners should aspire to, but this may seem unreachable. It is here that web marketing comes to the fore because a correctly optimised website may help you to achieve your business goals, providing you have a site that focuses on its niche market that has relatively little competition. Conversely, if your website happens to be in a very competitive market, you will really need to prove to Google and other search engines that your site is a leader in its targeted market. In this way you will achieve your objective and differentiate your website from all the others you are competing with for the same search terms.

One key mistake that many new website owners make in their formative stages is not enlisting the help of an expert to help. Unless you are generating backlinks to your site yourself, you should think about bringing in somebody to help. However, the creation of backlinks need not be costly if you should opt to take on the task yourself. There are many ways in which you can generate high quality backlinks that will help you to achieve a good ranking in a relatively short space of time.

Returning to search engine basics, you should start writing at least two original articles each week and then try to slowly build up to, say, four, bearing in mind that the more articles you write, the more backlinks you will generate for your site. I would recommend that you manually submit your articles to a minimum of fifty article directories, but the more you can manage, the better. This method is long established and one of the most successful ways of creating backlinks to your website. Sometimes, your articles may even be copied and posted on other sites, thus creating even more backlinks pointing to your site.

You should also join at least five forums that relate to your particular niche market. Become active and make several posts a day to each forum. The forums are trawled by the search engine spiders frequently and indexed regularly. When you make posts on these forums, ensure you include your site’s URL in the forum’s signature. You could also try creating a social media profile on sites such as meetup.com as this will not only pass on the links to your site with the anchor text you choose, but its also a really good way to meet with groups who will be local to you and share the same company interests.

There are literally hundreds of social book marking sites like Stumble Upon, Digg, Sphinn and Mixx with these networking sites normally having a high page rank (PR). The search engine spiders enjoy indexing these sites. Once you have signed up, you need to make as many posts as you can. Creating blogs is also helpful. However, it is important that when you make posts in your blogs, you must always link back to your domain within the post. If you do not do this, your efforts will be in vain.

To obtain the best website design for your business, try contacting an affordable website design agency, who will be able to not only provide relatively cheap web design, but they will also be able to point you in the right direction as far as marketing your website is concerned.

Why Your Flash Website Needs a Redesign by Raleigh's Web Design Experts

Don’t let Flash web design hold you back. Whether you’re a Raleigh web designer, small business owner or eCommerce marketing manager, it’s time to say goodbye to Adobe Flash and start reaping the benefits of modern web design techniques.

When you launched your website years ago, designing with Adobe Flash probably seemed like a good idea; your Raleigh web design firm created an attractive site with cutting edge graphics. But if your Flash website hasn’t delivered the marketing results you expected, there’s a reason: Flash isn’t search engine-friendly…and in many cases, it isn’t even user-friendly.

Still using Flash? Here’s why it’s time for a website redesign:

  • Flash is bad for SEO. Flash files are basically invisible to search engines, meaning that if your site is entirely Flash web design, potential customers are unlikely to see you in Google search results and you’re missing out on the number one source of online lead generation.
  • Flash hurts your mobile marketing strategy. Recent data predicts that by 2015, mobile web use will eclipse desktop internet use. But if you have a Flash website, you’ll be left in the dust. iPhones, iPads and many other mobile devices aren’t compatible with Flash, meaning your website simply won’t show up.
  • Flash is harder to update. Because Flash elements are difficult to integrate with a CMS (content management system), they’re harder and more expensive to change…meaning many Flash websites have become outdated.
  • Flash isn’t user-friendly. Besides being slower, Flash websites also require users to have an up-to-date Adobe plug-in in order to view the site.
  • Flash isn’t open-source. Because Flash is proprietary Adobe software, your site relies on a third party to display information. Open standard software like HTML5 offers greater accessibility for your Raleigh website viewers — no Adobe plug-in required.

Attractive, interactive web design — no Flash required!

With modern web design techniques, there’s no need to rely on Adobe Flash for attractive graphics and interactive website elements. Open standard programming languages like HTML5 offer the best alternative, enabling Raleigh web designers and developers to create all the design features of a Flash website, with none of the negative effects.

So when you’re ready to for a new website design, say no to Flash. Equip your website for optimal search engine rankings and lead conversion — choose high-end, custom web design from a Raleigh web design company like Click Optimize.