Archive for the Resources Category

Web Design for Portland Small Business Owners

By on August 28, 2009

In today’s business environment, small business owners cannot continue with business as usual. Every day we here of another small business going under – or even a not so small business. Even the big dogs are going under. And while there are hopeful signs on the horizon, the forecast is there are a lot of economic storm clouds in the forecast.

Web Design for Portland small business owners is a necessity, not a luxury.

If you don’t have a website for your business, there is no better time than now to contact a Portland web designer and begin the process of having one designed. Or perhaps you already have a website but it is outdated. Now is the time as well to have your website updated with all the latest information.

Keep your website up to date with current information

How long has it been since you have updated your website? If you are facing a slowdown in your Portland business and are afraid of the added expense of upgrading your website, there is good news. If you work with a local Portland web designer, he or she should be able to work with you in helping you decide what the most important updates to your website should be and keep costs down.

Nothing can hurt a business more than when someone drives by the office or store front and sees overgrown grass, dirty windows and trash. However, many Portland Small business websites have their paint pealing off and weeds growing all around.

Your company’s website is by far the most effective and economical marketing tool your business has. So make sure you give your website the time, care and investment it needs.Take time to find the right Portland small business web designer that is hard working and committed to your success on the Internet.

Global Link is a Portland web design & SEO company that can help your business effectively market your goods and services online.

This entry is filed under Resources, Search Engine Marketing, Web Design and tagged , , .

Web Design for Portland Home Sellers

By on August 28, 2009

So you live in Portland and have had your house on the market for months, but the market is flat. Your real estate agent has your house posted at his agency’s website, but there’s no way to tell how many people have even found your house and the pics there just don’t do your home the justice it deserves.

Or perhaps you are thinking about selling your home yourself. Either way,  it’s time to give your Portland home an extreme makeover for the web and beat the Portland housing market.  Here are a few quick steps on how to design a website that will effectively market your Portland home on the web and get your website indexed by the big search engines.

First, you will need to have a website designed with the sole purpose of marketing your Portland home effectively online. Even though the Portland housing market is weak, the reality is people are still buying homes. So the key is to make sure your home stand out from the crowded field of homes for sale. The best and least expensive way to do this is to have your own website turbo charged using effective SEO.

Second, register a domain name for your Portland home that can include your address. For example: www.pdxhome-121burch.com, or something like that. if you put part of your address in your domain name, people will be more apt to write it down and refer to it later. Also, make sure your domain name is clearly visible on your home’s for sale sign in your front yard.

Third, you need to locate a Portland web design firm that understands SEO or Search Engine Optimization. This is the practice of creating your website’s layout, content, architecture and graphics so that search engines can index your pages and Portland home buyers can find you on the web.  Resist the temptation to find the cheapest web designer that can throw up a page or two with text and photos of your house. Almost anyone with a computer and simple software can design a website like that. But this will be a waste of time.

Fourth, have a good balance of quality descriptive text and quality photos of your home.  Portland home buyers will want to see the photos on your website, but search engines won’t be able to find your site if there is not well written and descriptive text.

A good Portland web design & SEO company can design a website that will meet all the above SEO standards and others that are beyond the scope of this article. The cost involved should only have to do with the design and hosting of your website and should be quite reasonable and a great value considering the high returns on your investment once your house sells.

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Global Link is a Portland web design and SEO company helping small businesses and individuals succeed on the Internet.

This entry is filed under Resources, Search Engine Marketing, Web Design and tagged , , .

SEO tips for Portland Real Estate Agents

By on August 28, 2009

Being a Portland based Realtor in today’s economy and housing slump means that you cannot afford to put your website on the back burner. Instead, you need to make sure your website meets search engine optimization SEO requirements in order for home buyers and sellers to find you and the homes you are selling in the Portland area.

First, If you don’t have your own dedicated website, get one

It’s not enough for you to have a page on a Portland real estate firm’s website where you are listed with other Portland realtors. Instead, it is vital to have own website focused on your own business and real estate listings in the Portland area.  Portland home shoppers can find out more you via your own website designed with SEO as a main goal. Getting a professional website designed for your Portland real estate business should be affordable. You don’t need anything elaborate, flashy or complicated. Instead a straightforward and professional SEO website where people can find you on the internet should meet your needs.

Keep your website fresh with new content

With the rise of blogging software and dynamic content being updated continuously, a Portland realtor can no longer rely on a static website. A static website is one with content that does not change, or is not dynamic. A professional web design firm in Portland can design a website that will allow you to publish your own content quickly and easily. You can post listings of homes in Portland including descriptions and pictures yourself, without relying on a web designer.

Search engines like Google, MSN, Yahoo and now Bling all rank new and fresh content better than old, stale content. Which means that Portland home shoppers will be more likely to find your website when they search for you on the major search engines.

One of the big deterrents to a Portland home buyer is the lack of pictures a listing has.  So make sure you take plenty of pictures and post them on your website. And remember to write descriptions about the photos since graphics are invisible. Good SEO practices dictate that you give each picture a caption and fill in descriptive text in the photo’s “ALT” tag. This way, Google will be more likely to index your image which will help your website’s search engine rankings.

Write articles sharing advise on buying a home in Portland

This is where you can share your knowledge and expertise about the Portland real estate market. As Portland home buyers and sellers find your information valuable, they will be more likely to contact you directly and hire you as their real estate agent. You can build trust as people see how knowledgeable you are about the Portland real estate market. You can give tips to first time home buyers informing them on the do’s and don’ts to home buying.

Link to helpful articles on other websites

You can also post links to valuable home buying and selling information from other websites.

Building links

As Portland home buyers find your website valuable with great content, other websites will link to yours. These back links will help your website’s SEO rankings.

Consider starting a Portland Real Estate Blog

A quick option to begin publishing content right away is starting a Portland Real Estate blog. You can go to blogger.com or wordpress.com to sign up for your free account and start blogging immediately. These blogs have strong SEO functionality built in so you know your posts will be indexed by search engines quickly, making it more likely that potential clients will find you on the Internet.

A Portland web designer for real esate companies will understand your specific needs and recommend the solutions that are right for you. Global Link is a web design & SEO company in Portland. If we can help you design your website or redesign a current with with SEO, contact us today for more information about our Portland web design services and a free quote.

This entry is filed under Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Web Design and tagged , .

How to Write Great Content for SEO

By on August 27, 2009

It cannot be overstated how important writing helpful content for getting found and ranked well in Google, MSN and Yahoo.

But simply saying that you should write great content is not enough. How do you know if Google will find your content great or not? How will search engines rank your text? And what about keywords, key phrases and keyword density? What about links? and the list goes on.

As you have probably experienced, the field of search engine optimization can get confusing and overwhelming quickly. So as a starting point, I would like to lay out a practical how-to approach to get you started in writing great content that should be foundation of any effective search engine campaign.

First, you should answer the following questions:

1. What is your industry? For the sake of this example, let’s say you have a store that sells outdoor products and accessories. You also have an e-commerce website that sells outdoor products online.

2. What is your website’s target audience? You should be able to define what kinds of visitors are coming to your website and why the are visiting it. In our example here, it would be outdoor shoppers and enthusiasts.

3. What information would your target audience find helpful and valuable? What content would keep them coming back? Make a list here of  topics that your customers and readers would find valuable. It could be reviews on products, weather conditions for certain destinations, reviews about certain destinations, safety and / or travel advisories about certain areas, real life experiences etc. The list could grow as you brainstorm. But remember to stay focused within your industry and don’t wander into unrelated areas.

4. What are you already knowledgeable about? Look at item #3 and list out what things you already know and can write about. Now prioritize these items by determining what you think your customers would find most valuable. You now have your “to do” writing list. You can begin by taking a topic and writing a blog post or a page about it; Keep the page to no less than 250 words and no more than a 1000 max. Next, make a list of the areas from #3 you find interesting but don’t know enough about. You can research each topic and as you learn, write and publish your work.

Notice I haven’t said anything yet about writing for search engines. The reason is you want to write primarily for your target audience and customers. If you have a website that your readers find valuable, then Google’s search will also find your site and reward your hard work by ranking you well in search engine results.

Once you get some pages posted and are feeling more comfortable about writing what is valuable to your readers and customers, the next step is to consider keywords.  While we haven’t focused specifically on keywords in this post, the reality is that Google will find and rank keywords in your text.

Of course, there is a lot more to Search Engine Optimization than what we’ve covered here. However, the important point to remember is that writing to real people should always be the primary focus of any winning search engine optimization strategy.

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Global Link is a search engine optimization and web design firm located in Portland, Oregon.

This entry is filed under Resources, Search Engine Optimization and tagged , , , .

Most Important Factor in Seach Engine Optimization

By on August 27, 2009

When considering an effective search engine optimization strategy for your web site, it can seem overwhelming in knowing where to begin. The SEO industry is awash with contradicting claims and promises of first page placement on Google, Yahoo and MSN.  There are self appointed SEO experts that can create real and lasting damage to your website causing it to drop in search engine rankings or banned altogether.

The good news is there are some common-sense SEO principles that should be central to any search engine optimization strategy – regardless of the size of your company and SEO budget. Without a doubt, the single most importand factor in any effective search engine optimization strategy is writing great content for your target audience. If you have a website with well written content that your visitors find valuable, Google will also find it valuable.

While you certainly should write with SEO in mind, you don’t want to craft your text for search engines primarily. Content written only for search engines sounds choppy, unnatural and will cause readers to bail out of your website quickly. Instead, your first concern should be writing helpful content for real people. As readers find your web site valuable and link to your web pages,  you will find yourself rising in search engine rankings as well.

Of course, there are other key factors in developing an effective search engine optimization stragey, but under-girding them all should be a commitment to writing great content.

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Global Link Technologies is located in Portland and  focuses on effective search engine optimization and professional web site design.

This entry is filed under Resources, Search Engine Optimization and tagged , , .

Understanding Search Engine Marketing

By on August 26, 2009

Search Engine Marketing SEM covers not only Search Engine Optimization SEO, but also paid inclusion as well like Google Adwords and Yahoo’s Search Submit (formerly Overture).  If you are running a Pay-Per-Click PPC campaign for your website, you don’t necessarily need to have your website optimized for search engines, since you are paying search engines to advertise your ads as sponsored search results. It is possible to have a poorly designed website which generates a lot of traffic from running ads on search engines.

Search Engine Optimization on the other hand focuses on optimizing your website for search engine indexing. It involves a thorough understanding of website design, and how to effectively craft a website’s layout and content that will make it search engine friendly. Search Engine Optimization is a focused discipline in Search Engine Marketing. Good SEO focuses strongly on knowing your industry’s target audience and identifying your industry’s most effective keywords.  Well written content with those keywords crafted into your web page text should be seemless and smooth.

This entry is filed under Resources, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Optimization and tagged , , , , , , .

Welcome to Global Link – A Professional Web Design Firm

By on August 25, 2009

We are a professional web design company dedicated to developing custom web sites at affordable rates.

Global Link’s office is located in downtown Portland next to the Pearl District where we serve web design clients not only in Portland and Vancouver, but also in many states throughout the nation from Chicago to Hawaii.

We design web sites with a wide range of functionality and technologies including:

  • Custom web design
  • Search Engine Optimization SEO
  • Search Engine Marketing Consultation
  • Website redesign and updates
  • CSS based web site layouts
  • Graphic design for the web
  • Reliable and affordable web hosting
  • E-commerce systems including shopping carts and real time credit card processing
  • Website design for mobile devices such as smart phones
  • Content Management Systems CMS Including Joomla, Drupal and WordPress
  • database driven websites
  • Dynamic driven web applications using php, MySQL blogs and much more.

Our web design fees are realistic and affordable. We operate with integrity in all our business dealings, and you will not receive any surprises or inflated bills. We do not upsell. In short, we treat you the way we want to be treated.

We network with other professionals in the IT industry who excel in their fields, including graphic design, marketing, copy writing for the web and other specializations.

Take a look at our web design portfolio to see the kind of work we do.

Whether you are looking for a Portland web designer or are a company based in another state, contact us today for a free quote or for more information.

This entry is filed under Search Engine Optimization, Web Design and tagged , , , , , , .

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