Search Engine Marketing Blog

The State of New York’s new tax law requires that all online retailers “doing business in New York” register with the state to collect sales taxes by June 1, 2008. Those who do not register, will face audits for quarters previous to the deadline. Internet superstar Amazon is suing the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance (DTF)over this new tax law.

More than one Supreme Court ruling has declared that an out-of-state retailer is not required to collect sales tax from customers unless they have a physical presence, defined as employees or property, within the state. The internet retailer declared suit because “Amazon has no physical presence in New York” and has no employees or physical property residing in the state and therefore the law is unconstitutional.

Advertiser or Employee?

New York State is attempting to get around the Supreme Court precedent by saying that the Amazon Associates Program, an affiliate program, makes Amazon liable to collect taxes for New York website affiliates. An affiliate is a website that runs an advertisement that links to the sponsoring company and receives a fee when a visitor “clicks thru” and purchases from the sponsoring company. Somehow New York State has equated Affiliate advertising with the word “employee” and this seems to be quite a stretch of interpretation.

Most all of the states have been brainstorming for years on ways to generate revenue from internet enterprises and New York is just the first one to actually act upon it. If this law is upheld, we can expect all the other states to jump on the bandwagon.

Is this enforcable?

A recent discussion of this law suit on Webpronews received a great detail of responses and many insightful comments and questions came to light. One recurring theme was the seemingly daunting task of enforcing the law. How does the New York DTF expect to administer this new tax law? How will they ferret out the numerous small and large businesses that have affiliates residing in New York? None of this has been addressed by the state so far and it seems that the time and money needed to make sure the tax collection takes place could far outweigh the revenue benefit.

This raises a question for me that I did not see mentioned out their on the Blogs…if this is going to be so hard to administer, and with the affiliate-employee connection so seemingly flimsy, are they just trying to scare businesses into registering with the audit threat to get a good chunk of cash before the Courts squash the tax law?

It’s going to be hard for the New York DTF to get the courts to see affiliates as some kind of quasi-employee. Affiliate marketing is really advertising and if this law is upheld it could create a slippery slope situation for much broader taxation of internet businesses.

Goodbye New York Affiliates?

It’s possible that New York could shoot themselves in the foot by discouraging businesses from using affiliates in New York State. Imagine Amazon changing its affiliate information to read:

“We are always looking for quality affiliate partners to promote our products, unless you’re from New York.”

With a recession happening, charging $100 or $108 for an item in a competitive industry can make or break the sale. Sorry, no New York Affiliates Allowed!

For Digital Surgeons, this should be an interesting case to follow as it will impact how we conduct internet marketing strategies for our clients in the future. The online universe of ecommerce and promotion are constantly changing and, as always, we are on the look out for new ideas and creative ways to adapt to unfolding situations. For more of the latest information on the world of search engine marketing and ecommerce development, give us a call at (203) 672-6201 or explore our site at www.DigitalSurgeons.com.

I just finished reading an article on DMnews.com announcing Google’s first quarter 2008 earnings and, once more, am incredulous over the growth this search engine monster continues to sustain. Google is the internet trend setter, the creator of webmaster standards, and the major search engine of choice for close to 60% of all online searches. They must be doing something right.

So all those website businesses out there that still think marketing for Google is just not important, or that investing in expert SEO to curry Google’s favor is just not worth the cost—take a good hard look at that “60% of all searches” figure, ask around to see how people shop for just about everything these days, and then check out these first quarter earnings for more evidence that Google is just not going away anytime soon!

Google’s First Quarter 2008 Earnings

On April 17th Google announced $5.19 billion in earnings for the first quarter of 2008. This translates to a 42% increase over the first quarter of 2007. That’s about $2.5 billion more than the same time last year and a 7% increase over last quarter. Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, stated “We are obviously pleased with another strong quarter.” This small town Branford girl considers this the understatement of the year. Wow.

According to Schmidt, paid search revenues were far more lucrative than most third party sources predicted. Google’s total paid clicks rose 20% over first quarter 2007 figures and 4% over the previous quarter. Revenues through Google’s ad networks, mainly Adsense, saw a substantial 25% increase over first quarter 2007 earnings. Google-owned website revenue (the biggest money maker) increased a whopping 49% over the same timeframe last year. International revenues also saw a big climb with a 48% increase compared with the first quarter of 2007.

Employment went from 16,805 up to 19,156 just this quarter, with half of new employees coming from the recent purchase of Double Click. Google has announced they are selling the Double Click Performics group and that more staffing cuts are expected in this area. The company also just announced a new partnership between Google and Salesforce.com, a provider of on-demand CRM services, for Google to provide Salesforce for its Google Apps offerings.

Can You Afford to Ignore Google Anymore?

Every business operating on the internet needs to formulate a strategy for increasing their visibility in Google. With more and more consumers doing a substantial amount of their shopping and product research on this industry-dominating search engine, companies that want to beat out their competition, or at least get a good piece of the market share, cannot afford to ignore the reality of the times.

Yes, pay per click advertising with Google Adwords is a good starting place, but only 2-4% of all online searchers ever click on the paid ads. The vast majority, over 85% gravitate ONLY to the natural search engine listings on the left of the page. The only way to get to that coveted top 5 or 10 spot in the rankings for your most important search terms is with an ongoing plan of custom tailored search engine optimization and some time.

Find a reputable online marketing agency with experience, testimonials, web marketing case studies, and a commitment to the success of your business, and get to work making your website thrive in Google. It’s not always easy, it takes real work and real talent, but your hard-earned business is worth it.

To learn more about custom SEO and marketing that results in real online success, give Digital Surgeons a call at (203) 672-6201 or fill out our simple website contact form. We look forward to learning about your business.

*We all can’t be Google, but every business can achieve continuing growth and prosperity with the right partner working for them.*

Google’s recent launch of their new Search within the Site (SWTS) feature has created quite a stir in the marketing Blogs and publications as of late. The feature has been added to some of the larger sites on the internet, particularly publishers such as the Washington Post and New York Times, and shows up as a search box within the site listing in the Google search engine results as seen below.

The Google PR team has announced this as a breakthrough for searchers to assist them in further pinpointing the correct pages within the site, and hails this as a boon for small website businesses that do not have good internal search features. However, the Google SWTS system appears to be much less intuitive than the advanced search functions of most of the larger sites.

Many larger sites, along with professional and special interest sites, have put considerable research and time into developing the best set of responses to visitor inquiries, and it would be too optimistic at this point of the game to assume Google will automatically put forth a more intuitive search engine listing of pages than the business itself. Ironically, the search the site feature has been enabled in only very large sites so far, so those small promotional websites are not yet experiencing this predicted advantage.

Some websites have already requested the SWTS be disabled and Google has obliged, though spokespersons say that they may not be able to reverse this decision later. It’s difficult to see a logical or profitable reason for this statement. An Opt-out feature is predicted within the next month or so. The following image shows a typical search engine results page for a SWTS search on the Washington Post site.

Now, let’s talk about how Google will see revenue increases while website ad revenue could suffer. When the searcher uses the Search within the Site feature, pages within that site related to the search topic are listed without leaving Google. An additional offering of Google Adwords pay per click ads related to the search topic (see above) now show up giving users an opportunity to be enticed to the sites’ competitors. Google gets an extra round of Adwords dollars and the website owner loses any marketing revenue from sponsored ads he would have received by visitors searching from his actual site. If this SWTS feature takes hold, it could present more creative search engine marketing challenges for businesses and marketing agencies alike.

The online marketing gurus out there seem to have mixed reviews regarding the degree to which the Search within the Site function will impact both websites with the feature and Google’s advertisement revenue. Time will tell as always in the ever-changing world of internet marketing.

Visit www.Digitalsurgeons.com for in-depth information about the modern world of search engine marketing strategy. Experienced, talented professionals are ready to help clients plan SEO & online marketing campaigns that deliver real and lasting results for internet business. Give us a call at (203) 672-6201 or contact us via our convenient website form.

For nearly two years one of my clients resided at the number 1 position in Google for their strongest referring keywords. Competitors phone calls continued to pour in begging and pleading for us to become their SEO company so that they too could reap the benefits of top placement in the search engines. That was until about last week.

I was discussing top keyword placement with a prospective client when I opened up Google and did a search. To my dismay our number 1 position was gone. Knowing how volatile search engines could be I said “This happens from time to time. Keywords placements will bounce up or down, a position or two , or more.” So I scanned down the Google search results expecting to find the clients position somewhere on the first page….second page….fourth page. Uh Oh! Could it be possible that they have been banned? Never in my companies existence have any of our clients been penalized for any of our proven search engine optimization techniques.

This situation was perplexing. I called into our SEO department and brought the situation to the attention of our SEO experts. They were not sure of why this was happening at first glance. Are we overreacting? Are we just in the midst of a Google Algorithm Change? another Data Center Switch?

While they were working diligently to figure out the mysterious drop in the rankings I continued to do my own investigations. What I found was Google was paying attention to the capitalization of keywords. Our clients keywords are state specific therefore we had used capital N-ew York City in the meta data.

In early 2007 Google showed signs of becoming more critical of the usage of capital letters. That didn’t last very long though.

Has Google again recharged their efforts in separating searches that use Caps vs. No Caps?

Well as I was writing this blog post I did another search for my clients keyword and this time they are back at the top. Using caps or not their keywords have returned to the number 1 position.

Ugh! I hate Google! I would keep an eye out for keyword capitalization in meta tags, and content going forward. It is going to be like waiting for Y2K again.

Tags: Google. Case Sensitive, Keyword Case Sensitivity, Search Results

There comes a time when it’s a good idea to step back, take a deep breath, and take a long hard look at common sense business practices. Online marketing partners should be chosen with the same practical business principles used to choose more traditional business partners, with the added elements of technical expertise and internet marketing experience.

With the current economy what it is and the need to make sure every marketing dollar counts, it becomes even more important to shop value rather than the low bid. Choosing the lowest bidder can often be a very expensive decision. On the flip side, the highest price tag does not guarantee outstanding results. Following I have outlined 10 basic elements to evaluate when deciding on a search engine optimization and marketing service. Be practical, do your research, and remember that value for your marketing dollar and return on investment should always be the main focus of your search!

10 Things to Look for When Choosing your SEO

1. A commitment to Ethical SEO and business practices (no black hat or tricky practices).

2. An excellent client reference base, testimonials, and case studies.

3. A record of solid, lasting results and outstanding service.

4. Custom search engine marketing solutions for each unique client.

5. An attitude of partnership with the client for the long term. (Invested in your success)

6. Cutting edge industry tools, knowledge, and talent. Always up-to-date and learning more about the industry.

7. An experienced team of professionals: programmers, web designers, copy writers, SEO specialists, branding experts.

8. Outstanding client communications and education.

9. A commitment to excellence in all products and services.

10. A company base of solid, good sense business and marketing principles.

When you know what you are looking for in a search engine optimization company, it does not take long to uncover who the quality is and who to pass by. Integrity can be sensed in a portfolio, pride in product, thoughtful responses, and your own gut feeling for what a particular marketing company is all about.

To discuss a search engine optimization strategy with a company dedicated to Excellence in everything we do, give the Digital Surgeons a call at (203) 672-6201 or fill out our convenient website form. One of our SEO consultants will contact you promptly. We specialize in web design and search engine marketing for New York, Connecticut and the rest of the U.S.

In this article I will cover the importance of good website design and the process to streamline the creation and create success for any website project.

It starts with an idea—not with a technology:

In today’s internet obsessed world, far too many people are becoming more focused on the latest and greatest Web2.0 buzzwords than on the fundamental purpose of the website. Whether that purpose is to provide information or allow for the purchase of a product or service, there is a main purpose for the site and that needs to be identified.

Building the Blueprint: How to Plan your Website

CONCEPTING AND WIREFRAMING:

Creating a website is not that far removed from other traditional marketing campaigns in that a thorough initial analysis is crucial to the overall success of the project.

Simple sketches to identify your information flow and user interface become the building blocks of how you will position yourself online.

The website design should be based on the content, not the other way around. If you look into any successful website online their structure and information architecture surely have had a good amount of planning and research.

Having an understanding of this concept, you should blueprint your website with the following elements in mind:

· Objective: What are you trying to do with this website? It’s crucial you identify your objectives and goals in order to determine the direction the site will take.

· Competitive Analysis: Understanding what your competition is doing will help you compile a knowledge base that can be used in strengthening your brand and creating a differentiation that will help you compete in your market. Marketing professionals will sometimes refer back to Marketing 101 and talk about S.W.O.T analysis.

A SWOT analysis is a strategy used to quickly evaluate the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats involved in a project or business venture. Using the SWOT principals when doing your competition analysis is again, Marketing 101.

· Vocabulary and Message: Who are you trying to communicate with? Is your message being heard by the audience you are trying to reach? This is where graphic design and fundamental marketing concepts matter. You have approximately 8 seconds to captivate your audience before they grow tired and leave a page. Website visitors that leave your website in 8 seconds or less are considered a “bounce”. It is reported that the average bounce rate is close to 50%. Websites that heavily exceed this number are in drastic need of attention. When you are creating a website always keep in mind that the content you are delivering on any page within the site will be a determining factor as to how long the user stays on the page.

Sitemap & Wireframes: After gaining a solid understanding of your message, it is important to lay out the roadmap of how your information will flow throughout the website. A wireframe is the roadmap of your website and defines how visitors travel throughout the site. To reduce clutter and streamline usability, be sure that your navigation and site flow is consistent with good navigation and usability practices.

Wireframes also start to show “classifications” on a website. As users of the World Wide Web and interfaces on a daily basis, information architecture exists all around you.

o Lexicon Classifications: A Lexicon is simply a complex way of describing labeling systems and classifications. The lexicon breaks up a website into various sections and labels the sections with popular verbiage such as “Resources” and “Support”. These are functions of the various navigation systems, but these labels also help define and segment various pieces of information.

o Organizational Classifications: This is how the website’s information is presented to the user with respect to organization. For example, how various navigation elements are grouped together.

o Search: These tools, similar to how Google would search the web for content, give the user the ability to search the website and the various content within the website.

o Navigation: This is how we help users move through the content, digging deeper into the site as they visit the content areas of their choice.

· Look & Feel: Despite popular belief, having Photoshop or Dreamweaver installed doesn’t make someone a graphic artist or user interface designer. Having the “dorm-room” designer build your website can have a profound negative effect on your bottom line. Granted, you can cut costs by working with template-based solutions or hiring an inexperienced web developer, but this is not the route to take if you are serious about your website and the success of your business. Identifying the look and feel that will send the proper message to your target audience will have a direct effect on how visitors will respond to the website.

· Content: Have you ever visited a website and clicked on a number of things only to find the famous “Under Construction” message? Content, or should I say lack thereof, is one of the main reasons a site fails or never gets completed. You can have the best concept and layout in the world, but if there is no quality content to place into the site, at the end of the day, all you are left with is dead air.

From Paper to Web: Transforming your Blueprint into a Live Web Site.

Graphic Design and Website Page Creation:

Once you have created the blueprint of where you are going to take the website, you now have the necessary pieces to get started on the Concept Phase.

Depending on the designer, a number of applications may be utilized to compile the website design concepts. The most popular software suite by far used for website design concepts is the Adobe Creative Suite which contains applications such as Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign. In addition to this application, many users still use Macromedia/Adobe’s Fireworks for website layouts.

By using a combination of the content and information presented in the above wireframes you can now start to compile how the website will look and feel.

Generally speaking, it is best to finalize the look and feel aspects of your website before spending time and resources on having it programmed. Design concepts that will play a big role in your website creation include traditional design composition elements such as point, line, form, texture, color, and type.

Keeping in mind these various elements will ensure the end result of your website possesses the needed attributes to deliver your message in a clear and concise manner. A clearly defined website message will result in a lower bounce rate and more people actually seeing and reading your website.

The Importance of Color in Successful Website Design

The use of color in website design has a profound impact on the website viewer experience. Colors affect people in a deep psychological, and often completely subconscious, manner and have the power to make the website experience overwhelmingly positive or negative. Most professionals recommend choosing up to five colors and using them consistently throughout the website.

Color choices provoke different responses for different people. The color palette of your website should consider the age group, gender, and culture of your intended audience, while also reflecting the emotional response you wish to stimulate in the potential customer. Certain colors have the tendency to create calm, excitement, happiness, or distaste, again depending upon who the website user is.

Another major factor in website color scheme is readability. The choice of background and type color should contrast well for readability without being harsh and glaring to the eye. Color can also be used to make certain phrases stand out within your site content or to indicate links within the text. Following are some color choice basics to consider when planning the palette of your website.

Color Choice Fundamentals

Use colors from nature. Using forest greens, sea blues, and the reds and yellows of flowers and fall leaves is much more alluring to viewers than harsh colors not seen in the natural world (such as shocking pink, electric blue, and neon green).

Color preference differs from men to women. Men prefer blue and orange while women are drawn to reds and yellows. Women also are capable of perceiving a much broader spectrum of colors and sense subtle shade variations much more easily.

Viewer age plays a role in color choice. Young adults and teens are often excited by bright, vibrant colors and contrast. Older people tend to be more interested in websites that have more conservative color schemes such as blues, grays, and browns, without glaring contrasts that can tire the eye.

Culture & nationality affect response to colors. In the United States and most European cultures, the color White symbolizes purity and marriage. However, in Japan and China white is a color of bad luck and red is the traditional color of new brides. If your website is aimed at attracting international customers, make sure to research the cultural color beliefs of your target audience.

The universal safe color. Blue seems to be a universally safe choice among different cultures, ages, and genders, evoking good feelings of peace and calm for most everyone.

Choose background and text colors for good contrast and readability. The best choice for readability is a white background with black text. Other good choices include gray or black backgrounds with a well contrasting text color. Avoid harsh contrasts such as red and green or blue and yellow, which have been shown to cause eye fatigue.

Keep in mind the most common meanings & emotions associated with color. Although different people react differently to colors, there are some very common meanings and emotions associated with certain colors. See below for a few examples:

Red: Excitement, power, passion, or anger.

Yellow: Joy, happiness, light

Blue: Cool, peace, trustworthiness, loyalty, or sadness

Black: Sophistication, mystery, or evil

Green: Life, nature, health, wealth

Consider website viewers with color perception problems. The most common form of color-blindness, most commonly seen in men, is blue-green colorblindness, where a person cannot differentiate between these two colors when they are next to each other. A blue background with green text will be completely unreadable to this person.

Stock Photography and Gathering Photography:

Obviously, using completely custom photography is ideal, but let’s face it, who has the time or the budget to always do that? Below I have outlined a few of my personal favorite sources for graphics and photography:

· STOCK XCHNG

o www.sxc.hu/ this massive gallery online has many high quality stock photos for non commercial usage. You can also purchase credits online for this.

· ISTOCKPHOTO

o http://istockphoto.com/index.php Great website for member-generated royalty free images. You can purchase these images by credits and they are relatively inexpensive at around $1.00 per image

· SHUTTERSTOCK

o http://www.shutterstock.com/ A subscription based website for downloading stock photos.

· GETTYIMAGES

o Great website with a massive database and the ability to custom search. A drawback for some people can be that many of these photos are rights-managed, meaning the license costs can get to be pretty expensive for smaller projects.

To the Chopping Block we Go: Transforming your Graphic Design into a Working Website.

The first step of coding a website is deciding upon the programming language to be used. The web developer will use different programming languages depending upon the features and abilities the website needs to accomplish its goals. Most promotional websites are best coded in HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) which is very search engine friendly and flexible. When an ecommerce shopping cart, an interactive event calendar, or content management system is needed, you will need to use a server-side programming language such as PHP or ASP.

In almost all cases, avoid creating a website from a pre-packaged templated website building program. The vast majority of these programs, many featuring shopping carts, are not search engine friendly and the code is messy and extraneous. Additionally, the website builder has little access to the actual code of the site, limiting options for further development. The website software company usually will not allow outside developers to make changes to their website creation program and can charge very high fees for necessary upgrades or modifications to the website.

Why Custom Design is the Smart Choice

Choosing an experienced website design professional, proficient in multiple aspects of web design and ecommerce development, to build a custom website from scratch could be the best business investment you ever make. This ensures that your website will be built to reflect your company’s goals and your client’s needs and desires from the ground up.

A professional website developer should also ensure that your site meets the stringent standards of the W3C (World Wide Web consortium) and follows industry best practices to ensure smooth, efficient function and a good reception by the major search engines. Well structured websites are designed to be scalable, so that when upgrades or additional product lines are added the site can easily adapt to accommodate the growth of the company.

Based upon conversations, design questionnaires, and additional sources of information, a professional website designer will present design concepts, also called a ‘mock up’ of the website for your approval and feedback. Based upon that feedback, the designer will make revisions to your specifications. Usually a round or two of revisions occurs before the final website creation is ready for launch live on the web. A reliable website design agency will perform all kinds of testing on different platforms to ensure the site functions efficiently and looks great from all the major browsers.

Proper Page Names are Essential

The proper taxonomy (naming structure) of your website pages is essential to identify to the search engines what that page is all about. When creating a website, the individual page names should clearly label the purpose of the page and use your industry’s most important keyword phrases whenever possible.

Most templated website building programs generate automatic page names (URL’s) that involve series of numbers and symbols that are highly un-search engine friendly and do not identify the page is any logical manner to the viewer. The majority of templated programs do not allow the user to rename the pages individually.

Page Taxonomy Examples:

When a website is custom built from the ground up, the designer will name each page in a manner that reflects the products or services on the page and is easily indexed by Google and the other major search engines. For example:

Correct Page Naming: www.Digitalsurgeons.com/Ecommercewebsites.php clearly defines that this page is about building ecommerce websites.

Poor Page Naming: A page with the naming structure of: www.kidsclothing/series?123/x4 tells the search engines absolutely nothing and the page will never be properly indexed for the correct category of product.

When you create a new website, everything that goes into the process is meant to tell both the customer and search engines what your business is all about.

Building the Titles and Meta Data: Another Way to Tell the World What it’s All About

Once the website developer has built the framework of the website navigation and pages, the strategic fields of your new site should be developed to further reflect what your business is all about. These fields include title tags, meta descriptions, and meta keyword tags, as well as several other strategic areas that can further identify your site to the search engines and to clients.

Each page of a website has its own set of titles and meta tags and these should all be developed individually to reflect the purpose and content of the page. Repeating the same title and keywords throughout every page of the website is ineffective and can actually harm your chances of doing well in the search engine listings.

Keyword Stuffing is Notthe Answer

When the idea of search engine optimization was new, some web developers got into the bad habit of stuffing as many keywords as possible into the strategic fields of sites. I still see it today when I look at a prospective client’s website source code and notice a block of keywords half a page long! Cramming huge lists of keywords into the title, description, or keyword tag is just one way that some people still practice ‘keyword stuffing’.

Google and the other search engines now penalize websites that use this practice to try to bump up their search engine rankings. The practice is now completely ineffective and can result in getting your website dropped down or banned from the search engine listings.

Correct Meta Data Development is an Art & Science

Experienced search engine optimization and web development professionals are skilled at analyzing what the search engines are looking to see in a title tag or description. Rules can change frequently and can differ among the types of websites the search engine is looking at (ecommerce, promotional, etc.). Your web designer or SEO expert will develop your title and meta data fields based on a careful review of what is happening online and with competing sites and determining what the search engines are favoring. Just as in life, there is no one magic formula for optimizing your site.

Put the Customer First: Never sacrifice readability and accuracy for the chance to get a couple more keywords in the mix. The client always comes first when creating your website, while keeping the search engines firmly in mind. Balance is the key and a good rule of thumb is to include two or three of the most pertinent keywords in your title and description tags. Also, use exact phrase matches when listing keywords in your keyword tag.

Building a Website Founded on Industry Best Practices

The W3C

The W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) has published standards for good website design and HTML validation that have become widely accepted everywhere. Websites that meet these guidelines are much, much more likely to do well in the search engines. These practices also look out for the user in encouraging efficient, user friendly website coding practices. Good tools are available free online for analyzing sites to see if they meet validation and finding out what specific issues exist. The W3C standards also make it easier for HTML programmers from all over to interpret coding and work with existing site programming.

Google’s Webmaster Guidelines:

Google’s set of webmaster guidelines are a great place to start when you want to find out what Google wants to see in a website. These recommendations cover areas such as using sitemaps, correct text link development, naming conventions, and encourage website builders to develop sites with the end-user always as the primary focus of the endeavor.

Google strongly encourages creating a website rich in good quality information with a logical structure and user-friendly navigation. All of their more recent algorithm changes are aimed at making a better quality experience for the user.

Pulling it all Together

An excellent website designer will always be researching industry best practices and working to stay on the cutting edge of web development. Working with an agency that delivers great website development skills with high power search engine optimization abilities makes for a powerful combination for your business.

The overriding message of this article is the importance of creating a solid website foundation for your online business from the ground up by designing with the customer as the focus and the search engines always in mind. Keeping practical website design principles in mind and planning thoroughly will put you and your new website on the road to online success. Our SEO Consulting and Website Design team has all the components for a successful online marketing mix

The team at Digital Surgeons encourages your questions and ideas. Call us at (203) 672-6201 or visit our site at www.Digitalsurgeons.com. We look forward to hearing from you.

New, and sometimes even experienced, business owners may feel tempted to hire someone they know or a ‘friend of a friend’ to build their website. Companies need to see their websites as the online showcase of their business. For Ecommerce ventures, the website becomes the essential online store.

The one-man freelance designer may seem like a good idea at the time. Initial pricing is often much lower than with a professional web design house. The one-man show may profess to being an expert in every aspect of web development and search engine marketing and offer a quicker deadline than the web agency did. Businesses may like the feeling of working with a ‘friend of a friend’ or the owner’s cousin. In most cases, the realities of working with the ‘dorm room designer’ are quite different.

Following are several advantages of working with a professional ct website design and marketing agency versus the basement web professional:

A Team of experienced Web Designers each with a wide range of skills and their own particular talent niches are available to bring their talents to many projects. Graphic artists, website programmers, flash developers, ecommerce designers SEO experts, and professional copy writers. Agencies have the resources to acquire the top talent in the industry. The Dorm Room Designer may claim expertise in all areas, but logic decrees this is just not likely.

Increased Man-power Resources: More design professionals to allocate jobs to gets the job moving on schedule. Professional project management systems also keep design projects on task for the intended delivery date. The Dorm Room Designer is by definition a ‘one man show’.

Custom Web Design/Tailored to the Target Audience: Doing the research, looking at the big picture of who, what, how, and why and building a custom website that looks at every aspect of doing business online in each unique industry. This takes an experienced team of both marketing and web development professionals to get the job done correctly.

Quality Assurance: Professional web design firms conduct extensive testing on all major browsers and in every important situation. Proofing and editing is ongoing throughout the project. Good agencies make a commitment to keep current with industry best practices, technical innovations, and the most effective methods of website promotion.

Full Spectrum of Marketing Agency Services: Many good agencies combine both web design and search engine marketing services. These two fields are interlinked so closely that it just makes good business sense. Once a custom site is created, the agency works to drive substantial high-quality traffic to the site. SEO, media buying, and social networking are some of the many marketing tactics a quality web agency will use to help clients gain success online. It is hard to imagine the lone designer bringing all of these skills to the table.

Experts in ‘Branding’ A good web marketing and design team is expert in building a website presence from the ground up that will convey the mission and philosophy of a business, and make sure the target customer gets the message loud and clear. ‘Branding’ takes skill, experience, and an instinctive eye for what consumers want that not everyone can deliver.

Making the Website Vision a Reality:

Commitment to Excellence: Unlike the ‘Dorm Room Designer’, the great agencies are not looking to make a quick buck or just playing with the idea of becoming IT professionals. Digital Surgeons is home to an established and committed group of industry professionals who love nothing better than unraveling the mysteries of the search engines and the consumer mind, and putting that information to work for our clients. We provide CT web design services of unparalleled performance.

Every website we build and marketing campaign we perform is geared to completely outperform expectations and become something we can proudly showcase as our own. Digital Surgeons works to make sure the job is done right, on time, and if any problems occur, we take care of them quickly and efficiently. If we don’t think we can help your business be more successful, we will not take the project. Will that happen with the ‘dorm room designer?

For more information about Digital Surgeons or to start working on a new website or search engine marketing plan today, call our Connecticut web design and marketing professionals at (203) 672-6201 or fill out our convenient website contact form.

On March 7th, 2008 our client Sir Drake Clothing was seen on the “Happy Hour” segment of Fox Business News. Founders Topper Luciani and Scott Caputo discussed the process that has led to the success of the Sir Drake clothing line.

The young entrepreneurs formed the company while still in college with the goal to create a polo shirt that was edgy yet rooted in tradition. Sir Drake is about the paradox of the modern man – willing to follow the rules of fashion yet actively seeking to express an individual sense of style.

The focal point of this philosophy are the 8 original Sir Drake icons (or logos) embroidered on their polos, with each having special meaning. Instead of the traditonal gator logo we all have come to know, Sir Drake’s icons include their flying pig symbolizing the drive to “achieve the impossible” and the airplane that signifies “no boundaries”

Digital Surgeons helped Sir Drake in marketing their vision by creating their website at www.Sirdrakeclothing.com, a highly innovative design with ecommerce platform and interactive flash elements that delivers a high conversion to sale ratio. For more details about the web development project visit the Sir Drake Client Case study on the Digital Surgeons website.

The Fox Business piece talked about the trials and tribulations Sir Drake experienced in using foreign manufacturers, including run-ins with poor quality, waterlogged shipments, and late deliveries. They have become strong proponents of the ‘Made in the USA’ movement after finding that the quality of both workmanship and communications is far superior to the alternative.

The Sir Drake clothing line can be found in many retail locations now and online at www.sirdrakeclothing.com. In marketing the website, the founders emphasized good old-fashioned persistence and knocking on every door for opportunity. They also have experienced much success through social network marketing and search engine marketing strategies.

The Digital Surgeons crew is pleased to be a part of this business success story and we wish our friends at Sir Drake Clothing a lifetime of growing prosperity. For more information on building online success, contact us at (203) 672-6201 or via our website form.

Digital Surgeons has just released to the online public our latest white paper entitled The Blueprint for Online Success: Understanding the Fundamentals of Website Design. In this comprehensive article Pete Sena II, Chief Technical Officer and founding partner of Digital Surgeons LLC, offers real-world advice on building a website that delivers lasting success.

This article emphasizes the importance of careful research and planning when creating any website venture. From the ground up, successful web sites are custom built with the target audience in mind with elements that appeal to the ideal client. The goal is to grab and hold the attention of potential customers and deliver a website experience that is interesting, easy to navigate, and delivers what the visitor is looking for.

Readers will access practical design principles about website structure, colors and fonts, customer demographic differences, and search engine friendly coding considerations. Find out about the pitfalls of using cheap templated website building programs and the profound advantages of custom website development.

Both promotional and ecommerce website businesses will benefit from the insights in this article. This is valuable information that can guide new online businesses to solid, lasting success.

The Blueprint for Online Success: Understanding the Fundamentals of Website Design covers all the basics of creating a powerful website that attracts both customers and the search engines. Peter Sena II can be reached for questions and ideas at (203) 672-6201 or Pete@digitalsurgeons.com.

Coming soon in March the Entrepreneurial Women’s Network of Connecticut (EWN) will be hosting a new workshop on the most effective practices in internet marketing for Connecticut businesses. The most recent trends in New Media strategies will be discussed by a panel of Web 2.0 experts with plenty of opportunities to explore the subjects of blogging, social network marketing, podcasts, and the best ways to utilize these and more tactics to make your business thrive online.

This is practical, real world marketing advice that can make an incredible difference in the success of both new and established companies. Here are the details of this important workshop:

When: March 26th, 2008
8:15am – 11:15am

Register: http://www.ewn-ct.org/morning_wk_0308.htm
Members: $20 Non-members: $25

Panelists who work in the Connecticut internet marketing arena will share with you there most valuable insights. Andrew DiFiore will be discussing the mysteries of Viral Marketing and Web 2.0. Our own Peter Sena will deliver his experience with social network marketing and using the best online marketing mixes for your business. Other panelists will discuss email marketing, web analytics, and much more.

For guests this workshop will:

1. Offer an understanding and definition of new internet marketing strategies and how they can be used to promote your business.

2. Provide Key resources to help you get started with your plan.

3. Provide a practical discussion on the costs involved in building these new strategies into your business marketing plan.

4. Identify common mistakes and ways to avoid them.

5. Help you determine which internet marketing strategies are right for your company.

This New Media workshop is expected to fill up quickly and space may be limited. Be sure to sign up now at the website link provided above. The EWN of CT and Digital Surgeons looks forward to seeing you at the workshop.

For more information on the latest in CT search engine marketing and rich media strategies that yield substantial results, give Digital Surgeons a call at (203) 672-6201, contact us via our website form, or come talk with us at the EWN March Morning Workshop.