I guess I'm getting ahead of myself by assuming you know what keywords, or phrases, actually are. In a nutshell, they're the words or phrases people are using in their searches to find you, or businesses like you. So, for me, that's phrases like "website design", "web site design", "web development".

Often, there's a tendency to want to rank for EVERY keyphrase you can think of or keyphrases that are too vague. Examples of vague keyphrases/words are (again, using myself as an example) design, internet, marketing. Design could be architectural, graphic, boat, aeroplane, automobile!

So here's 5 questions to ask yourself about your keywords & phrases BEFORE you talk to your website designer.

1. How would you describe what you do?
2. In your opinion, what makes your product or service special? What makes you different from your competitors? In other words, what's your USP (Unique Selling Point)?
3. What services or products do you consider similar, but aren't your competitors?
4. Which of your services or products are most profitable for you? Are there any reasons why you would want to push one over another (seasonal, inventory, location, etc)?
5. Pick you top 10 keywords (in your opinion).

Once you've answered these questions you

CitrusKiwi Web Solutions LLC has won the "Best of Citrus Heights for Web development 2013"!

Wow!  What an exciting email to receive! Of course, it lost its luster somewhat as I'd had 2 identical emails over the last 3-4 weeks for Web marketing and for Search Engine Optimization.

So what's this "best of <city name> for <your industry>" scam all about?  Money!  Isn't it always?  And this is how it works...

You'll get an email out of the blue stating that you've won. Here's the exact text from the opening line of the one I just received.

CitrusKiwi Web Solutions LLC has been selected for the 2013 Best of Citrus Heights Awards for Web Site Design & Development.

The email goes on to say that I can get "...details and more information..." by viewing their website and giving a link.  So, curious me follows the link and, yowza!, there's my award.  It IS real! <cough, cough> All I need to do now is claim my award by clicking the link.  So I did - well, I clicked the link anyway...

As I suspected, there is a monetary cost to "claiming my award" (the award I knew nothing about and never

When I first began designing websites - a long way back in internet terms - in the late 1990's, things were much simpler.  Little completition, little sophistication, little anything! Nowadays, the landscape is vastly different, and the industry has fragmented into many niche sectors - design, mail, SEO, and more.  It's harder and harder as a small business to be all things to everyone.  That's why we decided to move away from offering anything much in the way of off-page SEO and concentrate on what we did well - design and implementation.

Mobile websites - good or bad?

When mobile website first began appearing, they were totally separate sites to the main desktop/laptop site.  You'd see different URLS - m.citruskiwi.com or mobile.citrsukiwi.com (don't bother following those links as they won't work!). These were all well and good - they DID display on mobile devices well, but they often lacked much of their bigger cousin's functionality and were, therefore, very frustrating to use.  They also had the huge drawback that they required maintaining 2 individual websites.  Sure, they shared content, but the framework was different.

In 2010 the term "Responsive website" was coined, but it's not really till this

1. Don't be Hypnotized by the Bad News. Constantly watching the bad news on the TV, the newspaper or internet is not going to change things. Be informed, but don't excessively indulge in watching the bad news. Focus on things that you can change and be proactive. What's in your sphere of influence? Focus on that. Also make sure that you don't hang out with people who have been hypnotized. They will be like a wet blanket.
2. Cultivate an Attitude of Gratitude. Be grateful for things that are working in your life. Focus on the things you already have.
3. Over Communicate the Good News. Make sure you over-communicate with your team, your clients, suppliers, bankers and suppliers. When there is too much bad news in the market, be the shining beacon that gives fresh perspective that things are still working. It's like an antidote to the bad news. It gives people hope. Share stories on a weekly basis about how you and your company are making a positive impact. Highlight cost savings and increase in productivity your
product or service delivers.
4. Consult your Advisors Regularly. The regular consultation with your CPA and other key advisors can give you insight into the health of your business.  They can

We all used to do our pre-purchase "research" using the Yellow Pages, but no more.  Well over 1/2 of all pre-purchase research is now done online, with as high as 83% when it relates to books, music, movies, computers & electronics according to a PriceWaterhouseCoopers study in March 2012.  In today's buying world, people are looking at specs, at prices and at recommendations.  Recommendations can be from authority sites - Cnet, PC World, etc - or in the form of testimonials.  And that's why testimonials are so very important to your website.

I always tell clients, "We need a testimonials page" when I'm talking about their new site.  A sadly overwhelming number fail to see why or have even considered it.  I figure the only reason this is so common is because 20-30 years ago you could trust almost anyone in business.  Everyone knew about the bad ones because they were uncommon.

Getting great testimonials for your business

1. Ask for them!

I know this sounds obvious, but when did you last ask for a testimonial from a client?  Just having a testimonial page on your site with an "Add a testimonial" button will not cause a flood of

How to fix 4 common on page SEO disasters

On page SEO - that's the stuff you do to your actual website, as opposed to off page SEO which is the back linking process, etc - is a pretty simple thing to get right.  Yet, I see it done wrong so often and that hurts you and you business.  Here are 5 ways to boost your on page SEO - and they're all easy.

The "Title Tag"

This is what appears in the browser tab of the website, or pops up when you mouse over the tab.  This is the most important tag in your on page SEO arsenal.  Getting this one wrong can be painful, yet, as I said, I see it wrong so often.  This tag should be 60-70 characters long - characters after that will be ignored.  I aim for 65 generally.  You should also get your most important keywords or phrases at the beginning of the tag - the closer to the end, the less weight the search engines (SE's) put on them.

This tag should be different for every page of your site.  Think of it as banner advertising for the benefit of the search engines.  You're

Back in the 80s I had computer problems and had to buy a new hard drive and some more memory.  The memory stick was a wopping 1Mb and cost $100!  I don't remember the cost of the equally wopping 80Mb HD (can't even get Windows on that now!), but I remember thinking to myself, "How will I ever fill up that much disk space?"  How times, and technology, has changed.  And changed our lives.

Remember these?  Yes, that's aging me to say I do, in fact, I had a couple of them.  And that was only a decade before my 80Mb HD. In the day when I carried my bank book to the bank with my 50c to deposit (and that was a bunch of money back then), desktop computers were few and far between, and the closest we got to smartphones or tablets was watching Star Trek... "Beam me up Scotty!"  Now, a recent study of just under 100 business executives has shown 11% of respondants had 5 or more mobile devices.

1. Continued mobile online growth.

As more people have more mobile devices, more interactivity will happen online.  Expect to see the marketshare of desktops, and, I predict,

I put off using Twitter for years.  I just seemed an odd little thing, but now, with 150 million plus tweets a day, it's hard to ignore as a viable marketing tool.  Everywhere you look you see @<some_name>; TV, billboards, magazines.  But are businesses using it correctly.  Do they have a plan?  Quality control? Metric tracking?   Do you?

I've been doing some research on Twiiter methods for business and a client talked to me this week about exactly that.  I sent them a somewhat complete email, but, on reflection, realised that I'd not really given them a big how-to, rather a do this.  So I sat down today and wrote "The Twitter Method", which is a complilation of all that I'd gleaned.  I'm sure, given the ever changing landscape of the net, there's a bunch of stuff not in there, but it's a good starting place for those who've never used Twitter for business.  Happy tweeting!

Download "The Twitter Method" here >>

Although everyone told me I didn't need to lose any weight,I've recently shed a little over 20lbs and feel so much better for it.  The only downside, is I now need to go through my closet and get rid of a bunch of clothes that are waaaay too big for me!  A good downside I think you'd agree though.

Reducing your website's wait

When Google is presented with a search query, it looks at the pages in its index and applies a test that includes over 200 parameters to it in a bid to serve the user a relevant result.  One of those is page load speed.  There's a temptation now to overlook this vital aspect of page "health".  After all, most of our users have a fast internet connection right?  Who uses a 56k dial up modem anymore?  Interestingly, I was speaking to someone just a few weeks ago who does.  They're in a "black" area where no one can get broadband access.

From Google's point of view, a fast loading site is good - a tick - and a slow loading one is bad - an X.  So it's crucial to make sure your pages load quickly.  Here

This week I got a very timely reminder about the value of backups, and being on top of your internet security.  Despite the best efforts and intentions, if you don't know, don't assume!  When one buys space of a reputable, respectable and established host, it's reasonable, but very dangerous, to assume they would have put into place all the necessary security measures, right?  Wrong!

This week - well it came to a head this week; the actual damage had been done around Valentines Day - our server got hacked.  Not as badly as it could have been, but enough to be more headaches than a mild irritation.  Obviously I've seriously tightened up security - things which I foolishly assumed would have automatically been put in place already.  That was my mistake, and I am grateful only 1 client suffered anything (2 days without a site) due to my mistake.

The great thing was I did have backups of everything, so it was just a time thing to restore the sites that were badly damaged, and then go through and scan, and clean, all the junk that the hacker or hackers had dropped in there.  Yep, we changed logins and passwords