How to Select a Domain Name that Works for Everyone

When choosing a commercial property for your brick and mortar business, it's still all about “location, location, location.” Setting up shop in the right place can make or break a small business.

What most don't realize, is their online website address is just as important as their real-world store location. The choice of domain name for your business website is a huge factor in findability and ease of use. [Tweet "The choice of domain name for your business website is a huge factor in findability and ease of use."]

Here are a few critical considerations you should take into account before you buy a web domain name:

  1. Short is sweet. The longer and more complicated your domain name, the more likely people will get it wrong. The problem is short names tend to be taken, but if you can get two short words or your company name, that works too. The fewer the words and syllables the better.
  2. If you're not using your company name (which is a very good idea for branding), make it keyword rich! Adding words and phrases that relate to your main area of expertise can help you get found by prospective customers.
  3. Skip symbols and numbers. Hyphens, underscores, and numbers just confuse people. Don't mess with spelling either. It's not clever; it'll just lose you traffic. Keep it as tight to your name as possible.
  4. Don't purchase the first thing that pops into your head. Do some research, take some time, and think about what will work best for your business.
  5. Choose a well-known, top-level domain name such as .com or for non-profits a .org. Subdomains and obscure free domains look cheap, and the tiny savings is not worth the puzzling impression it will make.
  6. Look for and register variations of your domain. At a minimum, try for the .com version, consider having one with your country code such as .us, as well as .net, and .org. Remember that you can simply forward all those domains to your main site too.  The key is to own and be able to control your key assets.
  7. Consider adding a few descriptive domains to your stable of domains. For example, if you're registering AndersonPlumbing.com, in San Francisco, you could add SanFranciscoPlumbing or PlumbingFixSF to the mix, and again, just redirect them to your main domain.  As well, a domain for your main product models might be valuable to have as well.  Your web developer can direct those domains to the particular model page on your website.
  8. Pull the trigger as soon as you can. Registering a domain requires a lot of thought, but it also requires action. If you wait too long, you might lose that perfect domain name to someone else, and then it can be gone for good.

Your domain really is the start point for all your digital marketing, and if you get it right, everything else will be easier. Spend some time, make an effort, and reap the benefits.

metrics-to-measure-the-success-of-your-digital-marketing-formPlease enable pop-ups to receive the download.

What Is agorapulse

Today, there are many web-based apps on the market to help companies and individuals with social media management. While each caters to a specific aspect of social marketing, a rising star with top features for social media management is AgoraPulse.

AgoraPulse covers basically everything you could possibly need for social media marketing, monitoring, and management.

Focusing on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram currently with more networks set to roll out shortly, it helps small businesses that are on tight social media marketing budgets have a complete tool like the Fortune 500 companies!

AgoraPulse has tools for everything from moderation to competitions. Most importantly, though, it's sold at a price that most any business can afford. Below I’ll review some of the key aspects of AgoraPulse.

Comprehensive Analytics Tools

The analytics tools found in AgoraPulse are very similar to what you'd find in Facebook Insights. The difference here is that AgoraPulse's tools are a lot easier to read.

Besides the interface, AgoraPulse also includes all kinds of reports that you won't find in Facebook Insights. This includes post recommendations, average fan profiling, reach and engagement breakdown, page views, export into Powerpoint, ROI analysis and competitor analysis.

These tools allow companies to get more information on the people viewing and engaging with their business, so they can reach and serve their target audience better.

agorapulse

 Applications

Originally the core feature of the tool, Facebook contests are still offered but have less prominence in the interface. It’s pretty easy and straightforward to setup and deploy a contest. There's no CSS editing or extensive text formatting.

Practically everything is preconfigured to make it quick to create and launch. This is great for companies that want a simple process to launch contests on Facebook.

agorapulse

Publishing

Creating and publishing content is key on social media networks and the management of this process is important. AgoraPulse does this well. Check out some of the reasons why below:

agorapulse

Moderation

When it comes to moderating Facebook, it can be a bit tricky. Facebook lets you block specific words (like curse words), and sends notifications when a follower leaves a comment.

This is problematic for those large companies that have a huge following. With AgoraPulse, you can switch up the moderation rules based on the user's' comments. You can assign specific moderation tasks to different individuals. This gives you a strong administration role.

You can assign an account administrator that hand's out moderation tasks manually, or you can have AgoraPulse send a notification email to the person you choose. This offers a quality way to manage comments and interactions.

agorapulse

iOS and Android Apps

One of the keys that in my opinion sets AgoraPulse apart is the powerful and slick mobile app. Available for Apple and Android users, the app has some great features. It allows easy publishing and scheduling.

As well, it offers access to on-the-go moderation and ability to enable notifications so that app users can be alerted immediately of key things such as comments and replies.

AgoraPluse

AgoraPulse Pricing

As mentioned previously, AgoraPulse is affordable for small businesses. It costs as little as $19 a month for a small business that wants to manage one Facebook Page and Twitter account. This pricing can change depending on the AgoraPulse plan you choose.

AgoraPulse has a free trial option so individuals can try out this system before purchasing a plan. The trial lasts 15 days and allows you to try all the features so individuals get a true feel.

I’m blessed to count AgoraPulse founder Emeric Ernoult as a friend of mine. In the past, we’ve had friendly competition in the Facebook contest space with TabSite but I’ve got to say that the transformation of AgoraPulse to a complete social media management tool has been impressive.

They are a small team going up against big firms like NapoleonCat, Brand24, Hootsuite and Sprout Social and they’ve done a great job carving out key user features that set them apart. The whole user interface makes all tasks quick and easy. Everything is laid out well. It's also very quick to duplicate required posts and then edit if needed.

One of the best features is having the ability to adjust copy between platforms without having to start a new post. I learn new things about this program all the time. It has really helped my productivity in the way that it saves me time.

"The whole user interface of AgoraPulse makes all tasks quick and easy. Everything is laid out well. It's also very quick to duplicate required posts and then edit if needed. One of the best features is having the ability to adjust copy between platforms without having to start a new post. I learn new things about this program all the time. It has really helped my productivity in the way that it saves me time."

Neal Taparia, of Imagine Easy Solutions, a portfolio of educational software services that reached 30M students annually. He sold the business to a public company, Chegg, where he was an executive for three years. His new initiative, spider-solitaire-challenge.com, connects classic games with brain training.

Bing Follows Google's Lead on Mobile Search

Following closely on Google’s “Mobilegeddon” algorithm update, Bing has announced its own rollout of mobile friendly ranking signals over the next few months.

The short update is that both search engines are now factoring into search ranking whether a website is mobile "friendly" or not.

Basically if your site is not easy to use and navigate on a mobile device, your rankings may be going down.

Unlike Google, Bing has not set a specified date for these search adjustments to go into full effect, choosing instead to use a slow release they’re calling the “mobile-friendliness road map”.

Bing is taking this approach in order to better communicate the changes, reduce webmaster crisis moments, and allow time for them to receive feedback along the way.

Bing first released their mobile-friendly search tags as part of a test in April. This allows users to easily identify sites that comply with mobile on the search engine results.

This signaled to the rest of the world that more mobile search updates were to follow. Now, they’ve released specific information around what things they will include in their new mobile signals.

Major considerations for those managing websites include:

bing

Bing is also releasing a tool this summer that will allow webmasters to test their sites for mobile compliance.

It will mimic Google’s existing mobile-friendly tool providing a simple yes or no answer on whether a site is mobile friendly with suggestions on what to improve if a “no” is given.

Keep in mind there is no degree of mobile friendliness - a site either is or isn’t. However, Bing’s algorithm will be real time, so as soon as Bing crawls the new mobile-friendly version of a page there will be a benefit due to the new signals.

For those wanting to dive into the geeky web developer side a bit more, here's a tip:  Your web developer should also remember not to block resources such as CSS files or JavaScript from Bingbots.

These need to be fully crawled for the layout of a page to be understood, and thus appropriately labeled as mobile friendly.

While these changes will improve rankings for mobile-friendly pages, quality will remain the most important factor in search rankings for a website.

A page highly relevant to the search term requested that is not mobile friendly will still rank accordingly and not be heavily penalized.

Per Bing, this is because they are striving to reach a “fine balance” in terms of user-friendly rankings versus straight query relevancy.

So the shift to mobile continues on the web and wise businesses will be making plans to update their site to be mobile friendly.

We're here to answer any questions you have, please feel free to contact us.

Animate Your Business with Animatron.com

Wondering through the masses of websites that are offering free or paid services can be maddening even for a seasoned web marketing veteran. After all, who has the time to tinker with every new tool that might be of use to your business in marketing and selling online? Nobody does.

I’ve taken the time to swim through the channels of many tech tools online for you, and one point of focus has been on image and video tools. Images and video have really become important keys for one's website and social media for business use. They capture the attention of viewers! Fortunately, the tools keep advancing and the price points improve for small business and now it is much easier and quite inexpensive to create great eye-catching image and video with online web tools.

"Web tools" are distinguished from "computer software" by the fact that the software is not downloaded and residing on your computer. Rather, the software is online, in the "cloud", where it is updated and you login to access it. This saves precious space on your computer hard drive and allows you to always have the most updated version of the software, simply by logging in online.

One newer online tool to animate your business that is worthy of consideration after my vetting process is Animatron. This is a European tool that's great for anyone to use and is gaining popularity worldwide. It allows you to create, without needing professional skills, animated image banners, infographics and more that you can embed on your website.

Animatron Key Features:

  1. All projects can be mobile friendly and work on any browser. The days of "flash" animation are over. Animatron works across all online tools including iPhones and iPads (where flash didn't).
  1. You can choose to make your projects public or private. This is handy for students, group corporate projects and individuals. Flexibility is primary, as most business owners need that flexible, turnkey option to have something private and then turn public at a specific date.
  1. Animatron.com makes it easy to operate without much training (they also have a number of tutorials, by the way). No coding knowledge is needed. Their user interface is simple and inviting.
  1. You are allowed to host your own work on your own site. That includes HTML5, with the Javascript and resource files.
  1. The timeline based animation is similar to all who are familiar with general types of video editing. This enables precise pinpoint editing for a smooth finished product.
  1. Getting back to the business advantages . . . a business owner or marketing manager is able to invite others to work or assist on the project simply by sending them the projects URL. Here is a big plus . . . you can watch the changes in real time!
  1. With their vector drawing tools and vector artwork libraries, you are empowered instead of left out in the cold to fend for yourself in the deep ocean of codingHTML5.
  1. You have the ability to import audio and have multiple scenes. 9. Their "snap to path" feature is a revolution for creating quick, quality animations.

These are only a few of the positive points of Animatron.com. The website itself is designed with the ease of user interface in mind as well.

There are three plan options: FREE, Starter, and Pro. The free package is a great suggestion for the entry level user to marketing graphics. The cost of the Starter and Pro packages are $6/Month & $60/yr. and $20/month & $200/yr., respectively. This part really blew me away, only $200 to set your business apart from the multitudes of competitors? For those wanting to take their business imagery online to new heights, Animatron is the real deal!

Have you tried it? Let us know what you think about Animatron.com in the comments.

Press Release

Web Marketing for Business Presentation

GOSHEN, IN, - Mike Gingerich, a Web Technology and Internet Marketing Consultant for Digital Hill Multimedia, Inc., along with Troy Rumfelt, President of Digital Hill presented, "Web Marketing for Business" to business owners and Dealers of Borkholder Buildings in Nappanee, IN (Elkhart County) today.

The presentation was done at the invitation of Borkholder CEO, Dwayne Borkholder, and was designed to inform the Borkholder Dealer Network on the social, technological and business changes necessary to stay competitive today, with a focus on effective websites, Internet Marketing, and Social Media. The event was a follow-up to the successful launch of a new Borkholder website, New Energy Homes, a new division of Borkholder, which focuses on building Net Zero Green homes and buildings. New Energy recently opened a model Net Zero home in Nappanee, Elkhart County. Digital Hill built and launched the new website for this Elkhart County Manufacturer.

Below are slides from this Internet Marketing and Social Media Presentation:

[slideshare id=3554020&doc=borkholderdealermeetingwebslides-100325134323-phpapp01]

The one unique aspect of the presentation is that I was struggling mightily with laryngitis! I had lost my voice 2 days earlier and was struggling to be able to speak.  I tried to save my voice for that moment and then let loose.  I sounded like a raspy Rod Stewart!  I had to pass the baton halfway through to our company President, Troy Rumfelt, who capably carried the second half of the presentation!  What a day!

For over 12 years, Digital Hill Multimedia, Inc. has specialized in Web Design, E-Commerce, SEO, Web Hosting, Social Media, Flash, 3-D Animation, Web Application Development, and Internet Marketing and Promotion Strategies in Goshen, Elkhart County, Northern Indiana and throughout the country. They can be contacted at 1-888-537-0703 or www.digitalhill.com.

I'm excited to announce the launch of a new website for Chicago consulting firm, Balanced Growth, LLC.

Balanced Growth Website - Chicago Website DesignAfter months of work and fine-tuning the new Balanced Growth website was launched earlier today. Boasting a wide range of web tools enabling the firm to communicate updates, easily expand areas of the site, and communicate news via a traditional news area as well as their blog, this site reflects the innovative nature of Balanced Growth.

To see the before and after picture, go here: http://twitpic.com/tykea

To read the full Press Release click here, http://prlog.org/10456979

I am proud to have been the Project Manager for this site and look forward to coordinating their Internet Marketing Strategies as well.

[slideshare id=1662637&doc=dhpresentation-090630111209-phpapp01]

Acrobat.com beta for sharing your screen and conducting a webinar works awesome!  5 Stars!

It was easy to setup, easy for the user to log into and I get to keep my meeting room url.

I highly recommend you try it if you need to share your screen with others; want to conduct a webinar, or need to do an online training.

CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE SITE

Good content on SEO writing from my partner in Fort Wayne and our Digital Hill office SEO guru...

Always keep in mind the number one rule in SEO:  Whatever you do on your website you do it for the user first.  The biggest mistake I see people make when executing any type of SEO strategy is to "skirt" the system.

If you follow the ten simple steps below Google will have a clear understanding of what your website is all about.  Whether or not Google defines you as "most relevant" (#1) is truly up to you.  If you write high quality content and follow the rules below you will have one third of the SEO equation solved (Programming, Keywords, Backlinks).

1. Choosing the right keywords

When Search Engines spider the content of your website they ascertain a lot of information. When they are done they determine a "theme" for every individual page and an overall "theme" for your website. This is important to know because search engines define your theme based on the individual words and word combinations on the each page. They also look at backlinks, but that is another article.

So, in order to plan a successful web strategy a Site Map and Keyword Workshop should be done before any development takes place. There are dozens of free keyword tools out there on the web, but I recommend Google Keyword Tool.

Once you have done your Keyword Workshop and Site Map identify a primary and secondary keyword phrase for every page. You can have more, however you run the risk of over saturating your page and Google assigning an incorrect theme to that page or overall website. Here is an example for an internal eCommerce page of Web Design Fort Wayne.

Primary: eCommerce
Secondary: Web Design Fort Wayne

The primary keyword phrase should be different for every page. However, your secondary keyword phrase on all internal pages should be the primary keyword phrase for your home page. Your company name should never be a primary keyword phrase. If someone is looking for your company online they will find you.  Below is an example from Google Webmaster Tools showing what Google believes is the overall theme for Web Design Fort Wayne.

2. Every page should have over 250 words and less than 1000 words.  If you find that you need more than 1000 words for a page then consider creating subpages to break up the content.  Any words over 1000 Google does not index, but ignores.
SEE THE REST of the 10 WAYS HERE

Here's a number of SEO tips I've picked up along the way and a link to the full article...

Search Engine Optimization:

Keyword Introduction and On-page Factors

Following Search Engine Guidelines will Increase Your Rankings

Webmasters and search engine optimizers often search for ways to get their site better indexed and improve their rankings.  You can scour Search Engine Optimization (SEO) forums, read books and talk to other webmasters.  But often, one of the most valuable ranking resources is forgotten: the search engines themselves.  All three major crawlers, Google, MSN (Windows Live) and Yahoo! offer comprehensive, webmaster-friendly help sections on optimizing your site.  Before setting off to optimize your site, make sure you got the basics down by following the rules of the game.  The following white paper is a summation of "keyword best practices," as outlined by the major search engines, to maximize your placement on Search Engines.

"Natural" Search Engine Optimization

The process of trying to get your site ranked better in search engine results has become known as "natural" or "organic" search engine optimization (SEO).  Since search engines are extremely popular with users and bring in pre-qualified traffic, many sites want to know how they can improve their rankings in non-paid search results. Anyone can launch a pay-per-click campaign on Google, but only a few sites rise to the top of search results.  Why is it important to be ranked high organically?  Only 20% of browsers ever click on pay-per-click links.  The other 80% click on the organic results.

Before you can understand how each search engine scores web sites, you need to understand the various factors they consider. These factors can be divided into two categories, on-page and offsite.

On-page factors are concerned with keywords and their placement in the HTML:

Off-site factors are not related to the content of your HTML, but rather to the overall quality of your site, search engines perceive it.  The major off-site factor is Link popularity and everything related to it, such as the following:

Achieve results

You can improve most of the above factors to achieve higher rankings. We recommend that you work on both on-page and off-site factors at the same time. This is especially important for sites targeting general and highly competitive terms. The search engine marketing landscape is simply too competitive right now to ignore either page-related factors or link popularity.

LINK TO SEE FULL ARTICLE: seo-keywords-white-paper1

As noted on the Digital Hill blog:

Web Application Development for Welch Packaging of Elkhart

March 5th, 2009

Digital Hill was asked by Welch Packaging to implement the programming and e-commerce application for their new website.  Welch Packaging has an in-house design team and they created the site design in Adobe Photo Shop and then sent the layered files on to Digital Hill for the website programming and setup.

The site now includes a robust manager area with the ability to choose different inner page layouts as well as the ability to add new images and hyperlinks to the footer flash scrolling gallery area.  The e-commerce portion of the site is complete though not yet live as Welch prepares their internal systems to handle the anticipated increase in direct sales.

Welch Packaging is a national leader in the corrugated packaging and point-of-purchase design and production industries.  With locations across the midwest from Chicago to Indianapolis and Toledo, they are a standard-bearer in the corrugated packaging industry.

Digital Hill is proud to have been selected to work with the Elkhart corporate office of Welch Packaging to implement their new web design and to turn their dream into reality.

See the new Welch Packaging website here: www.welchpkg.com

I was able to serve as Web Consultant and project manager to see this web application completed. - Mike Gingerich

Digital Hill is in the process of launching a series of microsites targeting specific geographic regions with web design.  This is an effort to continue to get the word out that Digital Hill is available and ready to serve the web design, e-Marketing, and web application needs of the greater Michiana area.

website design southbend

A few of the sites launched thus far include  websitedesignsouthbend.com, and chicagowebdesignshop.com.  These sites serve the specific geographic areas of Elkhart, South Bend, and Chicago which Digital Hill services from our web design main office in Goshen, IN.

Digital Hill is a full service web design agency offering a complete set of web services for business and organizations.

New SEO tools and expanded full-service e-Mail Marketing campaigns are just a few of the tools that Digital Hill is offering to clients in the greater Michiana region.

Digital Hill services clients nationwide while maintaining a specific focus on regional clients.

Here's a new website showing what can be done to give you a professional website without breaking the bank!

Master's Craft Construction LLC

This site for Master's Craft Construction LLC of Hatfield, PA, was intended to help them demonstrate their ability as a high-end remodeler specializing in Kitchens, Bath, and Additions like the new Outdoor Living Room concepts.

With an updateable portfolio, this site offers the ability to grow with the business.

Mike Gingerich website design post

This is a good read on trends in marketing in the current economy and how marketers are making decisions.  Budgets are tighter, sales cycles longer, and sales leads require increased nurturing.

Read the full report here:   Marketing Sherpa

Digital Hill offers leading edge marketing solutions that give you the biggest "bang for the buck" using e-mail marketing blasts and other online marketing campaigns.

Learn more at www.digitalhill.com

Digital Hill launched a new site for a financial service firm in Lancaster, PA on Friday.

The site offers a flash section on the home page and editable inner pages through a online site manager area.

It can be seen here: MastersAdvisors.com

I think it turned out really well with a nice, professional look and easy to navigate pages.

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