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Archive for June, 2009

Energy Services Group: Billing, Transactions & More for Energy Companies

Monday, June 29th, 2009

Last week flyte launched a new Web site for Energy Services Group, the retail energy industry's leading provider of transaction management (EDI), billing, and CIS, and wholesale energy services.

Which just goes to show you, we can build effective Web sites even when I have to ask the client to explain what they do every time we meet. Luckily, the folks over at ESG are extremely patient since they're used to working with everyone from the largest retail energy suppliers to entrepreneurs looking to break into the energy business.

ESG offers transaction management services, cash billing services, wholesale energy services and more. Besides having great, experience people working there, they also have unbeatable technology.

Flyte designed and built this site on WordPress, an easy-to-use content management system (CMS) that allows ESG to update their site, add new pages, upload images, embed video and more. Since WordPress was originally a blogging platform, adding an Energy Services Blog to ESG's Web marketing mix was simple. Flyte further helped increase ESG's online presence with search engine optimization including a keyword analysis and link building activities.

If you're interested in breaking into retail energy, or you're already in but want to build your business, be sure to check out Energy Services Group. If you'd like to build your own presence online, or increase your online visibility, be sure to check out flyte new media.

Posted in Web Site Launches | No Comments »

The Ultimate Google Analytics Video Guide

Sunday, June 28th, 2009

In the Holistic Web Marketing model, there are four components to a successful, effective Web marketing campaign:

Attraction: how to drive qualified traffic to your site
Retention: how to keep the lines of communication open after people have left your site
Conversion: how to get people to move down the sales funnel at your site
Measurement: tracking all of the above for continual improvement

It's that last piece–measurement–that's the focus of The Ultimate Google Analytics Video Guide that we just published at Squidoo.

This is a collection of the how-to videos we created for small businesses so you could put Google Analytics to use, along with some other important resources that will help you measure your growth and success online.

If you'd like more help understanding your Google Analytics, or installing a copy of the free software on your own Web site, just let us know.

Rich Brooks
Google Analytics for Small Business

Posted in Analytics | 8 Comments »

Maine SEO Project: Acadia Center for English Immersion (Optimizing for International Search)

Thursday, June 25th, 2009

Earlier this week, flyte relaunched a new site for Acadia Center for English Immersion – courses for learning English as a second language. After a redesign, SEO, Web marketing, and finally relaunch…I must say, it’s a beautiful website.

As far as the SEO portion was concerned, I had my first experience with internationally optimizing. It soon became clear that folks who want to learn English as a foreign language aren’t altogether familiar with Maine. How bizarre.

What did we do? We quickly found out that international searchers look for things like “english courses USA” or “learn english united states”. At the same time, it was important to not forget local search, as some students do come from the New England area.

So, if you’re in need of English lessons – be it to master English as a second language or simply to remaster it as a first language – look no further than Acadia Center for English Immersion! Check out Acadia Center on Twitter and Facebook too. And if you need help optimizing on an international level, look no further than flyte.

Nicki Hicks
Maine SEO

Tags: acadia center, international optimization, Maine SEO
Posted in Projects Archive | 2 Comments »

Southern Maine Community College Launches New Joomla Web Site

Thursday, June 25th, 2009

Flyte recently redesigned and rebuilt a Web site for SMCC: Southern Maine Community College.

Located on the edge of Casco Bay, SMCC is an excellent choice for high-quality, affordable education in Maine. It offers both career and technical programs as well as an associates degree in liberal studies.

In addition to information and resources for students (past, present and future) and faculty, visitors to the site can learn about the Business & Community partnerships and opportunities that the college offers.

Flyte built the site on Joomla, a powerful open-source content management system (CMS) so that the college could manage the site inhouse. Different departments can update and maintain their own sections of the site without having access to other departments. (You know, in case the math chair wants to prank the English chair for TP'ing his house.)

If you're looking for a stellar, affordable education in southern Maine, be sure to visit Southern Maine Community College. If you're looking for an attractive, professional Web site that you can maintain yourself, contact flyte new media.

Rich Brooks
Maine Joomla Web Design

Posted in Web Site Launches | No Comments »

English Immersion Courses on the Maine Coast of the USA

Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009

If you've been looking for intensive English courses–learning English as a second language–then you should check out a Web site flyte just launched.

The site is for the Acadia Center for English Immersion, located in Camden on the beautiful Maine coast.

Adult students receive individual attention, a personalized learning program, private and small group classes, total English immersion, family style meals, comfortable accommodations, and more…in short, "everything you need to improve your English quickly and enjoy a memorable learning vacation."

As I was reviewing the site before posting this I was stuck by this memorable testimonial:

"I began to think in English. I paid attention to others and listened carefully. I have never seen such beautiful scenery or the night sky with so many stars."

- Tomoko, teacher, Japan

You can become a fan of the Acadia Center on Facebook or follow them on Twitter; both accounts are fairly new, but will continue to add content over time.

Flyte built the site on WordPress, an easy-to-use content management system (CMS) that makes updates a snap, whether you're adding content, uploading images, embedding video or creating new pages.

If you're looking to speak English like a native (or better), be sure to check out the Acadia Center for English Immersion. If you're looking to grow your business online, be sure to speak to flyte new media today.

Rich Brooks
Web Design for Small Business

Posted in Web Site Launches | No Comments »

PageRank Sculpting Isn’t What It Used To Be (or What’s Going on with Nofollow?)

Monday, June 22nd, 2009

There’s been a lot of talk of late about PageRank sculpting as it relates to nofollow tags. Why? Because the way PageRank works changed just over a year ago and now they’re telling us.

PageRank has always flowed like this to pages from links that are not nofollowed (affectionately known as dofollow).

When you add a nofollow tag to a link, you stop PageRank from flowing. This result remains unchanged; but now, you’re not adding any benefit to the other (dofollow) links on the page. They still pass the same percentage of PageRank, as if all the links were dofollow:

What does this mean? Nofollow isn’t as strong as it once was. You can’t use it to PageRank sculpt.

Should you stop nofollowing? No, I don’t think so. To those pages like your Search page, Contact page, and perhaps Privacy Policy, I think nofollows are still a great idea. They are pages where you wouldn’t necessarily need PageRank to flow.

There’s a lesson to learn here. If you don’t trust a website enough (or just don’t want to pass the PageRank) to dofollow a link, you probably shouldn’t be linking in the first place.

The right way to PageRank sculpt? An intuitive site architecture – for both searchers and search engines.

Nicki Hicks
Sculpting is an art

Tags: dofollow, nofollow, PageRank sculpting
Posted in Search Engine Marketing | 3 Comments »

SEO: When Should You Begin Search Engine Optimization for a New Site?

Friday, June 19th, 2009

Dear Rich,

I've seen you say that one should start SEO (search engine optimization) before the launch of a new site. How is this possible?

–Confused in Calais

Dear Confused,

Although you can perform SEO at any point before or after the launch of
a Web site, I can think of three good reasons why it's better to start
with SEO:

It's less expensive. A good keyword analysis (an important part
of a healthy breakfast an SEO package) will drive your content and your copy; if you do it
after the site is built, you're in effect doing the work twice.
It's market research. A keyword analysis may uncover some
opportunities that you hadn't thought of yet; new topics to cover, even
new services to offer.
It will help focus your social media strategy. You can take your optimal keywords and start working them into your tweets, your Facebook fan page, your YouTube videos and your LinkedIn profile…all things you can be working on while your Web designer builds out your new site.

There is some parts of SEO that can't be
performed until after the site is launched, specifically a link
building campaign. Obviously, other
sites, blogs and directories won't want to link to a coming soon page; they'll be looking for something of value if they're going to be linking to you.

Rich Brooks
SEO for Small Businesses

Posted in Search Engine Marketing, Web Copywriting, Web Marketing | 6 Comments »

Why It’s Not Just About SEO Anymore

Thursday, June 18th, 2009

I realized how lately I’ve been writing a lot about topics that, while related to SEO, aren’t necessarily discussing what I would call more traditional optimizing techniques. The reason? It’s not just about SEO anymore.

Yes, you should optimize your site. But going are the days where that is enough. Not only is SEO an ongoing process, but so are other types of web marketing outlets – and those are exactly the places you need to invest your time in order to even hope to succeed in the search engines.

Video

Let’s not beat around the bush. It’s all about YouTube. Sure there are a ton of other video outlets, but YouTube is the best out there. With its easy-to-use interface, it also provides easy-to-embed options (AKA no code knowledge necessary).

Better yet, views from your site or blog add to the total views on YouTube. Why does that matter? The more views a video has, the higher it will rank in Google’s search – and with universal search, that’s just one more way to rank. Not to mention, it’s an easy way to optimize for smart phones.

Photos and Images

Can you say alt tags? Search engines can read, but they can’t see very well. So we have to help them out a little. But when you do it right, and create great keyword rich descriptions for them, images are another way to rank in the search engines.

Social Media

Pretty shortly, if you’re not using any sort of social media outlet for your business, you’re going to be behind the game. Not only is social media a great way to share links and increase buzz, but it also humanizes your business and can almost be used as a PR medium. Plus, while it would really only affect searches for your company name, your social media profiles typically rank extremely well.

Here are some of my quick guides to where you should be, why you should be there, and what to do once you’re there:

Social Bookmarking

Social Bookmarking is great way to make things go hot. While there’s no SEO power to sites like Digg, Sphinn, Delicious, Reddit, StumbleUpon, etc., the traffic you get from just being “sphunn”, “stumbled”, “dugg”, or the like is entirely worth it.

Nicki Hicks
How are you working toward better online visibility?

Tags: image optimization, SEO, social bookmarking, Social Media, YouTube
Posted in Link Building, Search Engine Marketing | 2 Comments »