• It takes only a 20^th of a second (50 milliseconds) for people to make decisions after viewing a website. (Source: BBC)
• The number of people using mobile devices for Internet browsing has greatly increased. Your site needs to be mobile compatible to achieve maximum results. (Source: 99 Designs)
• 61% of mobile device users are less likely to visit a mobile site again if it has poor performance. (Source: Gomez)
• Site speed is important. 47% of people expect a web page to load in two seconds or less. (source: eConsultancy)
• 40% of people will abandon a web page if it takes more than three seconds to load. (source: eConsultancy)
• 64% of shoppers who are dissatisfied with their site visit will go somewhere else to shop next time. (source: eConsultancy)

The bottom line is that your site needs to look professional, build trust, load fast and provide a great user experience. If it doesn’t accomplish these things, you are going to lose business. For more information about professional web design in Albuquerque, please contact us. We’ll provide a free evaluation of your website and help you learn how you can get more clients from the web.

If your website ranks high, but doesn’t get you more business, something is wrong. 

To effectively optimize a website, you have to remember that you are working to please two audiences: 1) the search engines and 2) people. Each audience is equally important—and your SEO campaign should be designed to reach maximum results with both.

As you consider SEO as part of your Internet marketing strategy for your Albuquerque business, remember that the ultimate goal is to make your site accessible to the people who are actively searching for you so that you can get more clients.

Below are a few things to keep in mind when developing your SEO strategy:

Target Audience

To help drive conversions, you need to clearly identify your target audience. Understand what motivates them to seek your products or services so you can craft your SEO strategy around meeting their needs.

Key Word Phrases

Once you’ve identified your target audience, keyword research should be done to determine how they’re searching for you online. Go for phrases that people are actually using to find the products/services you provide. 

Web Design

Your website should be designed to build trust with potential clients, meet people’s needs and drive people through your conversion funnel. Integrating professional web design with strong copywriting is imperative.

If you have questions about optimizing your website for maximum results, I encourage you to contact us. SonicSEO.com is a full-service Internet marketing firm based in Albuquerque. Since 1998, we have helped over 4,000 businesses throughout the United States and Canada get more clients from the Web. We’d love the opportunity to help you, too! Call 505-821-2000 for a free consultation with an SEO expert.

Creating a simple website is easy.

Building an effective online tool to get more clients from the Web is not.

As an Albuquerque business, it is important to realize that the way your website looks—and the way it functions—has the potential to make or break you online. If your site doesn’t establish trust, demonstrate authority and easily lead people through your sales funnel, it’s not doing its job. 

When crafted professionally and designed to meet the needs of your target audience, your website can serve as more than an online business card—it can serve as your 24/7 sales tool and get you more customers from the Internet.

Below are several reasons why it’s important to have a professional Web designers create your site:

Professional Design Builds Trust

A professional design is an essential component of building trust online, because people will immediately judge your business by the way your website looks. When you demonstrate that you care enough to invest in a professional website, you demonstrate that you care about the experience your customers have.

Professional Design Compels Action

A good website is not only appealing, but compelling. If you have a website that looks good, but isn’t getting more customers, it’s not the effective sales tool it could be. A professional Web designer can help you craft a site that is unique to your Albuquerque business and drives people to take your desired action.

Professional Design Incorporates the Latest Coding Practices

Outdated coding may affect the way your website appears on some browsers—it could even affect your ability to be found online. By investing in professional Web site design from an experienced company, you ensure your site is up-to-date with the latest coding practices so that the underlying structure of your site is just as effective as the part people see.

Professional Design Includes Search Engine Optimization

When choosing an Albuquerque Web designer, it is important to choose someone who can design in a way that enhances your SEO efforts. If you want people to be able to find your website online, it needs to be properly optimized for the search engines. Professional Web design and SEO go hand-in-hand.

When you need a professional website for your Albuquerque business, contact SonicSEO.com. Our design professionals will help you create a website that accurately represents your company—and gets you more business from the Internet.

It may sound like common sense, but all too often, businesses dive into SEO with hopes of high rankings for phrases that have not been adequately researched. This only ends in disappointment when traffic goes up, but conversions do not.

The key to good SEO: learn what drives your target audience, what they expect and how they search online so that you can focus on keyword phrases that will drive maximum results. 

Identifying Demographic Information

Before designing your company’s Web site and launching an SEO campaign, assess the demographics of your ideal audience, including things like:

• Age range
• Sex
• Income Levels
• Educational Background
• Marital Status
• Hobbies
• Emotional state when considering your products or services
• Familiarity with your product or service
• Reason for purchasing your product or service 

By gathering all of this information, you will be able to lay a firm foundation for your SEO efforts—and drive the most targeted, engaged audience to your site.

Interpreting Demographic Information

In addition to knowing what phrases to target, this information will also help you determine how much content you need, how it should be written, what kind of language you should use, how you should present products or services, and how you can establish trust with the people who come to your site. All of these things are essential to not only getting people to your site, but also converting them into customers after they find your site.

Web sites must be constructed in a way to establish trust with your target audience and demonstrate how you are the best company to meet a specific need. SonicSEO.com can help you do that.

Using Demographic Information to Build a Strong SEO Campaign

At SonicSEO.com, we take the time to get to know the unique needs and goals of your Albuquerque business so that we can develop a strategic plan to get you more business from the Internet. We utilize the most advanced tools to identify the keyword phrases your target audience is using to find businesses like yours and engineer your site to rank high for relevant queries.

SonicSEO.com, based in Albuquerque, NM, has been helping businesses get more customers from the Internet since 1998. In that time, we’ve helped over 4,000 clients throughout the United States and Canada with their Internet marketing needs. We take great pride in our work and in providing our clients with superior results. In fact, our SEO product has over a 95% renewal rate—because it works!

Contact SonicSEO.com to get More Clients from the Web

When you need help increasing the performance of your Web site, please contact us for a free consultation. Our Albuquerque SEO experts are here to help you remain competitive in an increasingly digital world.

I don’t say this because it is a service we offer, but because it is essential to establishing your brand identity online and creating an online space where potential customers want to do business with you.

Your website says a lot about your company. It tells potential customers:

• How much you care about the products or services you provide
• How much you care about their user experience
• How much you care about staying current and setting trends

Quality web design instills confidence in potential clients—reassuring them that they’ve chosen a quality company to do business with. A poorly designed website can turn people off fast…and they may never give your business a second chance.

First impressions matter.

As you research ways that you can get more business from the web, do not overlook the importance of good web design when considering SEO, PPC, social media marketing and other online marketing tactics.

Remember, your website is the face of your company online. It is the first thing new customers will see and serves as the basis from which people make judgments about whether or not they will spend money on your products or services.

But even more than that, when done effectively, SEO is the process of driving targeted traffic to your website to get more customers for your business.

Every business needs a solid online presence. 

To remain competitive in our technology-driven culture, you simply can’t ignore the online space where potential clients have the opportunity to connect with your business while they’re actively looking for the products or services you provide.

No other medium has the power to do that for you.

When deciding whether or not you should hire a professional to manage your SEO for you, consider this: every year, there are between 500-600 changes made to Google’s search algorithm. While many of these changes are not significant, several major updates are rolled out every year—and your site has the potential to be penalized if it does not adhere to the latest guidelines and standards of the search engines.

At SonicSEO.com, we not only build quality websites that help you get more business from the Internet, but we also ensure your site remains in compliance with the latest algorithmic demands and preferences to ensure lasting results in the search engines.

But we don’t stop there.

We monitor the success of your website daily and call you every month to discuss the results of your SEO. It is our goal to ensure continued success for the long term.

When you don’t invest in SEO, you give your competitors the opportunity to edge you out of high rankings—and the opportunity to reach an audience that is already engaged with what you offer.

If you would like to learn more about SEO services with SonicSEO.com and how we can help you get more customers from the web, I encourage you to contact us. We’re always happy to learn about new businesses and recommend an Internet marketing strategy tailored to your unique needs and goals.

So why don’t top spots in the search engines translate into more customers, more sales, and more money? 

There are a couple reasons why high search engine rankings may not translate into a higher ROI:

First, lots of traffic is not the same as targeted traffic.

To make your Web site profitable, you need to attract visitors.

But not just any visitors.

You need the right visitors.

A good SEO firm will take the time to understand your business and the type of people you are trying to reach online. After an analysis of the market you are competing in and conducting thorough keyword research, a good SEO firm should be able to help you develop a strategy to reach the people who are looking for the types of products or services you provide.

It is important to consider that fewer daily visits from people who are actually interested in the products or services you provide is more valuable than numerous daily visits from people who will leave your site just as fast as they found it.

Second, poor site design may inhibit your online success.

A good SEO campaign should not only focus on bringing more targeted traffic to your site, but making sure your Web site meets the needs of your target audience.

When people search for products or services online, they are looking for a credible sight that is not only informative, but compelling. If your site does not convert visitors into clients, your search engine optimization campaign is not doing all it can for you.

So, how long does it take Web surfers to assess the quality of your site?

A fraction of a second.

As Internet users become more savvy and surf the Web at continually increasing speeds, the time you have to impress potential clients becomes smaller and smaller. Investing in a professional, compelling design is essential to reap maximum benefits from your SEO efforts.

As you embark on your journey of search engine optimization, remember: just because an SEO firm can get your site to the top of the search engines does not mean that targeted traffic will see your site.

Rankings are good, but targeting the traffic of your niche market is better.

Get more Customers from Your Website

At SonicSEO.com, our focus is to not only see you do well in the search engines, but to also drive targeted traffic to your site that translates into a higher ROI. We are committed to providing you with the information and resources you need to make confident decisions regarding the best way to accomplish your Internet marketing goals.

When you’re ready to invest in search engine optimization or would like to learn more about developing a comprehensive Internet marketing plan, I encourage you to contact us. It is our honor to help you establish a solid foundation for your online marketing efforts.

The strategy of a solid Web marketing campaign is not simply developing an informative Web site about your firm—you can do that with a brochure. Rather, it’s designing a tool that will generate clients and allow you to track the return on your investment dollar for dollar.

When developing a Web site for your business, focus on these 6 elements in addition to your SEO:

1. Good Content

Good content is the foundation of a good Web site. Good content is not simply information about your business or yourself, but it is carefully crafted copy that leads your audience to a specific action and utilizes strategic placement of keywords. In a nutshell: good copy drives results.

2. Effective Architecture

Effective architecture refers to the structure and functionality of your Web site. It is essential if you want people to stick around and dig deeper into your site. Here are a few things to keep in mind when developing your site’s architecture:

• how you will use navigation bars and where you will place them
• how you will let people know where they are at on your site
• how you will link your pages together
• how will you guide people through your site 

All of these things affect how easy your site is to use. Ease of use and the ability to find relevant information in as few clicks as possible are key features visitors look for in a Web site.

3. Consistent Design

Consistent design allows you to start developing brand recognition with your potential clients and makes your site easier to view. People remember things that are repetitive— the more you can repeat the theme on your site, the more people will begin to identify with it and recognize it as a reflection of your firm.

It is also important to place your navigation bars in the same location on every page, use the same font on every page and incorporate the same color scheme on each page of your site. This will help people browse your site and access information they need easier.

4. Relevant Images

Images can improve the look of your site and generate interest from potential clients. When choosing images to put on your site, it is important to choose images that are relevant to the content and purpose of your site. Sometimes, people like to put humorous pictures or cartoons on their site that have nothing to do with the purpose of the site. This can distract readers and keep them from understanding your overall purpose.

5. Contact Information

It is very important that you include your contact information on every page of your Web site—especially your phone number. Remember, the purpose of your Web site is to generate leads for potential clients or customers. If a person finds your site through a search engine, browses your site but doesn’t know how to contact you, your site is not doing its job. Be sure to place your phone number prominently (read: above the fold) on each page. Make it easy for people to contact you.

6. Contact Form

Choosing to use a contact form is recommended over providing your email address to potential clients or customers. Information on Web sites is not only available to people who are looking for your services, but also people who want to exploit you. Using a contact form will reduce the amount of spam you receive. Contact forms are easy to set up and use and when you respond to potential clients, they will receive your email address to maintain correspondence with you.

If you would like advice tailored to the unique needs and goals of your business, I encourage you to contact us. At SonicSEO.com, we’ve developed a leading team of experts to provide tailored advice to businesses seeking to develop or enhance their reach online. We’re always happy to help businesses succeed online!

Don’t leave blogging topic ideas floating around; Write them down!

Actually writing content can be the most difficult part of maintaining a blog for your business. Inspiration strikes; it’s not usually a steady stream. But with some planning and by employing a few simple techniques, you can cut down on those hours spent staring at a blank page.

Create a Blogging Plan

A blogging plan can help you focus in on what you really want your blog to be about, which in turn helps you generate posts. A blogging plan can include:

• Blog Categories
• Keeping a daily/weekly/monthly blog planner
• Short-term/long-term Objectives

Create an Idea Diary

Or whatever you want to call it: Blog Banter, Topic Tote, etc. The point is to have something so that you can write down your ideas for a post when the inspiration hits.

Create an Idea Collection

Create a bookmarks folder for your web browser specifically for your blog. That way, when you find an article or blog that you may want to refer to later, whether for content or an actual blog topic, it’ll be there and ready for you to access for your post.

Turn Questions and Comments into Blog Topics

Readers who question and comment are a great source for blog posts! Is there a question that gets asked often? What about a particularly intriguing comment? Turn them into a blog post!

Create an Outline

Outlining really works. Once you have a topic for your blog, write down the main points you want to cover in some logical order. Under those points, write further points that you want to include.

This will help you not only generate blog content, but will also make sure you don’t forget anything. It will also help fight rambling content.

Enlist Help

Completely stuck on a topic? Ask for help from a friend, a coworker, even your boss. Engaging in a conversation with a stranger at a coffee shop can even generate interesting ideas for a blog post.

Browse

Browsing the internet can help you generate ideas when you’re suffering from writer’s block. Whether it’s a blog in the same blogging territory as you, social media such as Twitter or Facebook, a newspaper or even a website from a random Google search, you might find an idea you haven’t thought about yet.

When it comes to developing a post for your business’ blog, you never know what could get those wheels turning. Think outside the box and you’ll have banished your writer’s block in no time!

Blogging directs potential customers to your website.

You may think that social media is just a phase, that you don’t really need it to reach your potential customers.

But the reality is, creating an audience for your website is one of the best ways to attract people to your business.

And how do you do that? By using social media, including blogs.

Take it from us: it really isn’t as scary as you think.

Building a Blog for Your Business

Blogging can help your business in so many ways, but it’s really all about drawing in and connecting with an audience who will turn into loyal customers.

While it’s important to remember that each business requires a tailored approach (one size does not fit all), the steps you use to create a blog apply to all:

Step 1: Think About Your Audience

Who are you writing your blog for? Who are your customers? Who are you trying to attract to your blog and, ultimately, your website?

Step 2: Think About Your Message and Your Content

What do you want to communicate to your audience? What do you want your audience to know about your product and your business? What do you think your audience wants to read about? What topics and/or messages will help you gain the trust of your audience?

Step 3: Topics and Keywords

Once you have the audience, the message and the content in your mind, it’s time to start coming up with topics. Topics should add to the conversation happening in your field, provide people with a new way to think about something and help establish your brand. You can generate ideas by looking at other blogs, conducting market research to see how you can better meet people’s needs online and thinking of ways to show interest in what’s important to your consumer base.

Step 4: Write!

Once you have your audience, your message and your content in mind, come up with some blog topics and begin writing. The only way to get a blog out there is to write, write and then write some more.

Step 5: Remember the Purpose of a Blog

Before you begin writing your content, keep in mind that the job of a blog is to inform, to create a sense of trust, of camaraderie, of knowledge. It needs to establish your brand and build a loyal community.

Blogging really isn’t all that difficult; it just takes practice and adjustment. Do your research beforehand and you’ll have a great blog to attract, and hold, customers.

But if you ever need help, don’t forget your friends at SonicSEO.com—we’re happy to help in any way we can.