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New Years's Resolution – Get a mobile site for your business

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Mobile Web Design

Resolve to make this a MOLO year for your business. What is MOLO?  Beyond being our contribution to the societal ill known as acronymitis, MOLO is a strategy to harness the power of the mobile phone to drive customers to your local business.

More people will access the Internet via mobile devices than with their home or office PCs in 2014.   This presents some great opportunities for local businesses but some challenges must also be addressed if you are to convert these on-the-go customers.

Mobile prospects are dealing with smaller screens, smaller bandwidth capabilities and, in most cases, smaller decision-making windows.  They need locally-driven content optimized for the mobile platform. But you know all this – how many times have you used your phone to search for a product or service?  

Making sure you win your share of customers in the mobile arena will take some effort and focus. Luckily for you, we at Walden Pond Design have made Mobile a priority for local businesses for the last few years. In fact, we were one of the first CT shoreline companies to develop a mobile website. We’ve developed them for local businesses like Bar Bouchee, Madison Art Cinemas, Wilcox Energy, Union League Café and Thimble Island Cruises. We’d be happy to develop one for you.

Last year, we gave a presentation at the Blackstone Library in Branford on some of the best practices in developing mobile sites. Click here to download the slide deck of our Mobile Design Presentation.

Like most technology solutions, things change fast and applications vary by business situation; if you are interested in seeing what a mobile site might look like for your specific business, click here.

Want to continue the conversation? Over the next couple of months, we will use our blog to impart our own unique take on how local businesses can best take advantage of the mobile computing wave.

 

So stay tuned. And stay on course to make MOLO marketing a key to your success in 2014.

Andrew Kaplan

WaldenPondDesign.com

Office: 203-779-5805

 

Your Website and Google – Four Practices to Improve Your Site’s Ranking

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In the never-ending battle for Internet supremacy, there are several tactics at your disposal for boosting your website’s performance in the Google search rankings. While Google offers no guarantees, these techniques can help your site ascend in the rankings, potentially climbing all the way to the top. Four of the top methods include:

1. Using keyword-rich content.

Keywords and keyword phrases indicate to Google what your site is all about. Strategically placing them throughout your content will make it more likely that your site will rank higher in the Google search results when users search using those keywords or phrases. However, be certain to use them organically. If you overdo it and stuff keywords into the content where they do not naturally fit, it may ultimately lead to your site being penalized (or even banned) by Google.

2. Updating your site regularly with new content.

Google tends to reward sites that are active rather than stale. The longer your website goes between updates, the more likely it is that it will sink in the rankings. Furthermore, when you do update your site, make sure you are using fresh, original content. Duplicate, near-duplicate, or spun content from elsewhere on the web will not perform as well as you would hope. It could, in fact, work against you.

You have options when it comes to acquiring original content. First, you could create it yourself. If you are skilled at writing high quality, error-free content, this may be the way to go. However, if you have neither the ability nor the time to do it yourself, consider hiring a freelance writer to prepare unique content for you. Perhaps you can find a writer on your own or hire one through an online community of freelance writers.

3. Improving the structure of your website.

Your site’s structure includes several important facets. The design of each page should be consistent, attractive, and easy to peruse, the primary content should be easy to find by your visitors, and the content should be readable rather than lost in an array of fonts, graphics, and stylistic elements.

Additionally, your users should find it easy to navigate throughout your website. Make your links readily available to visitors and Googlebots alike, use real and relevant words in your page titles (rather than numbers or randomly generated codes), and—if your site is extensive—consider using breadcrumb lists.

4. Adding an XML Sitemap.

An XML Sitemap helps Googlebots (as well as the robots from other search engines) locate the various pages on your website. Google provides access to a Sitemap Generator Script to help you create your Sitemap, which you can then submit to Google through Google’s Webmaster Tools.

An XML Sitemap (meant for robots) differs from an HTML-based site map, which is intended to help visitors navigate your site. As an HTML site map can also add value to your site, you might consider adding both to your site.

The world of search engine optimization (SEO) is continually evolving, so to achieve your maximum potential you ought to stay current on the most current practices. These four techniques, though, have consistently proven to be important factors in every update of Google’s search engine algorithm. Adhering to them can lay the groundwork for the success of your website.

 

Just launched a great site that helps animals Starelief.org

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Almost every member of the Walden Pond Design team has a rescue pet. Thus we jumped at the chance to create a new site for Starelief of Stamford.

STARelief is a group of volunteers dedicated to keeping pets and families together during hard financial times. They do this by providing life-saving pet food, supplies, and veterinary care to families in need. Their goal is to reduce the number of pets that are left behind or surrendered to local animal shelters, and to work toward a future where decisions about providing food or medical care for pets are never made on the basis of cost.

We deeply discounted our rate and worked extra hours. Please click here to see their site to learn more about the great work they do.

Relief & Pet Assistance... STARelief's long-term vision is to ensure that no pet caretaker will ever have to surrender their pet due to financial hardship, and to ensure that all companion animals are treated with the dignity and respect that they deserve.

Google's new carousel and local search

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You might have noticed a strip of photos in a black box when searching for local hotels, restaurants or  bars, it’s Google’s Carousel. It first appeared on tablets last year and was tested on desktops during the spring. Last summer Google started rolling it out to all U.S. users.

Instead of the traditional vertical listings, there is now a horizontal “carousel” which displays thumbnails, ratings, as well as the number of Google+ reviews. It’s called a carousel because you can slide it to see even more listings.

We were pleased to see one of our sites listed #1 in the carousel. 

We recently launched a new website as well as a mobile site for TheMadGourmet.com. They offer delicious food and catering services from their Guilford location. Before we worked on their site they were practically invisible to Google. They appeared on the fourth page results for “catering Guilford CT“. We created a new site using WordPress and fully optimized the site for local search.

Now they rank #1 on the carousel, rank #3 in the regular search results.

 

 

 

 

 

Create Small Business Saturday Success

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small-business-saturday-logoAs a small business, we here at Walden Pond Design are always looking for ways to “punch above our weight”. Given this, we thought many of our fellow small business owners in retail might be interested in the American Express Small Business Saturday program.

 

Created to help small businesses stand out during the frenzy of large retailer and on-line purchasing activity that now begins, seemingly, just after customers have finished their Thanksgiving pumpkin pie, the program incents American Express cardholders to spend money at small businesses on the Saturday following Thanksgiving.

 

It also provides retailers with promotion and merchandising kits to make prospects aware they are participating in Small Business Saturday. The trade publication Independent Retailer recently published an article detailing ways to get the most out of participation.

 

Speaking of publishing articles, this represents the first in a series of articles Walden Pond Design will be sharing on how local small businesses can raise their profile. And, hopefully, their profit. So stay tuned …

Mobile is here; are you ready ?

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thimble-mob-mainIn 2012, the number of mobile phones surpassed the number of landlines and telephony was officially a ‘mobile technology’. Almost overnight, the way boaters communicated with family and friends, with one another and dock or harbormasters was forever changed.

Sweeping change is happening again:  analysts project that by year’s end, more people will get online via mobile devices than home or office-based computers. Given their affinity for technology and on-the-go lifestyle, this transition has probably already happened amongst recreational boaters.

Therefore, the time is now for marine marketers to consider what mobile consumers see when visiting their websites. Will they quickly get the information they want? Can they easily act on it? Or will they pass you by in favor of another business with a website suited for the mobile user?

Here are three guidelines for setting up a successful mobile website:

  1. Create content for an on-the-go, action-oriented prospect. Research shows mobile browsers are 20% more likely to take action on search results. Pare content down to the fundamentals they need to make buying decisions:  a brief product or service overview, price, address and phone number.

  1. Keep copy short, sweet and action-oriented. An average web page has 400 or so words; a mobile page should be between 75-100 words. Use a journalistic style – top-load content with the important stuff. And include strong and direct calls to action.

  1. The user-interface must be thumb-friendly and built for speed. While pinching and swiping are cool technologies, the on-the-go user prefers seeing everything needed to make a decision and then tapping to take action. Utilize large buttons with key actions such as “Call”, “Directions” or “Book a slip”.

For marine marketers, the mobile web represents a great opportunity to convert motivated prospects that are ready to act; even a modest investment in this very fertile area will yield great returns. If you are interested in seeing what your site might look like in a mobile environment, click here.