It seems that the more familiar I become with the Internet, the more I am amazed at the opportunity that lies before us. As my father-in-law put it, “It’s 1920 right now on the Internet. We are all going to see things we can’t even now imagine.” One of the ways that I have been most impressed by innovation on the Internet is in recent improvements in collaboration software. Working over the internet used to be a lonely and solo job, almost like reading a book. Nowadays, however, a vast and powerful social network connects us and makes online collaboration as easy, if not easier than offline collaboration.

This is especially true in virtual web design groups.

At Skyhook Internet Marketing, we take full advantage of every tool we can sink our teeth in to that promotes online collaboration. We use Google Calendar for planning out our timeline. We use Google Docs and Zoho for real-time, shared document editing. We have used E-groupware for project management and time reporting, and are currently giving Zoho projects and Zoho invoicing a try. It seems that with each release, these programs are making it just as easy for people to work together from across the country as it is for those who sit two cubicles apart!

Creating websites through virtual groups keeps costs down
Perhaps the biggest reason we take advantage of collaboration software to create websites is that it keeps costs down. Gas is expensive, but our team does the majority of our work from home and never has to commute! That also allows us to get an earlier start in the morning and often finish early or at least get more done because we spend our time and efforts working — not commuting! Because of this, we haven’t had to invest in an expensive office or any of the expenses that come with it. We wouldn’t use them! The same is true for office supplies, fees, etc.

Creating websites through virtual groups provides a better finished product for the customer
The real benefit of collaborating online through virtual groups is that it creates a better finished product for the customer. Because costs are down and communication is up, we are able to put a lot more effort in to our websites for the same price or cheaper than other firms. Not to mention the fact that being online all day exposes us to thousands of websites and we are often among the first to see new trends or hear about new ways to do business.

Virtual web design groups free up time to do what we want
Don’t get me wrong one of my favorite things to do is web design. But as you would probably agree, looking at a computer screen starts to hurt your brain after a while. Working in virtual groups lets us get our work done quickly so we can move on to spending time with the family, improving ourselves, exercising, thinking, organizing, etc. which, at least for me, is a huge benefit.

Virtual web design allows us to work when we feel like it
There are a lot if interests that vie for my time, and one of the things I appreciate most about online collaboration is that it allows me to work when I want. When I was in school, I was able to spend mornings in class and afternoons in study groups, letting all of my work pile up online during the day and then hammering it out at night.

Whatever evidence or reason there may be to avoid online collaboration is slowly fading away. As software applications become more powerful, there is every reason to switch to an online environment. It will give you the competitive edge over the other guys. It will help you live a better quality of life. It will help you produce better work which will in turn benefit society as a whole!

Dallin

The internet has taken some tremendously innovative strides in the short time it has been around and the implications have been dramatic. By simply typing a series of keywords in a google search bar and clicking “search” one can effortlessly browse hundreds of relative links that lead to pages on the web relevant to those specific keywords. This is an amazing capability that has become the forefront of everything the internet is and represents in the present. Top search engines such as Google, Yahoo, MSN, Kudzu, and many more have taken the initiative to fulfill a need that, before it was addressed, most of us didn’t even know we had.

These advancements, coupled with everything the internet has to offer on top of that, provide a powerful opportunity for business owners and individuals looking to get themselves or their product/service noticed by a massive and diverse audience. Internet marketing is the key to a successful business in our day. By overlooking the tremendous opportunity to market a business to millions of viewers everyday, one is basically saying to himself/herself that they are not concerned with establishing a successful business.

However, simply having a website is one thing. Having a GOOD website is a completely different story and can mean all the difference in the success of a business. As a search engine optimizer I often get asked a number of different questions from clients. Most of these questions revolve somewhere along the lines of, “How can I get my site to come up number one on Google?,” “What keywords should I use to optimize my website?,” or “How can I drive more traffic to my site?” All of these are good questions. However, I think sometimes business owners don’t understand that the answer to each of these questions is more simple than complex. We hear often about different strategies to “trick” google or yahoo into ranking our site higher or giving us a better score. There is a popular belief that google has some sort of underlying code that optimizers can crack and therefore automatically boost any website to the top of a the ranks for any keyword. This is simply not the case. Though there are a number of different techniques that can be utilized to help optimize a sight and make it more user friendly, relevant, and thus more “google” friendly, the ultimate deciding factor in how a website is ranked by google is relevancy. in other words, if you want google to think you have a good site, you have to HAVE a good site. No matter what you do for optimization, if it’s a bad site, chances are it will still be bad even after a heavy and steady dosage of SEO and SEM.

SEO and SEM stand for “Search Engine Optimization” and “Search Engine Marketing” not “Search Engine Overpowering” and “Search Engine Manipulation.” Basically what I’m saying is you’re probably tricking yourself if you think you can trick Google. The technology provided by this one company is revolutionizing the world as we speak. They are developing new and innovative internet tools faster than most can even keep up with. There’s just no sense in trying to find a loop hole. That said, given the length of this post already, I want to quickly list my top three pieces of advice for businesses thinking of building a new website or simply optimizing an existing website.

1. Content Content Content! Content is the Key! If you wish to rank high for “door bells,” there had better be information on your site about doors bells. If you want to see what you’re up against, type “door bells” in the google search bar and visit the top three or four sites and see how much information they provide about “door bells.” If you want to outrank them you’ll need to have more, and, if not more, better content than these top competitors.

2. Relevancy! This goes along the same lines as content but is a bit more in depth and technical. For example, if you’re trying to market “sunglasses,” your content should have words like, “sunny, summer, UV rays, sun protection, lenses, frames…etc. These words, “theme” words, should be interspersed throughout the entire site and especially on the homepage.

3. Blogging! Having a blog for you site is huge because search engines love to provide people with the latest breaking news in all topics. Search engines know that blogs provide the fastest means to market an idea or a story. Thus, when new content is posted on a blog the search engine detects new and exciting content and will quickly give the article a high ranking for keywords that show up often in that particular article. People want the latest news and this is what search engines are giving the people by giving fast high rankings to blog posts. Most blogs, especially wordpress based blogs, have built in pinging devices that notify top search engines and blog engines the moment an article is published which brings a web crawler from that search engine to the blog immediately to crawl if for content. The power of blogging is not limited to simply having your own blog, it is also helpful to actively participate on other blogs and forums that are relevent to your site. This can not only provide opportunities to create quality links to your site, but also gets you noticed by the members of those blogs and forums who then tell others they know about your services. AWeee the beauty of networking.

So there you have it. My top three SEO and SEM tips I utilize on a daily basis. While these are very important there are still a number of other techniques that are essential in optimizing a website and driving increased amounts of traffic to it. There will be more talk of these other techniques in later posts, but for now I hope this helps spark the attention of anyone thinking of optimizing an existing site or building a new website.

-Joe

As of 3:16AM on July 8, the new Skyhook Internet Marketing website is live.

That’s right, I was so excited about finishing it that I went ahead and pulled an all nighter. I think it really paid off! I’ll go ahead and walk you through some of the features.

Home Page
The home page (and every page in the site) is fully content-managed which means we can make simple text changes or even fairly complex image changes all from a Wordpress backend. This is a great value to customers because without a CMS system, they would be calling their web design company constantly which can get to be quite expensive.

The home page also features recent posts from our blog (which was a simple wordpress plugin) and NexGen gallery which has an impressive “lightbox” function to show off our latest work. Go ahead, check it out!

About Us
Not much to say here, though it is another content-managed page. Can you see John’s wife in the picture I had to crop him out of?

Folio
This page has the most “ooh” and “aah.” It features Tiltviewer which is a free program for wordpress and I think it’s rather snazzy. It’s pretty simple on our end to upload new pictures and project details and have them instantly shown in our portfolio. For some, it’s almost like a video game! You can use the arrows to navigate and hit “f” to flip the card and see project details. Very cool.

Services
This is where people find out that there is a charge for awesomeness and attractiveness (lame Kung Fu Panda reference).

Contacts
This page is special because of the contact form. It’s a true AJAX form (Thanks Contact Form 7 plugin) which means that if you mess it up, it doesn’t have to wait for the server to validate (go ahead, try leaving your name blank and submitting!) very cool. Of course, this is all stuff that we know how to do but the amazing thing about wordpress is that much of this work has already been done before.

Blog
You’re looking at it! The true capabilities of wordpress are in the blog engine. We hope that the content we write and the discussion we start about web design here will be a big source of traffic and business for our firm.

So there you have it! Have a look around, leave any comments, and by all means, pass it on to your friends and business associates!

Dallin