Business Phones – Think New Technology

Bright Idea Tips to Help With Business Phones
Bright Idea Tips to Help With Business Phones

I am moving to the Fredericksburg, Virginia area in July and August this year and as I plan ahead for my move I am revamping my home and business phone technology used to use new things.

Currently, I have a fax telephone line, a business phone line, a residential phone line, two line phones throughout the house, hard wired CAT 5 cabling, and over 9 computers. With my new move, I am going to streamline my use of old tech and move to some new tech.

For example, I am thinking of:

1. Using a Word document/Office subscription fax interface that will allow me to fax using my smartphone as well as to receive faxes this way too. I like MyFax at MyFax.com  as my solution. I selected this one due to ease of use and low price – $10 a month. I’ll be needing to have a temporary fax solution for three months before I move into my permanent office and so want something easy to use and usable on a smartphone.

2. I am actually thinking of not having a separate phone line for my business and using my smartphone as my office phone. I already have set up a Google Voice number and will most likely use this number on my website and have it forwarded to my smartphone or home phone on certain days. I have already purchased a new local phone number from Google for $10, as once you have a number you have to pay to change it. I like the ability to control when Google Voice forwards calls. You can even group contacts and then create different answering messages by group. You can have family and friends get automatically connected without delay which is a nice feature.

3. I know that I will have FiOS as my new office. I already have been using virtual phone numbers which really give a terrific cost saving and use VOIP. I may continue to use this for my business or at least for a dedicated fax line and now only one residential line, but I am still thinking of what is the best and most versatile option for my future needs.

With so many new technological choices what you used to think you had to have in your office phone-wise, you now get to think over and reinvent when you move. What technology have you moved to that has cut costs and streamlined your life? Make sure to let me know by clicking and leaving a comment. I guarantee that I’ll check it out and may use it too.

Positioning Your Website to Own Your Location

My new Spotsylvania, Virginia office location.
My new Spotsylvania, Virginia office location.

I am getting ready to move this summer from Waldorf, Maryland to the Fredericksburg, Virginia area to Spotsylvania, Virginia.  As a result I am already starting to plan and to position my own website to grab market share in the Fredericksburg region.

Here are a few of the things I will be doing in the upcoming months to my own website to position myself locally.

1. I’ve already bought for $10 a new Google Voice phone number with my new local area code. Instead of 301 I want my area code to be 540. I will be using this local Fredericksburg phone exchange on my website and expect to list phone numbers in both Spotsylvania and Fredericksburg on my website.

2. I will be using my full street address again on my website in the footer of all pages. Google loves location specificity and when you include your phone, address, city and state as well as zip code, Google understands more clearly how to categorize your website.

3. Google Local is an issue. Many business owners have real trouble updating their address in Google Places when they move. For some reason Google will continue to show your old address instead of your new address. As I do have full access to my old pages and new pages, and the ability to for a while to receive mail at my old location and phone number, I will be making my address change on Google before I move. I have found for some that try to do this after they have moved, it can be a problem when Google wants to send a snail mail update and they do not have access to mail.

4. I will start reworking my content to put Virginia in on my pages and to mention my location on blog posts more fully as I start to transition my business to its new location. Planning ahead is key and this blog post is simply the start of the process for me.

My new billing and office address in August will be:

10708 Chatham Ridge Way
Spotsylvania, Virginia 22551

5. Once I am landed in my new city, I will be joining the Chamber of Commerce. What a great way to connect with local business owners. Plus they will link to my website as a member and Google loves location specific links that are authoritative.  This will help Google to know I have moved.

6. I am a Google Local Guide and have already started to write about Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania, Virginia locations. That will give Google another online cue as to my new location.

It takes a while to own your local location for your business, but with careful thought and planning you can start to appear in local searches at your new location if you plan ahead.

Need some help with smart solutions to position your own business locally. Contact me at McCord Web Services today.

AdWords Express Gets a Thumbs Down Rating

Thumbs Down for AdWords Express
Thumbs Down for AdWords Express

It used to be that AdWords Express was easy enough for a business owner to set up and maintain and the results were pretty good for low budget accounts. But lately, Google seems to be delivering untargeted results.

Here’s an example. A client asked me to set up an AdWords Express account. They wanted to take a low budget route to get exposure on AdWords. Typically for clients with a $200 per 30 day ad spend who were okay with a 15 mile ad delivery radius around their business location, this seemed like a very low cost way to get fair results.

Now, Google has nearly totally automated keyword selection in AdWords Express accounts and if you really look at the 27 pages of keywords that Google is showing for one ad, you’d be shocked at what Google is delivering clicks on. The phrases and your ability to control what your ad shows on is now marginal at best.

With these changes, Google has automated the process, but at the expense of quality. On set up you can select one category from Google predetermined list, then select five or six predetermined terms by clicking a check box, but this is when the trouble starts. Google extrapolates high activity keywords for your account so if you selected permanent eyebrows Google now shows your ads for terms like semi-permanent makeup, eyebrow makeup, and cosmetics. Yikes!

Because of Google’s delivery change and inability to once and for all control the search phrases – ones you delete keep popping back into the account, I’ll be changing my program and recommending that only do it yourselfers who have loads of time on their hands use AdWords Express. The lack of controls is very concerning and makes me give it a thumbs down!

The New World of SEO

Google Partner Badge
McCord Web Services is a Google Partner.

How organic placement is determined on search engines has changed significantly in the past two years. Google states that it evaluates over 200 different factors to determine website placement on their search engine including links, the age of the domain name, some types of social media activity, and quality of content.

A service firm can no longer optimize a website based only on a set of keyword phrases and expect placement to be the same for every reader. Now, search engine results are personalized; meaning that what one customer sees is not the same as what another sees, and can even be different from what you, the website owner, sees online.

This makes traditional search engine optimization, as it has been known obsolete. Personalized search results are impacted by the search history that you yourself make every time you do a search on Google.com, Bing.com, or Yahoo.com. Results are impacted by what you search for and what you click in to review.

Additionally, personalized search results are now being skewed even further by your social media interaction; such as your activity and friend network on social sites and Google+.  And, even the authority of sites that link to your site. Add to that the emphasis that Google.com has placed on pushing local business listings, using Google+ Local, ahead of regular organic search listings and the art of improving search placement has become very, very complicated.

Today, a business must focus on organic and paid placement to garner leads and sales. There are still smart things that can be done to help to boost your website’s placement but gaming the system to grab top spots is a dead strategy and some actions can even permanently damage your search authority.

If you are looking for smart, ethical services to help improve your visibility, I invite you to visit our website for more information.

How to Add Location Specificity to Your Website

Google Partner Badge
McCord Web Services is a Google Partner.

I am in the process of building a new website for a client and wanted to share a few of my own tips for adding location specificity to your website. Although these are very simple tips, you would be amazed at how many web designers, who are not SEO-focused, will forget to use them.

1. Put your address, phone number, and locations in the code never in images. Search engines cannot read images and do not place any emphasis on what you have in the alt tag. Style these items with CSS don’t take the lazy route by creating them as images.

2. Make sure your phone number is at the top of each and every page and make the phone number clickable using this html tag: <a href=”tel:301-705-7303″>Phone 301-705-7303</a>. When you use code such as this for phone numbers in your content, smartphones will allow these links to be click to call and even browsers and tablets will try to open Skype or other phone calling application with a click.

3. Make sure you include the full address including spelled out state and zip code in the footer of all pages. I even go a step further and note the service counties if there are only several. Don’t do huge lists of cities or counties as Google does not like this approach, but a very small list delineating your service area to readers is appropriate.

4. On your contact page, make sure to embed a map from Google Maps. You can create this custom linkable image from within Google Maps and use the <iframe> code to insert it. This gives visual cues to readers and also a link that can be followed to your exact location for search engines. I have found many sites don’t include their physical location on their contact page; I think that this is a mistake, and unless you are working from a home office location you may want to correct that.

5. Consider on your about page giving more details about your service area. For pest control professionals we have found that a service listing with unique pages built for their important city locations may give the placement that they need in a town or city that they would like to place organically in.

If you need quality but affordable SEO-focused web design or redesign services make sure to check out our details on our responsive website design page.

Blog Writer’s Guide to Image Use – Prevent Copyright Infringement

Wow, I love this app!
Update your image use protocol.

As a quality blog writing service provider, my firm has developed some best practices over the years in regards to image use and preventing copyright infringement. I wanted to share a few with you in today’s blog post.

1. Use images in your blog posts. It used to be that just text was fine for a well-written blog post. But, in our very visual world of the web, without an image, your blog post looks dull and may not get the traction it needs to be shared. At McCord Web Services, we use only images that we have taken ourselves or images that we buy for one time use from DepositPhotos.com or iStockPhotos.com.

2. Make sure you and your staff adhere to the principle of leaving the purchased source in the image name. This way if you go to select an image to reuse from your WordPress media gallery if you see iStockPhotos or DepositPhotos in the file name, you know to buy a second license or not use it. Never, ever reuse a one time use photo thinking that just because it is in your WordPress blog media gallery you have full use rights. You do not!

3. Review your image use program with all staff. It does your firm no good if you know the image use rules, but your office staff who may do a blog post at some point in time does not!

4. Get in the habit of taking your own clip art photos. Why buy and image of a smartphone to use for your blog post when you can take a pic of your own and use it royalty free anytime you want? Typically, I will put MWS (McCord Web Services) in front of the file name of any pictures I take so that I know and my staff knows we own these image rights and can use them however and whenever we want for all our clients.

5. If you provide professional services like we do for blog clients, make sure your client knows the rules and you are indemnified from a future lawsuit from a client using one time use images that you may have purchased by putting it in your contract. We do.

If you need blog writing services make sure to check us out first.