Free Website Design Tips

  I was exchanging emails with Lisa Maile the very well known image consultant. She asked if I would review her site at www.lisamaileseminars.com and since Lisa is one of my favorite people, I was happy to oblige. Lisa’s site has a challenge common to a lot of the sites we are asked to redesign at SGG. It is trying to communicate to two very different audiences at the same time. Small and large corporations are visiting Lisa’s site to evaluate Lisa’s corporate programs. Those might be corporate HR Directors or Sales Managers who are trying to see how Lisa’s...

Notice anything different showing up when you do a Google search? According to Google, in about 15% of your searches, you’re probably seeing some listings that are not websites. They could be pictures, or news stories, or videos. It’s called “Universal Search” and it has big implications for small and medium-size business owners trying to use the internet as a marketing tool. Assuming you’ve done all that you can in optimizing your website as a whole; you now have new tools to use to draw visitors to your website. Photographs, graphics, and...

Remember when you were little and you were teased by some neighborhood kid or classmate and your Mom or Dad said, “Why do you let his opinion matter to you???” Well, the same thing applies to understanding the effectiveness of your website. Think about all the different types of people coming to your site: your competitors, your old girlfriend who found you on Linked-in, people looking for a company spelled like yours, people that found your site from a far-away place like Nebraska, but can’t ever use what your selling and of course, real, legitimate prospects...

The big news coming from England doesn’t have anything to do with Prince Harry or Prince Andrew’s military adventures. It is that total advertising spending on the internet there will pass advertising spending on television this year.  It is expected to happen in the United States in four years. Right now television accounts for 16% of all ad spending in the U.S., and the internet accounts for a little under 8%, but total U.S. internet ad spending is growing at just under 40% a year.   These are tremendous times for small and medium size businesses. Many of them felt shut out of television...

I just returned from a sensational 9-day trip in Europe and in addition to sampling more than 26 different types of chocolate, I spent some time thinking about, of course, internet marketing. In Europe since their economy is not based on gluttonous consumption like ours, there are fewer advertising vehicles. Few outdoor boards, few ads on the bustops, very restricted commercial signage, and far less catalogs and direct mail than we have here.   So how does a European company drive traffic to their website? They treat the domain name like their brand. It is on shirts, hats, vehicles,...