Do you use Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn? Do you use these sites to find out information and share interesting information that you find, engage with new friends & old and also share ideas?

You may be doing these things but you may not be aware just how your social media activities are impacting your SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and ranking in a very positive way.

Your website SEO is based upon relevance and authority. You build relevance by creating original content and authority by building communities who seek your content and share your content with others. The more relevance and authority you have, the better search engines will view your website.

Adding social media sharing buttons to your website is a simple way to increase the likelihood of users sharing your content. Each time your content is shared, you gain another link to your website, which is great for SEO and also provides the opportunity of bringing your products or services to the attention of new audiences.

New Audience = New Customers which is the whole point of good SEO!

With over 500 million users, 1 in every 13 people on earth uses Facebook. With nearly 50% logging in every day. 50% of all 18 - 34 year olds use Facebook.

These statistics can't be ignored. If your business is not on Facebook, you are missing out on a very worthwhile and inexpensive advertising opportunity.

To set up a business Facebook page only takes a few minutes, however, we recommend you do it right the first time and spend a couple of hours filling your Facebook page with useful information and working out ways to engage potential clients via Facebook.

To make your Facebook page engaging you will need to provide your visitors with some benefit. Offer the user ideas or information. Give them an opportunity to interact with your page. Create a Poll or run a sweepstake. Take a look at the way other businesses interact with their customers on Facebook and discover new ways to engage your potential clients.

When a person who likes your page, your business page details are added to their news feed. This news feed has the potential to be shown to hundreds of people from just one click. Can your business afford to ignore Facebook any longer?

 

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Choosing a web designer can be a long and difficult task. You visit lots of websites, and you look for a good fit for your business but how do you know that you're making the right decision.

One of the best ways to find a web designer is via word of mouth. If you know someone who has had a good experience building a website and they will recommend their web designer to you, then this is the best place to start.

If you don't have a referral to a web designer or the web designer used by your referral is not a good fit for your business or budget what should you do?

You can generally assume that a web designer with plenty of genuine commercial clients in their portfolio (as opposed to student projects or personal projects) can complete websites to the satisfaction of their clients. But how do you know they will be responsive to your needs and time-frame?

You can read their client testimonials and as long as these testimonials relate to websites within the portfolio then you can be assured that the web designer can communicate well with their clients.

But you may have other concerns such as...

Read more...

A very good friend of mine recently gave me a brochure from a local web design firm, offering iphone apps, web design and all related services. I was curious to find out about my new competition and decided to take a look at their website...

I was dismayed to find that they had set up a website and filled it with a fake portfolio of websites which they had supposedly built. How do I know the sites are fake you ask...

Instead of having links to actual websites, the links opened a photo gallery which allowed you to flick through the images. They didn't link to actual websites anywhere in Australia. 

Please beware and take care when you are choosing your web designer. Genuine Brisbane web designers have genuine Brisbane businesses in their portfolios with links which take you to visit them. Genuine web designers have testimonials which state the name of the client and the name of their business. Please don't be fooled into handing over money to web designers who offer fake portfolios and fake testimonials.