Beware of SEO Scammers

My lesson today is a word of warning for new web site owners, or for those of you who do it yourself and would cheerfully be called “inexperienced”.

In these times peole are more desperate for business to their web sites.  Then they get a call from someone who claims that they can get them ranked in the top of the search engines and all their problems will be over.  You go look at their web site and they look like a decent company. 

My problem with many of these companies is that some use scammy methods to get you high rankings.  Sure enough you watch your rankings skyrocket.  You may even get some extra traffic.  Then, all of a sudden it dies off.  You can’t be found anywhere in the search engines.  Tag, you’ve been banned!  It can take a lot of work to get a web site unbanned, and then you lose any traffic you might have had.

Some of these people who advertise SEO work with cold calls and spam emails have some skill building a web site, so theirs looks pretty nice.  In the process they learned a little about search engine optimization.  They’re not honestly trying to rip you off, they just think too highly of their skills.  In this case you’ll probably never see any good rankings, or the rankings you get will not be bringing properly targeted traffic to your web site.

A lot of times what you end up with is a site that is broken, or at worst, has malicious code in it.  It can require an entire rebuild of your site, and hours of effort to get un-banned in a worst case scenario.

The simplest thing to do is start running searches.  Type in their business name.  If you come up with sites that have a lot of complaints about the business, it’s probably a clue.  I’ve typed in business names and found sites saying “don’t buy from them, they’re scamming”.  If you go and look at the page and it’s one guy being upset..  ok, maybe that’s “one man’s opinion”.  We can’t honsestly judge a company by one person’s experience.  On the other hand, if you go and look, and there are streams of comments or posts with hundreds of people saying similar things, you can bet that this is going to be a problem for you as well.

Your best best is to start reading pages on search engine optimization.  Educate yourself enough to talk to seo experts.  Do not buy from anyone cold calling you, or spamming you.  If they were as good as they say they are, they certainly woulnd’t need to “pressure advertise”, because they’d have people telling their friends and flocking to their doors.

Some will promise to get incoming links to your site.  In general, inbound links are good things.  It’s like when you hear 10 friends say a good thing about a company, you’re more likely to believe it.  If 10 web sites tells you to go to a web site for a certain topic, you’re more likely to believe them.  The search engines count incoming links and add them to your score for a certain keyword. 

It can also be a bad thing.  Some sites are scammy and will get banned.  If that’s the only kind of incoming links you get, your rankings will drop in the search engines quickly.  It’s like the difference between the bum on the corner giving you advice, or your best friend who’s an expert giving you advice.  You want your links to come from reputable sites.

Some good questions to keep in mind –

• Where does their own business site rank for their keywords?  If they don’t rank, how can they claim to be able to get your site to rank.
• Do they do any research on what keywords are best to choose?  Search engine optimization is about making sure that people who are looking for your kind of business find you.  Choosing keywords shouldn’t be arbitrary (“well, I think I need to be found for blue widgets, and widget company”, when the phrase people are really using to find you is widget solutions).  There is math involved.  How many times has your favorite phrase been searched on in the last 30 days?  Do other terms have higher counts?  If they can’t show you this research, then the words they are choosing are arbitrary as well.
• Can they refer you to happy clients?  If they can’t get one or two clients to tell you good things about the service, that’s a clue.

Quick lesson – go to a web page in your browser.  Click “View” in the menu, and then “Source”.  This will look ugly – it’s computer code to tell a browser how to make a web page.  Look for “< meta name=”keywords’ content=’  ‘>  If a web site has been optimized, they will have that string of characters, with some words after “content=”.  Those words are the words that the web site has been “optimized” for.  This can give you hints at words that you might not otherwise have thought of, so you can research those.

So, the moral of my story is, don’t fall for the kinds of scams that are most likely to get people who are already hurting.  Search engines are tricky, and it takes a real expert to fine tune a web site.  In all I’ve found that “organic” results last longest and work best.  You may not shoot to the top of the search engines, but you will get a thorough soaking in.  Organic results are best achieved by a good optimization once and then adding conten on your topic.  The search engines will raise your ranking because your site REALLY IS about your topic.  And after all, that is what searchers want to find, and that’s what search engines want to list. 

You just need to get the search engines to see a well optimized, on topic web site.  For that, you submit your site to the search engines for crawling.  And we have a service for that, so check out our web site.

Beginner’s Guide to a Web Site

So many people are confused when they go to start a web site.  There are so many terms and concepts to learn just to get started.  I’m going to go over some basic concepts to help people who need a web site – whether you hire me to help you or not.

The first choice is always – do I have the time and energy to learn this on my own.  I have no doubt that you are capable of learning how to do it on your own – you own a business, and you have learned your craft.  The problem is the time it takes to climb the learning curve, and actually create the web site.

There are many “do it yourself” options out there.  Some are even free.  (having said that, you also get what you pay for)  Many of these options simply require you to fill in some pages, choose a theme (the look of your site – how fonts look, the layout, the colors and styles).  This works for many people, for example, this blog is a free, do it yourself site.  It’s free, and I merely chose a template and started posting information.  I am limited in what I can do and the templates I can choose, so I get what I pay for.  I also didn’t have to learn how to build a web site, merely how to operate a wordpress administration interface (surf a web page, to put it simple).  I didn’t spend hours on graphics, and I think this is a cute theme.

Many people who feel they need a web site for their business are frankly, just too damn busy running their business to create a web site.  Even finding a good free place to put it, and learning how to make a few pages can be too much time.  A professionally built web site can say a lot about a business.  If you can’t afford to pay for a decent designer who knows what they’re doing, then maybe your business isn’t as successful as you’d like people to think.  Many beginner mistakes can signal to the world that you made the site yourself, or had your nephew make it, or your friend with front page.  This is a sad way to go.  You put so much time and effort into creating the web site, and then people don’t buy from you for reasons you can’t imagine.  Most of the time, it’s because of typos (yes I realize there are typos in my blog, but live with em), missing pictures, broken links, and various other “noob” mistakes. My favorite is using a free hotmail email addresss to do business because you didn’t know that your hosting came with email addresses that have your domain name in them – see my post about email addresses with your web site.

A professional site offers your customers and clients all the information they need to be ready to buy, and often includes the ability to buy your product with NO MAN HOURS involved. 

It starts with a domain name.  Choose carefully.  Many people consider keywords in your domain name to be important for search engine ranking.  I have not found this to be critical to most small businesses.  Before meeting with your designer, pick a few domain names that might work.  DO NOT go search for these at a domain name registrar unless you have your credit card in hand to pay for it when you find it.  There are many rude people who will look over those lists, and buy searched-on domain names, so they can sell them to you at a higher rate later.  Even if you only pay double what it would have cost you, that rude person is making money from his rudeness. Not to mention, many designers have a preference as to which registrar they prefer to work with.  Some are overly expensive, some are just flat out difficult to work with, and some are both.  You won’t know this without an expert to assist, and hours can be wasted trying to deal with these inadequacies.

Domain names are leased by the year for a small annual fee.  You can buy multiple years, but not less than one year.  A domain name is simply a pointer.  When I type your domain name into my browser (internet explorer), my computers asks the domain name servers where to find that name.  It’s like calling 411 and asking how to contact john smith (except on the internet, there is only ONE john smith, because domain names are unique).  The operator simply gives you his phone number.  This “phone number” is the real address of your web site’s server (the server then gives the exact location of the pages).  It’s called an IP address, (Internet Protocol) and looks like 192.168.2.1 (4 groups of up to 3 digits).  IPv6 is 6 groups of 3 digits and is the standard we’re slowly moving to.  This gives us gazillions more IP addresses to use.

This leads us to the next step – Hosting.  Web site hosting is where the actual pages and pictures of your website reside.  This has to be publicly accessible to be of any use.  This is why we need a “web server” to serve the pages to visitors, and not just your everyday computer.  Web hosting costs vary, depending on the services you need, and what the host charges.  My clients are usually just fine with the lowest hosting package I sell for about $10 a month.  It comes with email addresses, and all the background services that a web site would need to do what most people need from a web site.

Choosing a good host is important.  You want your web site to be reliable.  If I am out looking for something on the web, and a web site is not available, I will simply go to the next one in the list.  You’ve lost all chance of selling to me because your web host was unreliable (because it was cheap or free).  You also want good service.  If something goes wrong with your web site – even when it’s your own fault – you want someone who is knowledgable to assist.  It doesn’t matter who is at fault when the web site you’re paying for, and put so much time and effort into, doesn’t work – you just want it to work.  A good designer and web host are invaluable at times like this – you get what you pay for.

Any host can serve files, but not every host is willing to help with problems, especially if they’re your own fault.  Lack of tools to do what you want to is also an issue.  Choice of a host can be critical to success.  Any free or included tools or services you get can only enhance your ability.

A professional designer can help you choose the best technology to build your site with.  By this I mean – the programming language used to build your site.  For a small 2 or 3 page business card type site that will probably change once a year, pure and simple html code may be fine.  Which programming language you build you site with will affect what you can do.  It’s a good idea to have a clear idea of what you want a site to do, and what your target audience is when choosing how to build it.  If you’re selling products, services, or digital media, you need an active technology – php, asp, and other languages do different things, for different reasons.  A good designer will ask the right questions to determine how to make the best web site for you, your business, and your customers.

A good designer can also steer you away from bad ideas.  Many people like music on their web sites, or flash.  Knowing the limitations and issues with these fancy little touches may alter your choices.  A beginner won’t know this information, and will have to find out by experience which won’t work for them.  There are many scams played on web site owners as well.  A good webmaster can help keep you from losing money to these jerks.

Then, even with a professional, it’s time for homework.  There are certain pieces of information that people expect to find about a business when they go to their web site.  Contact info – an email address, physical address, phone number and fax number can all be important and save you hours on the phone answering the same questions over and over.  People want to know your location and hours of operation.  They want to know about your policies – if I give you my personal information, what will you do with it?  If I buy a product or service from you, what is your return/refund policy?  Many people like to read more about a business – their misson, goals and beginings, people who are in charge, and corporate info. This is the basic info needed and would be enough for a “business card” type site.

More homework is dependent on what you want from your web site.  A good designer will ask about your target audience – who is your preferred customer?  What age range do you prefer?  What is your preferred customer going to want from your web site? A good designer will also ask about your preferred involvement in the web site – are you capable of making and have the time to make changes to the site (so they design a site you can edit yourself), or will you want to take a hands-off approach. How much time you can devote to the site affects the choices of what features are designed into your site – you don’t want a message board if you can’t “babysit” it regularly.

All of these questions have an effect on the end result.  If you can answer them yourself, and have time to create your own web site, then you can get off pretty cheaply.  A good designer costs money.  Many will take payments, and some will barter. 

The costs of a web site in comparison to other media is minimal.  You can techincally build it once and leave it.  If nothing about your business changes, then very little needs to change on a business card type web site.  A web site that costs $130 per year, plus the cost of design is very much less expensive advertising than a phone book or other print media, is available 24/7, answers questions and saves phone man hours, and can even complete sales with no assistance from you.  It’s worth the investment to hire a professional, if only for advice.  You get what you pay for.

Go Boldly Computer Noobs

I deal with a lot of people who are new to computers or have been using them to do one or two things without venturing too far into new territory.  I will be the first one to say “Be brave”.  The brave are the ones who learn the most and get the most out of their computers.  You can’t harm the hardware using the software (unless using the software frustrates you to the point of dropping your computer out a 5 story window).  There is no reason to be afraid of clicking things on your computer.  Yes, you may mess things up.  You can always reformat your computer and start over, at the worst.  Reinstalling a program can also fix the worst problems.  There is sually a “reset to default” button, or some other way to undo changes you’ve made.

When I get a new toy (a program to play with), I just start by opening it and looking it over.  I pull down the menus and look through everything.  I look for the settings, because every program has at least one or two options you can choose.  I read thru the settings, to make sure that nothing that looks irrritating is set “by default”.  “By default” means “if nothing else is chosen, what do I do when you click?”  In almost all programs there’s a button to “reset to default”, which means, “put the settings back the way they came in the first place, cuz I blew it and it’s all messed up”.   It doesn’t hurt to take notes of things you change, so your friend the techy can actually help you put things back.

I tour the tool, and then I start a project that I really want to do with the new software I just installed.  You learn best by doing something you want to accomplish, rather than following someone’s starter tutorial.  You try, you messs things up, you learn to fix them.  It’s all a learning curve, even when you’re very knowledgable about computers.  I’m just as confused as you are when I open a new program, or try to do something I haven’t done before.  But I’m not afraid to open menus, click things, and look around.

The more complex the program, the less likely we all are to become experts in it by ourselves without help.  We’ll need tutorials and discussions to figure certain things out.  A feature may not be prominent, or it may be so easy to find you miss it.  The first place I look for help is in the program’s help menu.  Most programs have this, if for no other purpose than to store the verison information and credits for those who built the program. 

If I can’t find my answers IN the program itself, I go to the website of the creator.  I look for a forum and FAQs (frequently asked questions).  The forum is a place where people can ask questions and get answers.  When you’re brand new to a program, you’ll come across many of the same issues other people have, and you’re very likely to find an answer already posted – no waiting.  People who are in charge of forums or message boards get irritated answering the same questions repeatedly, so make sure to do a good search before posting. Also, make sure to follow the forum’s rules when posting.  You’ll get more flies with honey, so don’t take your frustration out on the board.  People are there trying to be helpful and might not even answer a cranky poster who’s asking the same question that’s been asked a dozen times.

Ignore any negavtive comments.  There are people who “troll messge boards, which is a refence to the troll under the bridge who snares the unwary passerby.  These are people who are bored, and mean, and don’t ever post anything to contribute to a conversation.  Our phrase is “don’t feed the trolls”; don’t respond to a troll, it only encourages them.  They’ll say whatever it takes to get our goats if we pay them the least amount of attention.  If you know someone who’s a troll – whack em across the head for me.  We all know what causes bullying behavior, so we need to just feel sorry for them and move on.

If I can’t find my answer on the forum of the people who built my toy, I look on the web.  Sometimes general techy discussion boards will have different answers than the developer.  Some deveopers are willing to build a program, but won’t support it.  The web is our freind.

If you still can’t find an answer to your question, you may not be using the right search terms.  Many people get search engine optimization wrong – they use words that the general public doesn’t use, or they have their target audience wrong, so the words aren’t what a typical user would search for.  While you were reading message boards, you probably came across other words and phrases that you can try. 

When all the above fails – THEN you can post your question on a message board.  Start with the forum on the developers site, and if that’s not available or gets you nowhere, then try other more generalized boards you came across in your searches.  You’ll notice that some boards are active and some rarely get answered.  Pick an active board, related to your question.  Check back oftem – make this easy by making a favorite place, bookmark, or shortcut to your post, so you can quickly get back to it.  If someone asks for more information, be quick to attempt to provide it.

Don’t put links in a post if you can help it, but do provide examples.  Make sure to read the “before posting here” message that is on every forum so you can provide the information they usually have to request. 

There is nothing that can’t be learned on the internet if you take the time to look.  I truely enjoy my access to all the free knowledge I could possibly need on any topic.  Computers can be difficult to learn at first, but as you build on what you learn, you’ll find computers more and more useful.  You didn’t learn to drive a car in one lesson; and computers are just as complex.  You will get viruses, you will have crashes, you will have to format your computer over time.  Don’t be afraid of it, just do it, learn and make the most of this wonderful tool.

Go Boldly into the future.

My Coffee Analogy

I’ve noticed that a lot of people who are new to computers don’t have a fine understanding of the various forms of memory in a computer.  There’s ram and cache, and hard drives and memory sticks and floppys, and cds, and on and on.  It can be so confusing and people use the wrong terms when trying to talk to the tech, and get themselves all confused.  I have an analogy that helps most people really “get” the various memory allocations.

The processor is the brain of the computer.  It’s a small square chip on the motherboard, that can be replaced, depending on your motherboard, to upgrade it.  It actually just sits there and adds…  REALLY REALLY fast.  (“Clock speed” refers to the number of milliseconds it takes to perform one “operation” in a processor)  It’s very fast, but there’s very little space in a processor.  It’s a lot like sipping coffee – that tiny bit in your mouth is all a processor can handle at once.  It takes a small chunk of info that’s handed to it (32 or 64 bits of data – hence the phrase “64-bit processor”), does it’s math and sends it back. 

All the rest of the forms of memory address how the processor gets its “sip of coffee”.

Ram is not as fast, but it does hold more coffee than the processor.  It’s like a cup on your desk – you can quickly and easily take a sip with barely a thought.  The computer stores data in ram that the processor will need in order to do whatever it is you’re asking from your computer.  Ram’s purpose is to make data quickly acessible – things like how to make a window (your browser, your email program), how to recognize mouse clicks and key strokes on your keyboard, how to display the ones and zeros of that text file or picture you’re seeing, and all the things that computers have to do so that we humans can recognize and comprehend the data it’s crunching.  Ram is very fast, but when it loses it’s charge (you turn the power off on your computer) it goes blank.  It’s comparatively very expensive to make memory this fast, so we use it in small chunks (notice we use ram in 1 or 2 gig chunnks, whereas hard drives can be 200 gigs or more)

Ram comes in a lot of formations – based on the speed of the chips on a ram stick, the way they’re placed on the stick and how much data they’ll hold.  This is why it’s always best to take a chip out of your computer when you go to the computer store to buy more ram or upgraded ram.  Showing the tech the example helps them know what will fit in your computer with no guesswork.  It’s very easy to replace ram – it’s one of the few pieces of equipment on a computer that doesn’t require a driver (software to tell the computer how to use the hardware), so you can easily just add more or exchange it (depending on what your computer can access). 

Cache sits between the processor and the ram.  It helps to speed up the exchange of data…  It’s like a straw in your coffee cup – it helps the processor sip coffee as fast as it wants.  It’s built into the main board of your computer, so you can’t “upgrade” it, or improve it like you can the other forms of memory.  This is because it’s not really memory as much as a tunnel full of ones and zeros.

Then we have the various forms of memory that actually keep data stored when you turn the power off.  Nothing so far in our story has done that – store the ones and zeros, the offs and ons…  This is the job of the hard drive.  A hard drive can be compared to a coffee pot.  It takes a little longer to get coffee from the coffee pot, into your “processor (mouth) for a sip.  Not much longer, you don’t really feel that you’re suffering from a lack of coffee… but it’s not as fast as when you’re cup has a straw in it sitting at your lips. The ram takes the data from the “coffee pot” (hard drive) and holds it in a “cup” (ram) so the “mouth” (processor) can sip it through its “straw” (cache).

Some types of hard drives hold more data, or are faster at giving the data to the ram.  There are new solid state hard drives that hold terabytes of information and are almost as fast as ram.

So, the various forms of “ones and zeros” storage are designed for the sole purpose of getting “coffee into the mouth” (data to the processor) with as little delay as possible.

Then we get into the various forms of mobile data – CD’s, dvd’s, floppys, thumb drives, zip drives, etc.  These forms of media store data without a charge – meaning they don’t forget when you turn off the power.  They’re very slow in comparison, but they serve the purpose of “taking your coffee to any computer”.  Thumb drives and dvds are the fastest of these.  For the processor, it’s a lot like going to the store to buy coffee grounds to brew coffee with…  It takes a while to get data from one of these mobile formats to the processor for it to work on.  That’s why there’s always a delay when inserting these forms of media into your computer.  A program that runs off a thumb drive or dvd will not run as fast or be as responsive as a program that runs from a stored space on the hard drive.  This delay is not huge for us humans, but for the processor that thinks in milliseconds, it’s like waiting hours for you to go to the store, buy coffee, come home and brew it, and then get it into the cup before it can sip.

When you start talking about 3 and a half inch floppys, it feels to the processor like it had to go to columbia to pick the beans to brew the coffee with – forever.  And the very old 5 and a quarter inch floppies (do we remember those?) can be compared to planting a coffee bush, and waiting for the beans to mature so you can pick them, and turn them into coffee to sip – it really takes a lot to get that data off the floppy and into the processor.

That is my story, and I’m sticking to it.  I hope it gives you a better concept of how the various forms of data storage work, and that you enjoy your coffee today.

Email addresses with a web site

I deal with one problem often with new web site owners, so I thought I’d share it here.  The issue is email.  Most people have an email address given to them by their internet service providor (ISP).  Others have goten a free email address from some other providor, like hotmail, gmail, or yahoo.  For many people, just checking that email address alone is at the limit of their skill. 

Some people even go so far as to get one of these free email addresses for business email, or have their personal mail from their isp made as a business email, with their business name included (joesconstruction@hotmail.com – doesn’t that sound trustworthy?).

Then, that client wants me to simply forward email to their current email box.  So people can email them at their business address, and then they turn around and reply with their personal address.  After a little while of this, they notice that customers are seeing their personal email address, and then we have to deal with “how do I make it look like my business address when I send out email from my personal account?”  This can be an extremely complicated process.  The easy answer is to use the email box that came with your domain name, or outlook.  Yahoo does not let you do this without upgrading.  Aol won’t let you do this at all.  This can take hours to troubleshoot and fix, depending on who provides your email account. 

When I get an email from a business that ends in a free domain, or their isp, I notice.  What it says to me is “I can’t even afford to hire a webmaster who has a clue, so trust me to stay in business long enough for you to get what you pay for.”    It looks “fly by night”; it offers me less trust than knowing they’ve got the resources available to do business well.  If you have a good webmaster, maybe you also have a good accountant, and a good legal advisor, and you’re probably more stable in business.  Anyone can make up a business name and build a web site.  How many of those will be here tomorrow?

It looks more professional to have your email end with your own domain name.  This may require learning to check email in a new interface (instead of the way hotmail is laid out, you’ll have to learn how your webmail works with your domain name)  You may have to check two email accounts – personal and business.  You can make this less problematic by using Outlook or another email program to fetch all your mail.   The point is to get over the learning curve early on, and do it the right way.  Don’t work around your own lack of skill.

One benefit to using the email addresses that come with your domain is the ability to appear to be a larger business.  You can make several “departments” by simply making different email addresses.  They can all end up in the same email box, even if checked by the same person, but it offers flexibility in the future.  You can “sort” the mail in your inbox with rules, or you can have one person handle sales questions and another handle support questions.  Small, single owner businesses may not feel a great need for this. 

If you have even one employee check email for you, you need control over that email account.  If they have a free email account from yahoo or google, you don’t have control over that.  Their name is on the account.  That means that if that employee leaves your organization in a less than pleasant fashion, you could be in for a rough road.  Disgruntled employees are the most dangerous person to your IT infrastructure.  They have access and can cause a lot of damage.  I had one client who’s ex-employee emailed all his clients and told them he was out of business and to go to the ex-employee for future business! 

So, my recommendation to all web site owners is to let your webmaster make email addresses for your domain, and use email that ends in your domain name for all business correspondence.  Keep personal email and business email seperate.

Hello world!

I intend for this blog space to be a repository of many things web related.  Hints and tips, virus alerts, tutorials, and more will be posted here. 

Let my first tip be this:

If you need a web site, call us first.  We’ll be happy to talk you through the process of getting a web site set up for your business.  We’ve been doing this a long time, and our clients love us. 

We have hosting and all needed web services available at easy site central.  Our prices are at par with the market, but one advantage you have, in addition to our 24 hour service number, is being able to call us personally for help, or even to just ask a questions about an email you got.

Remote Assistance

I use a tool called “Gbridge” (http://gbridge.com) to remotely access computers.  (no, I gain nothing from advertising this free tool, except for the use of a decent program for free)  It’s useful in several ways.  You can remote control your own computer, you can access windows share folders (yes, even your local printer), you can request a friend to remote access your computer or remote control theirs, and you can share files from your computer with your friends or keep your own computers synced.

The basic setps are:

• Create a gmail account.
• Download and install gbridge.  This is easy just a few clicks, all the default settings are pleasant.
• Change the settings to allow someone to access your computer  remotely.
• Change the settings to allow windows share folders if needed.

Specific instructions can be found at the gbridge site.  What I’ll post here is instructions so that I can help clients by remotely accessing their computer when needed.

When gbridge installs, the last step is to log in.  

• Enter the username and password you specified when you made the gmail account.
• Hostname is a friendly name for your computer, so it’s easy to identify in the list.
• Autostart specifies whether gbridge will run on boot or not.
• Remember me helps you not have to log in each time.

Once you’re logged into gbridge, the next step is to allow yourself to request my assistance.

• Click the Desktop Share button.
• Choose “Configure GBridge Desktop Share (vnc)”
• Choose the option to “Allow” in the top section labled “Send Desktop Share invitation to friends.”  (the other option on this page is to allow yourself to access your other computers; choose “Allow after…” and enter a password in the lower box)
• Click Ok

And last but not least – invite me to be your friend. (sorry that info is reserved for more personal contact 🙂 )