Missouri Website Builders

The goal of search engine optimization is to show the search engines that your website is important. The single most important thing you can do to (after implementing basic SEO on your website) is to get quality links to your website’s link on other sites to generate increased traffic. In order for your website’s organic search engine ranking to reach full potential, your linking campaign must be well organized and developed.

Links can be directories, social media, blogs, articles, white papers and optimized press releases. Directories are one of the most comprehensive ways to generate incoming links. They are designed to promote links and are sometimes free of charge. Social networks and blogs have also become a great way to generate incoming links to your web site. You should try to control the anchor text of links coming to you as much as possible. Having your best keywords in the link anchor can be a huge help.

When it comes to SEO, linking is a popularity contest. The search engines consider your site more important and rank it higher depending on the number of your sites incoming links. Every link that you do manage to gain, whether it’s from a directory, blog or website, will help build your site’s core strength.

Here are just a few of the benefits of link building:

• Links are viewed as a ‘vote’ for your site
• Inbound links offer a route to your site from other sites
• Links to and from relevant sites help search engines assess what your website’s overall theme is
• A higher link profile can boost your site’s credibility and trust
• More links means more avenues for website traffic to find you
• Improved rankings for your targeted keywords
• Improved search engine robot crawl rate

When mapping out your linking strategy, don’t forget to focus on the quality, in addition to the quantity of the links.   A single, link from a credible website is worth more than dozens of links from junk sites. The relevance of the link and the strength of the site that has provided it, will often determine just how much strength you gain.  If you want to increase the search engine rank of your website, boosts your page rank with the search engines, and generate and increase in the flow of traffic to your site, then quality link building is a profitable investment. Having a good mix of quality and quantity in your inbound links will greatly increase your search engine results rankings and thus, drive more traffic toward your website.

Lastly, do not give up if you are not immediately seeing the positive  results of your linking efforts. The results of an effective linking program do not happen overnight, but rather something that grows over time. Remember, be consistent, be detailed and never stop. Your competitors are not stopping, even if you are ranked number one on Google, you can never stop.

The linking process provided exclusively by The Net Impact assures that links have a smooth feel in the page content, adding to user experience while also contributing effectively to the search engine optimization process. Contact The Net Impact today to learn more about how your business can benefit from a strategic linking campaign!

Source: Original Post from Blog.TheNetImpact.com

“A successful website in today’s society is defined as a site receiving as much traffic from social media as from search engines.” Does this shocking announcement from the Search Engine Strategies December 2009 Conference surprise you? Well, it shouldn’t.  After all Mr. and Ms. Average Web User, the explosion of social media is your fault! 

You are one of the 400 million people on Facebook who spend spend 500 billion minutes per month on Facebook.  You are one of the 105 million plus people out there tweeting away.You are among the 2 billion visitors to YouTube daily. As a matter of fact … you spend almost as much time on social media as watching television!  You are even using social media while watching television!  Entertainment multitasking, is that “multi-taining?”

We are in the age of user-generated content.  Companies are quickly realizing they cannot avoid online consumers interacting with their brands online, yet this exchange is only minimally occurring through their company website.  Let’s face it; no one goes to your international B2B website to hang out with friends and share product opinions.  Your website visitors are not your pals.  With social media, however, they can be your “fans.”   If you want that to happen, go where your customers already choose to meet and develop ways to involve yourself appropriately.  Listen first; then engage them in conversation.  Remember that if you don’t listen to these voices and consider them your fans, you run the risk of making them foes.

So, if social media is here to stay (do you doubt that it is?), and if Facebook and Twitter can be relatively inexpensive, what does this mean for your firm’s very prestigious, costly and carefully managed website? Corporate websites represent legally required information, a powerbase for your brand andmarketing approach that social media sites usually cannot equal.  So, while the website is still the fundamental aspect of online branding, many businesses have greatly benefited by investing time (yes, it takes time) into using social media networks to go directly to where their consumers “meet by choice” each point of interaction having a unique “face” to the public.   Successful online marketers tend to think “one brand – many faces.” 

In conclusion, social media is important, very important, but without the anchor of your corporate website, your brand would be floating adrift on each new conversation current.  Social media continues to expand rapidly to new audiences by new applications.  The growth is driving online interactions everywhere at once.   But your brand, represented by your website, shouldn’t be going everywhere at once.  Remember that every photo you put up on Facebook, every message mashed into 140 characters on Twitter and every storytelling video posted on YouTube needs to be purposeful and must still reflect your company’s image and message.  Who knows?  The next link that drives the next big business deal to your website might just arise from a response to “What are you up to?”

The Situation

CMA Consulting, a management consulting firm with headquarters in St. Louis, required a website design renovation, which accentuated the company’s brand as an authority in business with an engaging visitor experience. CMA intended to maximize their site’s marketability via lead generation and new business development. CMA also necessitated a redesign geared toward Traffic Based Design™, providing the consulting firm the self-sufficiency to administer site modifications as often as possible—and post frequent updates.

The Solution

To resolve the redesign Website, The Net Impact recommended that CMA architect their site with the aid of their partnered product, Auctori—a Web Content Management System programmed for search engine optimization.

The website design renovation begin with a premise to develop a polished brand identity for CMA that would ultimately bolster targeted traffic, maximizing lead generation. With the website design strategy in place, and using the Auctori engineering software, The Net Impact rendered the CMA’s site build-out. 

To expedite CMA’s website design specifications, Auctori served as an efficient, and comprehensive solution. The finished product was a showcase of search engine optimized pages, an interactive forum, and blog for posting frequent updates. The Net Impact implemented an IP Security system to ensure visitor, client and candidate protection. The security upgrade also gave CMA the autonomy to control their online safety measures.

The Outcome

Partner of CMA, Dan Bean shared, “TNI worked with our existing vendors to integrate some complex database features and assessment delivery functions, and we’ve been impressed with their ability to understand and solve business problems… Moving from a static site to a dynamic one is a leap forward for us as a company as we look to better establish our presence on the web.  We consider the Auctori content management system and our new Wordpress blog to be tremendous assets, and we feel like we have the keys to the car with our site.”

• Read more Web design case studies

If your website design requires a renovation, please click “contact the Net Impact” for a consultation.

March 20^th marks the vernal equinox. Farmers are familiar with how the vernal equinox influences the need to commence a stringent harvest regimen. Unlike the arduous labor involved in sowing the seeds, tilling the soil and keeping the crop adequately hydrated, an Internet marketing plan encompasses a web design and brand continuity to assure the highest retention rate.

The prospects that are courted today become new clients tomorrow. Sowing the seeds is comparable to link building. Links from microsites, social media pages (Twitter and, Facebook), press release optimizations, and even fan sites procure new business opportunities.

Are all the pages of your web design attuned for the Internet marketing strategy?

• When your consumers and clients ponder your products, what does your brand call to mind?
• Is your online brand identity achieving proposed benchmarks and consumer loyalty?
• How does your company plan to bolster consumer loyalty?

Whether your business development and strategic planning departments have the answers to the aforementioned questions or not, social media networking provides the immediate solutions and answers to these brand identity inconsistencies and Internet marketing assessments. Twitter and Facebook are narrowing the communication gap between corporations and consumer commentary. By humanizing a product, service or behemoth corporation, brands nurture steadfast loyalty.  With the ability to initiate the dialogue with prospects and clients, companies can use the online audience to fine tune the brand id. 

Thanks to these social media design and networking instruments, inept, unproductive products have a short lifespan. With a mélange of effective web design, social media and the fulfillment of consumer demand, any-sized organization can develop an immensely effective Internet marketing strategy.

As your company plans its Internet marketing strategy for the year, approach it with the same cultivation and diligence that agriculturists employ to assure a fruitful crop for the vernal equinox.

Contact The Net Impact to customize an exacting Internet marketing strategy for your company.

Celebrating 20 years of success, Unidev (Unified Development, Inc.) was not the company that it is today. Headquartered outside of St. Louis, in Chesterfield, the diversified IT company used to be headquartered in a moderate-sized office. Today, Unidev offers a complete suite of web applications, IT services, and is strategically partnered with the world’s most recognized names in technology. Despite, Unidev’s inexorable success, the corporation maintains its commitment for developing web applications, tested for reliability and cost-efficacy. In this edition of Missouri Web site Builders, we’re reviewing the achievements of the Web applications company.

• Unidev’s success is attributable to a customer-centric approach to resolving client IT glitches.

• As a Microsoft Certified Partner (MCP), Unidev has the expertise to develop the most groundbreaking and cost effective solutions for customers, who use the Microsoft technology.

• Thanks to it designation as an IBM business partner, Unidev has the expertise and is authorized to apply a wide spectrum of software applications (in example: Java, Linux Websphere and DB2).

• Unidev’s satellite company, The Net Impact is a web design search engine optimization company, providing all the services related to maintaining a prominent Internet presence. (Web design, social networking, SEO and more)

• In October 2008, Unidev developed a powerful web application, called Auctori. The content management system automates search engine optimization. With Auctori, companies can save money managing their news blog internally.

• Based on each company’s requirements (budget, time frame and strategy), Unidev tailor fits an exacting technology solution for small to large corporations. By customizing a technology solution around each organization’s technology, budget, strategy and time requirements, the customized services enable the web applications company to service all sized companies throughout North America.

Congratulations Unidev. To read more the Missouri-based web applications achievements, click on any of the following links:

• Unidev Blog
• Twitter
• YouTube

Direct mail used to be the only viable marketing tool for reaching an “audience.” Blindly disseminating a message to an undisclosed mailing list, companies allocated thousands of dollars to the creative, printing and mailing budget – without the ability to quantify the results. The Internet abbreviates the time it takes to reach prospects in the virtual world. Today, email marketing has rendered direct marketing as almost a futile format.

Strategic email marketing affords measurable results, which has the ability to brandish a cogent brand identity. Market research indicates that email marketing serves multiple purposes.

13-Facts and Benefits of Email Marketing

• A precisely-targeted email marketing program paves the foundation for fostering the dialogue between an organization and its existing and prospective clients.

• Inform the target audience about new product releases.

• Entice consumers with special offers and promotions.

• Provide prospective clients with useful information.

• Extremely economical, few online marketing mediums provide the cost efficacy as email marketing does.

• Disseminated during each phase of the consumer relationship, an effective email marketing campaign entails communication from the initial interaction to the follow-up of the sales transaction. Moreover, the post purchase interaction is an intelligent way to ensure customer satisfaction.

•  An email campaign crafted to appeal to the target audience can be more effective than banner advertising.

• Relevant well-designed email strategies have been found to bolster consumer loyalty.

• Email newsletter programs are an extension of the Internet marketing campaign. A Web design company will develop a newsletter, maintaining the continuity of your web design and logo.

• Permission based email or opt in email marketing campaigns are an integral aspect of nurturing consumer loyalty and retaining the customer for as long as possible.

•  By capturing email addresses via regular in-person, web and phone interactions, any-sized business can maximize their email-marketing list.

• The Web design company, the Net Impact designs email and email newsletters for a cross sector of marketplaces.

• When direct mail marketing is used in conjunction with email marketing, the duo fuels quantifiable results. 

To learn more about developing a strategy for your business Click “email marketing.”

Although, the National Retail Federation forecasts a 1 percent drop in 2009 U S holiday sales this year, 38 percent of online consumers plan to do more shopping on the Internet.  But on the contrary, shopping cart conversion rates have dwindled by 3.44% this year. For many e-tailers, who are preparing for a high sales season, this requires a review of the Web site’s traffic analytics to determine if there is a prevalence of shopping cart abandonment. [Source: Coremetrics Benchmark Industry Report for U S Retail]

Generally, consumers more often than not, ditch shopping carts due in part to a web design flaw or missing information. Missouri Web site Builders went searching online for the main causes of shopping cart abandonment. Here were some of the findings:

An ill-designed shopping cart.  Some shopping carts have programming glitches, requiring the customer to return to the original page to modify their purchase.

Web design fix: Enhance your shopping cart’s flexibility with different quantities, prices, colors, sizes and other specifications.

Shipping confusion or a delivery fee. Almost three-fourths of Internet consumers claimed that they abandoned a shopping cart due to delivery confusion or because the shipment fee was too high. [Source: Zoomerang]

Web design fix: Describe all shipping options (price, days, service, etc). As a sales incentive, offer free shipping for a minimum purchase.  Also, for other online sales promotions, such as newsletters or Twitter deals, give consumers an incentive to buy now with a free special discount code.

The shopping cart does not identify that an item is out of stock
Specify whether items are in stock. If items aren’t in stock, indicate availability dates.

According to eMarketer, 22 percent of shoppers who abandoned the shopping cart could not find customer service; 23 percent left the check out process because an item was out-of-stock; another 27 percent wanted a coupon code.

Web design fix: Add a trouble ticket or contact field so consumers can quickly submit a question or receive a notification when the product becomes available.

As the most major shopping season of the year heats up, eliminate any confusion during the checkout process. Don’t let shopping cart abandonment hinder your site’s sales. Contact The Net Impact for a free shopping cart analysis.

Related Articles:

Web To Drive Holiday Retail Sales

Is Your Website Ready For The Holiday Shopping Season?

Ecommerce and Shopping Cart Optimization

10 Proven Methods To Decrease Your Shopping Cart Abandonment Rate

Among search engine marketing (SEM) companies and experts, behavioral targeting (BT) is a hot topic. Since the recession, there has been a 24 percent climb in the utilization of the technology  (Forrester Research).  With an increasing number of pay-per-click (PPC) ads, behavioral targeting is outperforming the tradition PPC ad. More importantly, it is a powerful instrument, when properly appointed.

However, recent market research indicates that behavioral targeting is only as effective as the results rendered. A St. Louis-based SEM company provides five things to know about behavioral marketing:

•    Behavioral targeting is the timely dissemination of an appropriate contextual message to an exacting audience.

•    The underlying value of behavioral targeting is its ability to pinpoint the consumer’s precise needs, while fine-tuning the market strategy.

•    Behavioral marketing monitors target audiences, enabling a small business to plan communications, advertising and other operations around the sales goals and objectives.

•    Accurate behavioral targeting predicts and accommodates the recipient’s preferences, enhancing the overall brand experience.

•    Behavioral targeting complements and influences the outcomes of the direct response marketing campaign.

Contact an SEO St Louis company, who has behavioral targeting down to a science.

Related Articles:

The Three Dimensions of Behavioral Targeting

Behavioral Marketing 101: Defining the Terminology

The Promise of Behavioral Targeting

Understanding Human Behavior to Drive Marketing Decisions

The game, baseball is verisimilar to search engine marketing (SEM). Both necessitate a strategy. Each at bat is comparable to a pay-per-click campaign: The outcome of the “hit” (click) really matters. In this installment pertaining to the link between search engine marketing and baseball, we’re reviewing the importance of stats, statistics, or analytics.

In Major League Baseball (MLB), it’s all about the numbers. Players are never judged according to how well they wear the team’s colors. Most Cardinal fans know what HRs, ERAs, RBI’s as well as other baseball statistics are. Baseball stats delineate a player’s strengths and weaknesses. These numbers help managers like Mr. LaRusso strategize the line up.

On the Internet, site traffic is measured by a visitor’s actions:
Which pages did they visit?
How long did they stay?
What actions did they take?

In other words, the company Web site features more than a brand identity encapsulated in visually appealing web design. Invaluable information lies beyond the web pages of any site. Although the vast majority of proprietors understand the importance of number crunching, Web site analytics are often overlooked.

Site statistics demonstrate how effective or ineffective the SEM strategy is. Below are several areas to assess the performance of your site’s search engine marketing campaign:
•    Number of visitors
•    Time of visit
•    Span of visit
•    The referral site
•    Search engine referred
•    Visited page(s)
•    Key words
•    Most popular web pages

Do you know what your site’s statistics convey about the efficacy of your search engine marketing strategy? Contact Missouri Web site Builders for a complimentary site analysis. (No obligation required).

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When we read a print ad, one of three behaviors is inevitable: Read on, take action or move on. In more cases than not, the reaction time with a print ad is less than 30 seconds.

Search engine marketing or online advertising tend to be the continuation of an engaging experience. From the initial search engine query, pay-per-click ad to social media sites, each online transaction is a succession of consumer actions or behaviors.

In other words, humans are more prone to interact with the online brand than by print ad. The Internet presents three-dimensional advertising. From posting a comment, cutting and pasting a link to share with friends or subscribing to a newsletter, target audiences have a higher propensity of getting involved with a brand, maximizing its online ad campaign’s mileage.

Unlike the print ad, where advertisers are unable to measure how many times the target audience reads, pay-per-click ads, Web sites, social media (blogs), and email campaigns inspire interaction, effectiveness and ultimately cultivate brand loyalty.

Read more about maximizing your company’s search engine marketing campaign.

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