Website Design and SEO Blog by Malcom Chakery

Does your company use e-marketing to bring in new customers? Maybe you use e-marketing to keep current customers up to date with what is going on. Perhaps, you have been considering e-marketing, but the assortment of terms and the need to know the proper usage of each term depending on the search engine may be overwhelming.

Well, the authorities in the world of e-marketing recognized this concern, and this week they released schema.org. Schema.org is a site from Google, Bing and Yahoo in which a common vocabulary is used to make structured data markup easier on one’s webpage. Using Schema.org, site owners and web developers will learn about structured data, in addition to how they can improve their search engine rankings.

In the past few years, search engines have worked independently  to support structured markup.  However, it was recognized that while tools such as the Google Snippets has certainly helped, there needed to be a better way to bring search engine cohesiveness so that the average user could take full advantage of the world wide web. At schema.org site owners can now improve their SERP on all the major sites, with more search engines to be included at later dates.

Especially exciting is that Schema.org  has even more categories. Some of the new categories are movies, music, organizations, television shows and many others. The site is also open to feedback from website designers so that they can upgrade and tweak the site as necessary to meet the needs of the users.

So, if you have not explored the world of e-marketing because you did not speak the necessary languages, Schema is sure to make the process smoother. Be sure to take some time to check out and see how it can help you build your business.

About the author

Founder and President of Chakery Design, Malcom Chakery has extensive knowledge and experience in the workings of a web based business operations. Possessing great amounts of expertise in regard to marketing, seo, website design and development, Malcom is extremely comfortable handling all details regarding the day-to-day operations as well as the sales and support of his many high profile clients. With a clear plan in place regarding operational procedures, all aspects of website design, seo, and promotional activities are managed and overseen by Malcom before they are completed. As a stickler for detail, Malcom believes in providing greater than expected support, superior customer service, and innovative programs, making sure to go above and beyond customer expectations. To learn more about Malcom and his companies please visit www.chakery.comor www.chakeryseo.com

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We have all heard it said, “Content is King”. But how can you keep up with the growing needs of your business, family obligations and other elements of life and yet still keep your website content fresh and interesting? Here are several ways suggested from Peter Prestipino’s book Web 360 to help you keep King Content happy.

1. Repurpose and curate- If you are not an expert on the topic, then you may wish     to use other people’s material (be sure to get permission) on their site. One way     to collect this information is through RSS feeds.

2. The expert approach-If you are an expert of the topic, share your knowledge         with others in weekly/monthly (whatever works for you) in a blog post.

3. Create a company newsletter. If you already have one, then you can just post       it on your website.

4. Set up a weblog for your company. This allows content to be shown in                 reverse order and keeps everyone up to date with what is happening.

5. Press releases and link bait- A press release lets people know what is new and      exciting at your company. Link bait is any article that you post on your site that    results in other sites linking to it.

If writing isn’t your “thing”, don’t despair. You can still generate content for       your website. Here are some quick ways to have new content on a regular basis     with little or no keystrokes.

1. Create video or screencast. Use a webcam and record messages on topics             related to your site, services and products that you post to your site. Add a         brief description and Viola! You have content.

2. Do a podcast of you interviewing a pleased customer or an expert in the field         that you can post to your site.

3. Hire a copywriter who is proficient in SEO and have them provide blog post,           newsletters, etc.

4. Add pictures of new products; include a brief description that uses your                 keywords.

5. The user-generated method- Today’s Web is all about user –experience, set up      a forum to allow guests to interact with each as well as with yourself or                employees you designate.

Keep your website new and exciting by being sure to have plenty of interesting content. Do it yourself or hire it out, but keeping King Content happy is a great way to keep you –and your site users- happy as well.

About the author

Founder and President of Chakery Design, Malcom Chakery has extensive knowledge and experience in the workings of a web based business operations. Possessing great amounts of expertise in regard to marketing, seo, web design and development, 

Malcom is extremely comfortable handling all details regarding the day-to-day operations as well as the sales and support of his many high profile clients. With a clear plan in place regarding operational procedures, all aspects of web design, seo, and promotional activities are managed and overseen by Malcom before they are completed. As a stickler for detail, Malcom believes in providing greater than expected support, superior customer service, and innovative programs, making sure to go above and beyond customer expectations. To learn more about Malcom and his companies please visit www.chakery.com orwww.chakeryseo.com

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What’s in a Name? 10 Tips for Selecting a Domain Name

If you are considering a new website-whether it is a brand new one or an affiliate of an existing business-one of the most important considerations is the domain name of the business. After all, the domain name is how people will find your business online so you want that name to be easy to remember while letting people know whom or what it is your company does.

Your domain name (also known as your web address or URL) should meet several basic criteria, in order to be easily remembered. These important elements of a domain name include:

The domain name should be easy to type and remember.

Domain names should not be more than 67 characters; this includes numbers and characters.

Avoid hyphens as they are inconvenient to type and are often left out of the web address-especially when it is spoken rather than written.

While keeping the domain name short is recommended, do not make it so short that it is cryptic or difficult to remember.

Avoid using “my” or “the” as part of the name. If you do use my/the be sure that you always include them when you say the name. (e.g. Mynewsite.com  not newsite.com)

Avoid plurals or misspellings as they can be forgotten or overlooked.

Select a name that represents you well; include a keyword to improve search engine rankings.

Ideally, you want the TLD (Top Level Domain) extension-.com ; however, .org, .edu, or .net are all good extensions as well. Less advisable extensions are .biz, .co, .us or other lesser known extensions.

Run any ideas for your domain name on BustAName.com  to determine if the name will work as well as you envision. You may also want to check Google Keywords to determine if there are any keywords that you might want to include.

Ensure that you are not violating any trademark issues. This can be checked at USPTO.com or Domain Law on sedo.com.

Once you have a domain name that you are pleased with and that meets as many of the criteria above as possible, you are ready to get started on building your website. Talk to Chakery Design about creating a website that is all you want it to be.

About the author

Founder and President of Chakery Design, Malcom Chakery has extensive knowledge and experience in the workings of a web based business operations. Possessing great amounts of expertise in regard to marketing, seo, web design and development, Malcom is extremely comfortable handling all details regarding the day-to-day operations as well as the sales and support of his many high profile clients. With a clear plan in place regarding operational procedures, all aspects of web design, seo, and promotional activities are managed and overseen by Malcom before they are completed. As a stickler for detail, Malcom believes in providing greater than expected support, superior customer service, and innovative programs, making sure to go above and beyond customer expectations. To learn more about Malcom and his companies please visit www.chakery.com orwww.chakeryseo.com.

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By now, you have likely realized that one of the best ways to give exposure to your company, without investing huge amounts of money in advertising, is social media. So, if you have taken the plunge and had a custom Facebook or Twitter design created, you now want to utilize it to the fullest potential. Recently, Mashable.com offered some tips for marketing your business through social media sites. Here is a recap of some  their ideas:

1. Show your human side. Be sure that comments and tweets sound like they come from a real person, not just some computer generated info. Have someone (perhaps a team of people) whose job is to keep post fresh an interesting. In addition, don’t stress out if there is a typo or misspelled name on the page. Simply post a note saying “Oops” and correct the error. This lets others know you are human. J

2. Have goal or focus group that you want to reach with your social media site. Thinking about this before you begin interacting online will save time in the long run and help build your brand as well.

3. Interact-Listen and respond to what your fans and followers are saying. Be sure to respond to questions and comments. This is a great way to let people know they are important to you. Also, it will allow you to deal with any negative situations before they result in a lack of business.

Have good content.  Don’t just focus on interacting with your fan base, provide them with something interesting to look at, read, listen to, etc. Consider using polls to find out what your followers are thinking about or are looking for.

Be sure you understand the differences in platforms. Twitter is best for basic customer inquiries, saying thanks, brand updates and basic conversational dialogue. Facebook is more like a community and is great for announcements. For many businesses, Twitter allows for more conversation than Facebook, which is why you see so many businesses, television programs and celebrities using it.

So, be social and build your business online. Whether you do all the communication yourself or have a team do the social media for you, you will be amazed at how something so relatively simple can make such a big difference in promoting your company.

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Have you been posting articles on your favorite sites, or writing blog post but have not seen any increases in revenue, site guests or SERPs in the past few weeks? If so, don’t despair. At the end of February, Google changed their algorithm, which affected websites of every type and size. This algorithm, dubbed by many as Farmer, is designed to weed out sites where there is an abundance of duplicate and less than stellar quality content. As a result, many site owners saw a significant downslide in revenue and a lowering in page rank.

When asked, Amit Singhal  of Google, explained that the weeding determinations were made by sending  questionnaires to testers and asking them to rate sites based on questions such as “ Would they be willing to share their credit card ?”, “Did they feel there were more ads than content?” and “Do you feel that this site is authoritative?” Once they had their answers, Google made changes.

These changes mean that website content providers, bloggers and those writing link articles will have to work harder to improve site rank. To fail to do so, will mean one’s site(s) will rank low. If you are one of the 1,000’s who were affected, you may be wondering how to climb back up the page rank ladder. Here are several steps to help you recover:

· Trash any web content that does not add site value.

· Protect what is yours. If you run across content that was unique to your site on  another page, run a WHOIS search to locate the site host is, then firmly request that your material be removed from the site.

· Be creative! While imitation may be the highest form of flattery this not so on the web. Write original articles and blog posts so that your site will stand out from the crowd-not blend in at the bottom of the list.

By making just a few changes in your style, before you know it, you can soon be back where you were before the “Farmer” weeded the Web.

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Let’s talk about Search Engine Optimization for a bit, or SEO. SEO used to be an acronym that no one knew or understood. Now, if you’re in the marketing industry, you know exactly what SEO means. But many businesses still don’t understand how important it is to make sure that your website is SEO friendly. Having your website transformed to be SEO friendly is very important for one big reason: search engines.

How often is a first time visitor to your site going to know your exact address? They may know it if they’re responding to an advertisement or an email, but if they do not have your address in front of them, then they likely won’t know how to find you. For instance, if a person is looking to find an attorney near their hometown of Dallas, Texas, they may go to a search engine and type in something like, “Attorney Dallas”. This simple phrase can pull up so many websites. When your website is SEO friendly, there is a much larger chance that your site is going to wind up at the top of the search engine, allowing you to get a visit from the person and raising your chance of getting more business as well. Now doing a search for a more specific search for something such as “Federal Attorney”, “Internet Attorney”, “Civil Attorney” or “Criminal Attorney” are more specific types of attorneys that will drill down the types of attorneys and will focus more on a more specific type that you may be looking for and will yield better results for an area and be more helpful based on a more targeted area.

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We all know that social networking is one of the hottest Internet trends out there – Facebook alone boasts more than 500 million users, with sites like Twitter and LinkedIn gaining ground fast. In fact, it reminds a lot of us in the web design and online marketing industry of the early days of search engine optimization, when business owners and marketers figured out that, by tweaking some of the elements of their sites, they could attract thousands of targeted web visitors every week.

And so, the question comes up in client meetings:  is social media marketing the new SEO?

The true answer is that it both is and isn’t. It is, in the sense that it’s an exciting new idea that both consumers and businesses are flocking to. Whether your business sells to individuals or Fortune 500 mega-companies, using social media should be a part of your plan for finding them.

It isn’t because search engine optimization and marketing aren’t going anywhere soon. Bear in mind that, popular as social networking sites are, Google alone brings in billions of visitors each day. That’s not changing anytime soon, which is why you need to constantly refine your SEO strategy.

Social media is gaining popularity every day, but don’t expect it to replace what you’re already doing just yet.

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Malcom | Chakery Design | Website Design | SEO | Website Development