BeauCreations blog

Not too many people know the advantages of using Google alerts to increase website traffic. I have been using it for a few months now, and I totally love it. It helps me find relevant blogs, websites, or even Groups for keywords that I set up in my alerts, and Google sends me these results directly to my email every day.

For those who don’t know what Google Alerts is, and how you can use them to increase website traffic to your websites or blogs, let me explain to you quickly what it is, and what it can do for you and your SEO.

Google Alerts is a notification / Alert system that Google has set up so you can receive email alerts from Google when ever Google finds specific website pages that you define in your Alert. What these alerts contain are specific keyword terms that you want to keep up on events for.

For example, with the Winter Olympics taking place starting Feb. 11 2010, you can set up an Alert for the keyword term ”Winter Olympics” in Quotes, and whenever Google finds that exact keyword term on websites that it crawls, you will receive an email alert about it. Pretty easy to understand, and a very powerful SEO tool that you could use to increase your website traffic and search engine ranking by building super targeted back links.

There are 6 different types of alerts that you can set up:

1. News
2. Blogs
3. Web
4. Comprehensive
5. Video
6. Groups

Each type of Alert is pretty self explanatory but, you can read the Google Alerts Help page for more information about using the Google Alert system.

Now, to increase your website traffic and build targeted back links to help you rank better in the search engines, setup a Google Alert for your main keywords that you want to rank for, and use the types Blogs and Groups. When Google finds your keywords on these types of websites, you will receive an email with a link to the page your keyword was found on.

The reason you want these two is simple. You can post comments on Blog and Groups. See where I am going with this, and do you understand how to increase website traffic using this powerful Google Alerts Feature?

We all know that in order to rank better and to increase website traffic from the search engines, we need relevant back links, and this is the best way to find them with little to no work.

I think that the Google Alerts is one of the best ways to increase website traffic and build yourself some powerful back links pointing back to your website.

Go setup your Google alert, start building your back links today.

About the Author
Trevor Bandura
Learn tips and tricks to increase website traffic from my blog: Increase Website Traffic

Recently I completed a web site for Custer Battlefield Historical & Museum Association (CBHMA).  CBHMA is one of several organizations that take a scholarly interest in the historic Battle of the Little Bighorn and the context in which it was fought, including the life and times of George A. Custer and the Plains Indians tribes of the day.

One of the founding members of CBHMA, Chief Joe Medicine Crow, was honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009.   His photo was incorporated into the design of the web site, along with photos (all taken by members of CBHMA) of the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument.

The main functions of the web site are to encourage membership in the organization, promote interest in its publications, and provide resources for study.  The web site features a photo gallery and a news page, both of which can be updated by volunteer staffers.

It was a pleasure to work with this group of historians and be exposed to their passion for accurate knowledge regarding this period of American history.

Recently a colleague asked me to produce a web site for her on Squarespace.  If you’ve never heard of Squarespace, they are an online “do it yourself” web site publishing service.  They host your web site for a monthly fee, and you use their software to create it.

This prompted me to open a test account and do a  mini review of Squarespace and their services Skip ahead to mini review of Squarespace

It also begs the question:  Why hire a web designer at all?! More on this later….
Skip ahead to “Why hire a designer?”.

First, I’d like to say that Squarespace is the best user interface I’ve seen for creating and editing an “Instant” web site.  This includes Go Daddy’s WebSite Tonight and Yahoo’s SiteBuilder, among others.  Having said that, I’ll list some pros and cons for using these services in general.

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PROS - Hosted Web Site Building Software

• Can be quick, easy and cheap to get started.
• Web site owners can easily edit most content on their site.
• The web host will keep the software updated, so you won’t have to.
• You may get more functionality for less (IE blogs, calendars, guestbooks).
• Since these sites are database driven, your content (IE blog entries, text, images) can more easily be, stored and re-arranged.

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CONS - Hosted Web Site Building Software

• Higher monthly fees for web hosting, which may ultimately end up costing more than a custom web site.  You may be forced to pay for an upgraded status just to get a specific feature (IE a calendar) on your web site.
• No matter how easy it sounds, those who want to build or edit a site must learn new software, read instructions and generally be motivated to problem-solve.
• You are married to your web host, since they own the software.  Moving your web site to another host would be difficult to impossible.   Taking your templated site design with you when you go would probably be a copyright violation.
• Like all user interfaces, web building software has limitations when compared to custom designs.  Sure, you can get your logo to appear on your web site.  But can you get it sized right, with the right background color, in the right place?  There is no comparison to what a good designer can do when working directly with the HTML and CSS code.

• Since these sites are database driven, pages may be slower to load, and search engine optimization may be compromised (depends on your host / software).

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Looking at the “CONS” list above, you might  be ready to write off this option altogether.  Certainly I would say that for most people, a custom designed web site can more effectively meet your needs and be  more cost effective in the long  run.

BUT…
If you’re on a budget and you need to make lots of updates to your site after it’s built,  hosted web site building software may still be a viable option.   And if you really just want to “slap up a page” and get started, it’s definitely worthy of  consideration.

Now let’s say you’d like some level of  customization, and want to make sure things get done correctly, so that you can build on your work later.  Why not consider hiring a web designer to help you?  Here’s some food for thought:

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Why Hire a Web Designer (with Hosted Site Building Software)?

• You’ll get started on the right track. A good designer can advise you on what service to use and how to avoid some of the pitfalls.
• You’ll get started! After all, sometimes this can be the hardest part.  Why not hire a pro whose job it is to cut through some of the confusion, keep you focused and help you reach your goal?
• It may be less costly than you think.  I discount my services up to 30% when using web site building software (assuming it’s a good host / software that saves me time rather than adding to my workload).
• You’ll get the design customization you need. A professional designer can work with (or around) the limitations of the software to make sure your logo and branding fit with the web site.  One way this is accomplished is with image & graphic software such as Photoshop, and the associated skill set.  What the web hosts don’t tell you is this:  If you lack image processing skills, you simply will not be able to customize your web site.
• You’ll get the functionality you need. With professional help, you can analyze your present and future needs first, then decide on the appropriate host and level of service.  This way you are more likely to pay for what you need, and not pay for extra bells and whistles.  And, of course, your web designer will make sure the widgets work!
• You get help interacting with your web host. It seems like tech support people sometimes speak in foreign tongues.  In reality, there are simple terms and concepts that can eliminate the language barrier.  Your web designer can get you started with these as s/he tackles the “start-up” issues.  Later, you’ll be familiar with the system and how to get the help you need directly from your web host.
• Your designer can give you some advice and / or training on how to edit your web site. Once you’re up and running, you won’t need to call the web designer every time you have fix a typo.  No more designer dependency!

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Finally, here are my impressions of  Squarespace, as opposed to other similar “build your own” solutions. Please note that this isn’t meant to be a full-on review.  It’s just my opinion, after using the software.  I did open a trial account and create a web site, visible here until November 7.

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Squarespace PROS

• User-friendly, intuitive interface
• Good help /support documentation
• Good selection of widgets and functions
• Reasonable monthly cost ($8 - $50) for various levels of service
• Pricing information is straightforward and easy to find
• Some direct access to code allowed (designers can make modifications)

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Squarespace CONS

• Should you decide to change web hosts, the site would not be movable.  This applies to all hosts that offer “build your-own” software.  Squarespace does make it easy to export your data, however, and this would be quite helpful.
• Like other hosted “build-your-own” sites, the software has some limitations.
• Certain useful features will require a higher priced service package.  The form builder, for example, is only available with the business package ($30 / month).  User-created logins / accounts are only available with the community package ($50/month).
• It’s not free.  There are open source alternatives such as WordPress and Joomla that are free, and they are supported by many web hosts.  To be fair,  Squarespace has a much higher level of customer support than these free alternatives, and the fact that they host and upgrade their own software also puts them in a different category.

Strategy #3 - Generating Demand by Corporate Blogging

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So you’re ready to sell online?  Congratulations!  The online marketplace is an exciting world (in a virtual sort of way).  And thanks to new technologies and services, it can be a safe, friendly and profitable place.

I’ll assume you have your product or service worked out, along with prices and delivery methods.  And let’s not forget the marketing plan - you have to know how people will find you.   Got all that in place?

OK.  Now of course you already have a domain name and web site with a good hosting company, right? 

What - you don’t have a web site?!  Well, that’s OK, you can avoid some mistakes by setting it up AFTER you’ve thought through your shopping cart.   As for the web host, It’s important to make sure your software is compatible with (supported by) your web host.   For this reason, your choice of software may effect your choice of web host (or vice versa).  For more information on setting up a web site / host, check my article  Web Site 101 - Costs.  My current favorite hosting companies are BlueHost and Lunarpages.  They both offer some easy installation options for  shopping cart software.

OK, NOW you’re ready.  But wait - there are a few things you should consider first - preferably before you set anything up.   These are:

• Shopping cart software - to sell the products and keep track of everything
• Payment gateway - to capture and transmit payment information
• Merchant account - to process payments and receive money
• SSL Certificate - to ensure that your customers’ information is safe

Since these technologies all have to work together, it’s best to make the decisions before you implement anything.  I’ll talk about each one, and how they work together.  I’ll also discuss some possible “shortcuts”.

Shopping Cart Software 
What Does It Do?   It uses a database to allow you to display, price and sell your products.  It keeps track of customers choices, and sends their order information to the payment gateway.  In most cases, it also helps you keep track of your orders and collect information about your customers.  Other possible features include:  autoresponders (confirmation emails to your customers and you), eNewsletter capabilities (so you can send updates to all your customers), inventory management, shipping and tax calculations, shopper registration / login, product promotion options, and more.

Do I Really Need It?  In a word, Yes.

What’s the Best Way?  Well, that depends.  Here are some options:

Commercial Software:  Best for those setting up a large shopping cart with high volume.  OR if  user friendliness and technical support are high priorities (and you’re willing to pay for them).  Many companies are out there.  Here are just a few:  X-Cart, Cart32, ShopSite, MonsterCommerce

Open Source Software:  Open source software is free, publicly shared software.  There are some very good open source shopping carts.  Technical support comes in the form of documents and online forums.  In other words, there’s no 800 number to call - you have to read the directions!  Here are a couple of popular ones:  ZenCart, osCommerce and CubeCart.

Hosted Shopping Carts: 
You can have someone else host your shopping cart for you.  In other words, you pay for web hosting and shopping cart on one account.  You still have to set up your shopping cart, maintain it, etc.  BUT you don’t have to install it, your technical support will probably be better, and you’ll have help setting up your merchant account and payment gateway, which will then work properly with your shopping cart.  What’s the catch?  Well, you’ll pay monthly fees on the order of $50 (web hosting is included in this fee).  AND you may pay additional transaction fees.  Still, this approach is a viable one for folks who need a web host and a shopping cart, and want to get started without large upfront costs or hassles.  Try Yahoo Small Business or Volusion. 

Is There a Shortcut?  Well, sort of.  Here it is…..
Buy Now Buttons 
If you’re only selling a small number of products on your web site, you can use PayPal or Google Checkout to set up “BUY NOW” buttons.  You create buttons and install them on your own web site, next to your products (assuming you can work with HTML).  When a customer clicks the button, they go to PayPal or Google Checkout to complete the transaction.  In this way, PayPal or Google Checkout acts as your shopping cart, your payment gateway and your merchant account, thus saving you several steps.  Your customer support will not be as good as with a commercial or hosted shopping cart, and you won’t have all of the features.  Still, this approach is a great way to get started, since you could shift to a different system later on.   You pay no upfront or monthly costs, but you do pay transaction fees.   I have set this up for several clients, with good results; My fees are smaller because it takes me less time than setting up a full-on shopping cart.  Right now Google is advertising transaction fees of 2% plus $ .20 per transaction.  PayPal will be about 3% plus $ .30 per transaction.

Payment Gateway 
What Does It Do?  It accepts you customers’ credit card or eCheck information on a secure server, encrypts it, and communicates that information to your financial institution (merchant account).  There are many services out there.  One reputable one is authorize.net.  You will notice more  - pay attention as you shop online - see who your favorite shopping web sites use.  Your payment gateway may be bundled with a merchant account, or may recommend a compatible merchant account.  See fees below, under Merchant Account.

Do I Really Need It?  Yes.  But if you use “the shortcut“  discussed above, PayPal or Google Checkout can act as your payment gateway (and merchant account).

Merchant Account 
What Does It Do?  It’s a financial institution that’s connected with your own banking account. It receives information from your payment gateway, processes credit cards and eChecks, and allows you to transfer funds between your merchant account and your business / checking account.  Your payment gateway may be bundled with a merchant account, or may recommend a compatible merchant account.

Payment Gateway and Merchant Account Fees
Expect to pay a monthly fee and a transaction fee.
For example, FreeAuthNet and Merchant Account Express are Authorize.net resellers that offer a package deal on a merchant account and Authorize.net gateway. Their rates for merchant and gateway accounts combined are approximately:    $10 - 25 per mo plus 2.15% - 2.33% + $ .25 per transaction

Do I Really Need It? Yes.  But if you use “the shortcut“  discussed above, PayPal or Google Checkout can act as your payment gateway (and merchant account).

SSL Certificate
What Does It Do?  Secure Sockets Layer  protocol allows private data to be transmitted safely over the internet.  Web sites using SSL start with https:  instead of http:   an SSL Certificate tells the customer’s browser that the web site is secure.   If you’re selling online, it will be important to your customers that you use this technology.  It’s important to you, too.  You don’t want to be involved in a credit card fraud or stolen identity incident.

Do I Really Need It? In my opinion, yes.  BUT you may be able to share your web host’s SSL for a small fee (or for free).  Also, if you use the shortcut we discussed earlier, you won’t need your own because your secure transaction will take place on a PayPal or Google web site.

Summary
There you have it.  I’d like to say it’s simple, but, well, it’s not.  Hope I’ve shed some light on the process, anyway!  Feel free to contact me if I can help! 

Suzi Beaumont
BeauCreations Web Design

Well, one of my New Year’s resolutions was to blog more.   Another was to update my own portfolio web site.   There were a few others, but I won’t bore you with the “health-and-weight-loss” portion….

In keeping with some of the resolutions, here’s the latest web site I’ve completed.  Susan of Susan Originals is starting a business selling her original artwork on greeting cards, which can be purchased hand-painted.  Susan has produced some very original cards for the “less ordinary” occasions in life - times when “off-the-shelf” cards just don’t say what you mean!

Susan needed to display lots of card designs at once.  She wanted a user-friendly way of browsing, viewing close-ups, and reading the text on the inside of each card.  I came up with a layout that allows shoppers to browse by either thumbnails or a slide show. They can “Add to Cart” from almost any page on the web site.  The artwork is protected by watermarks, as well as a script that prevents  people from copying the images.  Behind the scenes, the site is enhanced by JavaScript code that makes the slide show and the PayPal shopping cart interface run effeciently.

Susan’s website needed to enhance her artwork in a way that suits her style and sense of humor (laughter is an important message in the cards).  My friend and colleague Rhonda Weisberg of Juggling Cat Design added her considerable talent as a graphic artist to this web site. Rhonda started with Susan’s artwork, then added graphics, color scheme and other elements to create Susan’s branding, business card, and ultimately the look and feel of the  web site.

Susan wanted to set up her site to sell online quickly and simply. We got her started with a PayPal account.  They have some easy solutions to get you started without a hassle.  You can compare PayPal plans here.

Susan’s reported that her first order for two boxes of cards came last week, so we’re all celebrating, and wishing her success in 2009!

Did you ever wonder why computer programmers have such quirky ways of naming files?  Or why they seem neurotic about backups? 

Well, different types of programs, for various reasons, restrict what you can do with file names.  If you “break the rules” you can mess up code that would otherwise work, or (more commonly) just bring things to a grinding halt altogether. 

And as for backup neorosis?  Well, that’s easy to explain.  In fact, you already know this.  All you have to do is lose several hours of mind-numbing work, and you’re a fan of backups.  OK, some of us may have to repeat this experience a few times, but we do learn eventually….

This is an exceprt from an instructional article I’m writing - it may be helpful to those who are just getting started with HTML, or editing / uploading files to a server via a file manager program.

About file names:  In most web applications, file names are case-sensitive, and don’t allow spaces.  Since you have to mush words together (no spaces), some people like to use capital letters to make them more readable, like this:

myDocument.html

whatWeDidLastSummer.html

These examples are perfectly legal, though the second one is really too long.  Here’s another way to do the same thing without capitalizing.

my_document.html

what_we_did_last_summer.html

This is also perfectly OK.  In this case, I used an underscore between words.  Hyphens are allowable, but not commonly used.  The key is to be consistent, because when the server looks for the file, it has to be entered exactly right, including any caps and underscores.

About saving files:  On web sites, when you upload a file to the server, if there’s an old version in place (and there should be), that version is automatically over-written.  That means it’s gone forever.  For this reason, you have to be sure your changes are correct.  Since we all make mistakes, it’s good to have a backup file. 

So, let’s say you are editing a file called myDocument.html  I recommend first creating a file called myDocumentBak.html as a back up.  Then you go back to myDocument.html  and make your changes.  If something goes horribly wrong (and it will), you’ll just re-name your backup file, put it back where it was, and pretend it all never happened.

Now, here’s another common scenario.  You want to create a new document – say, a new article –  from an old one.  In other words, you’re using one document as a template to create a new one.   In this case you just save the old document under a new name immediately upon opening it. 

So, I take  myDocument.html  and save it as  myNewDocument.html  before I make any changes.  The original file remains intact in its old location.  The new file has a unique name, so it won’t over-write anything when you put it on the server.

Bet you don’t know how easy it is to find out who links to your web site. 

“Why is that important?” you ask.  Well, most search engines favor sites with quality inbound links.  The term’s called Link Popularity.  So it’s a good idea to see who has linked to your site.  

And it’s a great idea to promote quality inbound links.  “What’s a quality inbound link”?  It’s a link from a good web site in a business that’s related to yours.  Think of it like a referral, or a testimonial.  You want links from people you trust, whose association with you is relevant to your business.

Here’s how you ask Google search engine to check for inbound links.  Just go to the Google search box and type link:www.mysite.com   

Or, check out this free tool that lets you do the same for three major search engines:
http://www.linkpopularity.com/

Post by Suzi Beaumont of BeauCreations Web Design

Recently a prospective client asked “What other costs should I expect” after I’d sent an estimate to design and install her first web site.  So I thought I’d share my answer.  This will be of interest to first time web site would-bes.

The Web Site
First, let me say that the initial cost of having a custom web site professionally designed can vary considerably - that’s why I do detailed estimates with “what’s included” after talking with an interested person.  But since this assessment would be incomplete without the cost of a web site, I’ll go out on a limb here and pick a number.  For my example I’ll use a six page brochure web site, custom designed but with no additional interactive features (no blogs, shopping carts, Flash animation, etc.).  I’ll say this very basic web site would cost about $1200 for design, construction and installation.

As far as other costs go, I can think of these “ongoing” costs (assuming you already have an Internet Service Provider):

Domain name: You’ll want to purchase / register this yourself.  It should not cost more than $10 - $15 per year, or even less if you buy five years at once. Plenty of web hosts will include a “free domain for life”, and that’s fine.  But if you decide to change your web host, it can be an additional hassle to separate the domain name.  So I recommend purchasing from someone like GoDaddy, then hosting through a separate company.  Consider setting your account to “auto-renew” right off the bat;  You do NOT want to lose your domain name after your business is established, just because you forgot to renew!

Web Host: Again, you’ll want to purchase this yourself on a separate account.  Some web designers will host the web site for you on their own server computers, so you can get a package deal.  I don’t advocate this because small web designers such as myself, while providing great value in custom designed web sites, cannot compete with the big companies as far as hosting a site is concerned.  You want a web host with 99.9% uptime guaranteed, and lots of customer support staff on duty!  AND you shouldn’t pay more than $7 - $12 per month. My current favorites are BlueHost and Lunarpages.

Incidentally, your web host should include email accounts in your cost. So, for example, if your domain name is www.mywebsite.com, then you can set up an account for me@mywebsite.com.  Then you have an email address that reminds people of your web site, and looks more professional.  There should be no additional cost involved.   “But wait” - you say.  “I like to do all my email from my hotmail account -it’s too much work to keep track of all these email accounts!” No problem, just set up an email forward that sends all mail addressed to me@mywebsite.com over to your hotmail or gmail account.  Your web designer may or may not include this type of set-up support in your fee (generally speaking I do this for my clients at no extra cost).  But it’s not rocket surgery - you could figure out how to set this up yourself!

Web Site Maintenance: This is tough to estimate because it depends on your time constraints and ability to learn how to update your own web site.  I have many clients who continue to use my services for all manner of web updates.   Small business clients may spend anywhere from $0 to $300 per month on edits and updates.  My current rate is $50 per hour. This rate varies considerably among web designers.

For budget minded do-it-yourself-ers, there are ways to set up a web site that can be edited.  Edits to the text of existing pages are easy to learn, provided you’re willing to take the time to set up some free ot  inexpensive software on your computer and learn a thing or two about FTP (file transfer protocol - the way your home computer talks to your web host’s server computer when you are updating.)  Or, if you have a shopping cart, there’s no reason you can’t teach yourself to update your products and prices.

But here are some limitations:  If you’re adding new pages, moving things around, modifying the design, or adding images that need to be processed for the web (most do), you may need a web designer with the software and expertise to do these things.  Here’s what I told my prospective client, who is doing a shopping cart web site:

“Let’s say we finish the web site, and 3 months later you have six new products to add.  Assuming you know something about image processing, and can take your own digital product shots, I could probably train you to add the new products, prices, etc., in a 3 hour training session.  Or I could do it myself in about 1 hour.  So, at $45 / hour,  you’re looking at $45 - $150 for that sort of update”.

“On the other hand, if you decide to do additional pages, re-format the design or layout, switch to a new web host or shopping cart,  add a blog, enhance your search engine optimization, do online marketing, or any other upgrade - well you could spend a couple hundred dollars on each of these. But they are all entirely optional, probably not important for the first year you have a web site, and can be done on your time frame as your business grows.”

So you can see there are plenty of considerations, but setting up and maintaining a web site doesn’t have to cost you an arm and a leg.  More importantly, it doesn’t have to take you away from your core business functions - if you don’t have time to think about each micro-decision because you prefer to focus on what you do best, there are services and people out there who can make it easy for you.

by Suzi Beaumont,  BeauCreations Web Design

Did you know that you can get in the Google Local business listings for free?  This is a must If you have a business with a street address.  Anyone searching Google Maps for your address OR your company name will not only see your location but also your profile, which could include a photograph or a link to your web site.  In addition to being easily found, you’ll also have one more chance to get your name and logo in front of potential customers.

Just go to  http://www.google.com/local/add.  You’ll need to create a free account and a business profile.  If you have trouble with the above URL, go to http://maps.google.com/maps and click the link to “put your business on Google Maps”.