Collections Insider

About 3 years ago I was still using the web site created for me by Frontier in Rochester New York. Knowing very little about the creation, development, optimization and value of a web site I figured it was what it was. The site rarely generated any calls and cost the agency $15.00 per month, that of course is in addition to the initial set up cost which I believe was a few hundred dollars.

My “real” marketing efforts consisted of phone book listings, magazine ads, cold calling and letter campaigns, none of which brought the agency any great results (mild at best).

About three years ago I brought John Kelly on board as Vice President of the agency. Kelly’s role was and is IT and marketing. Kelly immediately went to work making adjustments to the agency web site. As he made these changes I assisted by providing him with content and details about the collection industry. Kelly took over hosting of the agency site and I cancelled our contract with Frontier. The site began to take shape and as Kelly continued to develop it and he explained each step to me as he went along.

My understanding of web sites and the necessity of one soared and I felt like I had entered the world of technology. Once the site became active it began to take on a life of its own. The site had become my marketing tool. I began receiving calls on a daily basis and since the site upgrade my client base has quadrupled. My marketing dollars are now solely devoted to the web site and its optimization.

I owe the success of my site to John Kelly. Without his guidance I would still have a worthless site that no one sees or utilizes. The site is now interactive and a great resource to current and potential clients. I offer a blog that clients can read and make comments to and my monthly newsletters are archived on my site. My agreement and placement form is on line and can be downloaded and completed by clients. Debtors can now go to our on line payment page at www.forgot2pay.com and make secured payments.

John Kelly has decided to not only offer his services to Your Collection Solution, LLC but to offer them to businesses all over who need his expertise. He has started his own business called 6X6 Design , LLC. He has already developed and optimized web sites for a number of small businesses including a commercial cleaning company, a social worker and an attorney. He can be reached through his web site (which is under construction at the time of this post) at www.6×6Design.com.

About the author: Jan Conte is the President of Your Collection Solution, LLC, a debt collection agency out of Newtown, Pennsylvania. She has over twenty years experience in the debt collection industry. You can find more of her articles at www.yourcollectionsolution.com/blog/.

A common question asked of me several times over – “Should I have a web site for my business?” Not only is my answer a resounding YES, a web site is by far the most cost effective communication and advertising tool any business could have.

If you have a business then you provide:
1. a product
2. a service
3. useful information

Radio and TV commercials are generally too expensive for most small business budgets, word-of-mouth is wonderful for established business but not as effective for newer businesses, and expensive direct mailings usually results in your ad going from the mail box to the recycle bin without ever being looked at.

That leaves us with phone books. Let’s face it – phone books are almost extinct. When was the last time you picked one up and actually used it? And if you actually do get a large number of calls from the yellow pages, think about how much more you could get for a fraction of the cost if you were found online!

Check out this post from a phone book ad agent and what he candidly says about phone book directories.

What is the average age of your customer? Did you know the average online consumer is between 18 to 48 years old? That age gap increases every year too. Consider this: an average 5 to 15 page web site for your business telling the whole world (or maybe just the market you want to target) about your stuff, running online 24 hours a day, every day of the year, professionally managed, updated and optimized for search engines by a professional webmaster usually costs on average under $80 per mo. for small and medium business web sites. Certainly, this cost can run into the hundreds or thousands for mega corporate web sites with large Search Engine Optimization (SEO) firms. But for our small business example, this monthly fee equates to about the price of a daily cup of specialty brand coffee. A fee that can also pay for itself in a very short time too.

So what can you do now?

If you don’t have a web site, look for a professional web designer; more importantly one that specializes in search engine optimization. If you already have a web site, get an evaluation and consultation to see how effective it is now vs. what it could potentially be.

Unless you have lots of time and are very adept to learning web designing for fun, avoid the temptation of the “do it yourself” route to creating a web site. There are so many offers online for “free web site with domain name purchase” etc. that suck people in. You get what they say though, a web site, which later you realize no one can find. Most of these basic web site templates are all about presentation and very little about proper search optimization structure.

As I mentioned previously, a web site should be professionally managed. It should also be updated and optimized for search engines. Change is constant for a web site to remain successful. I also recommend a web site to be professionally built to avoid browser compatibility problems, accessibility problems, and other common issues associated with poor planning.

Proof that Success is Possible

An example of successful web site marketing is Your Collection Solution, LLC’s web site www.yourcollectionsolution.com, a web site I currently manage. Jan Conte estimates that 95% of her new business comes to her online via her web site. Since her web site was optimized earlier this year, her daily calls for new business have gone through the roof. Go ahead and try this search for “collection agency ny”, one of her three markets, just by clicking this link and see the results for yourself.

Owning a web site and having it professionally managed isn’t just a must-have, it’s also a financially sound decision. Let’s face it — if you own a business and don’t have a web site (or a properly optimized one), you can be sure your competition is gradually stealing your business through their own properly built and optimized web site.

About the author: John Kelly of 6×6 Design, LLC, is a web designer and search engine optimization professional. His niche is small business website optimization and consultation. He is also the webmaster and I.T. specialist for YourCollectionSolution.com.

In my first article, I introduced a minimum of twelve mistakes commonly found with small business websites resulting in poor search engine rankings. In part two, I’ll break down each of these areas in more detail and provide a few examples for clarification.

To be found online, your website’s content and a proper design around it is key. In other words, building a website with the mindset of being found in a search is the first priority. But don’t panic, your current website may not need to be entirely redesigned. It may only require some enhancements to its content and structure.

I know what some of you are thinking: “I don’t know how to make changes to my website”. If that’s the case, you hired a webmaster or you know someone to make changes to your site, correct? Okay! Problem solved, now let’s move on.

In order to begin to take account of your current website’s issues, there are questions you need to ask yourself first:

1. Where is my targeted ad area geographically? In other words, are you looking for business in just your city, state or region or are you national or world-wide?
2. What is the ultimate goal of your website? Is it to click on a shopping cart link that leads to a purchase, complete a Contact Us form, a simple phone call?
3. What are keywords and key phrases used in your business? For example: if you are an attorney in New Jersey and you want to target Personal Injury cases, then “Personal Injury Lawyer/Attorney New Jersey” is your main keyword phrase to build upon.
4. Once you know your keywords and key phrases, do you know your competition found ranking higher than you for the same search terms? Make a list of the top websites that rank on page #1 of the search results. In my next article, I’ll show you how to examine their site to see why they are there and how you can learn from them.

Mistake #1: Wrong title used in the title bar.
Open your website online. Look at the very top left of the screen. In the blue bar in white lettering above your web browser window you will see what is called your title bar. This is also the same text link your customers click on when they find you in their search results. Usually I’ll find “Home Page” or just a non-keyworded business name. If your business name does contain keywords or a key phrase, by all means use it. Would you like to see just how important the title tag is? Search the words used in your title bar now and watch what happens. You may be surprised at the results.

The title tag, as it’s known in HTML language, is probably the most important yet often misunderstood and often overlooked optimization trick known. The content you see here MUST contain your first two, three or four keywords and relate to the theme of your website. It shouldn’t be longer than roughly 60 characters, and avoid using special characters. It is okay to separate keywords with the pipe character “|” though. Don’t just change the title tag on your home page either. Change it on every page to reflect that page’s content. This gives you more landing pages to be found in a search.

The title tag looks like this in your source code: <title>Your Website Title</title>. You can view your source code (but not edit it) by going to “View” on the top browser window menu, click “Source”. What you now see is your actual website code, same as what a search engine spider sees. You should find your title tag near the top somewhere. Your webmaster can easily edit this tag in seconds and put it online.

Example of a better title for Steve’s Carpet Cleaning Service: “Carpet Cleaning in California | Commercial Residential Cleaning CA”. Try to think of your title bar text as a headline that uses keywords you wish to be found for. You should see better results fast from this one trick alone. Important! Avoid repeating keywords. “Carpet Cleaning Carpet Cleaning Carpet Cleaning, California, California” will most likely get you penalized for spamming and possibly dropped from the search engine entirely. Search engines are smart. They know when you are trying to deceive them too and will drop you like a hot potato.

Check out what Google has to say about optimization at this link google.com/support/webmasters/.

Mistake #2: Your domain gets renewed every year
Your domain name is your website’s .com, .net, .org etc. web address name. Most people purchase and register a domain name for only one year then renew it every year when they receive a reminder to do so. What they don’t know is that Google and some other search engines regard your domain as a possible “fly-by-night” website due to a less than one year renewal period. Websites come and go everyday. Google values older websites and rewards them with greater page rank. Older is more than two years old. It can take a new domain’s website over a year just to get established. If your website is already old, that’s great. Just pay to renew your domain for more than five years to show you are in it for the long haul. It is well worth the investment. Again, ask your webmaster to do this if you do not own your domain.

Mistake #3: Too many images, not enough content
If your primary keywords are part of an image or in your logo, then search engines cannot read them. So if your website header image contains your business name and it is also your search term, you need to have your name in text too. Avoid images as text replacement. If your webmaster knows CSS, he or she can create background images behind the text and make it look as if it were all in one of the same. Think text, not images.

Mistake #4: Not using the Alternate text tag
If you do need images, use the “Alt” tag and/or “Title” tag where appropriate in your HTML code. This is that little yellow box that appears when you place your mouse pointer over an image or a link. This has two benefits: one is that it is extra metadata content readable by search engines and two, it allows for visually challenged users using text readers to hear a description of your image. Again, talk to your webmaster. Use alt text for images.

Mistake #5: Navigation content, not images
Navigation blocks are common artistic design elements on websites. But again, if the text in the navigation contains keywords, it is best not to imbed it inside an image. It is also smart to use alternate text and title text for links, similar to those used for images.

Mistake #6: Too many keywords used too often
Yes, you can overdue it with keywords in your content. You will be considered a spam website if you overdo it. Usually a good rule of thumb is to have keywords consisting of only 3% to 7% of the website’s content but this varies with your market. In Google, try a search for “keyword cloud” then find out what the percentage of keywords is on your website and check against you highest ranking competitor as a gauge. The keywords and key phrases you are optimizing for should have the highest percentages.

Mistake #7: No theme for the website
Search engines, like people, want to know what your website is about. Don’t disappoint either of them. Use the Title bar tag and meta description tag to your advantage. The description tag is usually just under the title bar tag in your source code. It should be short and highly descriptive as this is what most search engines use in the search results to describe your site. Google doesn’t rely on this tag. Instead it uses excerpts from content usually near the top of the page. Because of this, it is important that the first content placed on your website effectively describes what your website is all about with as many keywords and key phrases as possible to set up a proper theme.

Mistake #8: No document structure
A home page should set up like that of a book’s table of contents. If you use Microsoft Word, you may be familiar with heading styles such as “Heading 1”, “Heading 2”, etc. Google actually advises webmasters to use this hierarchy in their content so search spiders can establish the theme and content order of your website. In fact, when looking through your content in the “View Source”, somewhere in your code you should see code tags like <h1>, <h2>, <h3>, etc. For example: our carpet cleaning website example should contain:

<h1>Carpet Cleaning Specialists in California</h1>
near the top as the main title to support the theme, then possibly followed by:
<h2>Carpet Cleaning Services</h2>
then followed by the content that the carpet cleaning services title introduces

This change usually involves minor adjustments on your website so it shouldn’t be too hard for you webmaster to add these hierarchy tags.

Mistake #9: Geographic keywords not being used
Are you national, world-wide or just regional? The countries, cities, towns, counties, states, etc. all contain search terms that people use everyday. Think about it. Wouldn’t you narrow your search for something by location first? Make sure your areas are keywords and part of your content.

Mistake #10: Poor placement of keywords and key phrases
Many websites use navigation links across the top of the page in the form of tabs or on the sides in columns. This is okay as long as these navigation links contain keywords you are trying to optimize for and are not unreadable images. This is not good if your navigation just says “Home”, About Us”, “Contact Us”, etc. Instead, try “Carpet Cleaning Home”, “About Steve’s Cleaning Services”, etc.

It is important to understand that search engine spiders read in this order: from left to right, top to bottom. The most important keywords of any website must appear closer to the top of the page’s content. If your navigation is the first content it finds, you should either move it elsewhere, preferably to the right column, or create keyword rich navigation title links. Search engines also place importance on keywords in bold and italics so have your best ones in your top content somewhere. Example: “Steve’s Carpet Cleaning services the greater Los Angeles region. We specialize in carpet stain removal”, etc. You get the idea.

Mistake#11: Wrong content being used
If the content on your web page doesn’t relate to the theme of your website, then why is it there? This could be considered as spam if you’re not careful.

Mistake #12: Lack of quality inbound links
I can write an entire series of articles on links alone. It is important to know that the links coming to your website should be from preferably high-ranking, quality websites with content that relates to your content. The hard part though is getting these links. To put a positive spin on this, your website can lack quality links and still rank rather well if everything else is done correctly or you have little to no competition for your keywords. In reality though, your website will never rank as well as an identical site with lots of quality links.

A good way to start getting links is to reciprocate with your business partners. You get a link and so do they. Everyone’s happy. Another way is to create articles in a blog with a link back to your website.

The best links are those that happen naturally without a return link. If you get links coming to your site from a higher page ranking website than yours, you will get visited more often by search spiders and also get a higher page rank. Sounds simple, but getting those links are tough. Avoid buying links or placing too many at one time. Google likes to see links to your website build naturally over time and therefore places more emphasis on them as a result. By all means avoid link farms, or websites that link to everything. This can seriously deteriorate your web rankings.

Most of the mistakes covered here can easily be corrected, however some may involve some serious redesigning. It is best to consult with your webmaster and be sure they understand how and why to do these changes first. After changes are made, it may take months to start getting results to have patience. The reason being is that search engines that haven’t visited your website for some time may not crawl through your entire website next time around unless it sees something of interest, usually a title or description change, to schedule a more recent and thorough crawl of your website. That, my friends, is ultimately what we’re shooting for.

About the author: John Kelly is a free lance web designer and search engine optimization specialist. His niche is small business website optimization and consultation. He is also the webmaster and I.T. specialist for YourCollectionSolution.com.

Every small business with a website desires page #1 results in Google and other major search engines to bring in the business. However, if you are like many unfortunate small business owners, it is only just that, a desire. In this multi-part article series, I’ll break down the essentials in simple layman’s terms to educate even the non-computer savvy person on how to get better results from your website.

So what are better results? Obviously, having business generated via your website. But before you can make it right and find more traffic, you have to know what’s wrong first.

Harmony in website design is Golden Rule #1

Presentation to a search engine is meaningless, but certainly important to website users. Search engines only see text as content, not pictures or images with words in them. People see the opposite and often make decisions based on presentation. Harmony with both design and content optimization must exist for a website to be successful.

Whether you built your own website or spent hundreds or even thousands of dollars to have it done for you, don’t assume that a pretty, professional looking design should merit a page #1 placement in search engine results.

There are web designers and search engine optimization specialists. Usually, both don’t exist together in harmony due to differences in opinion. The professionals in the industry can do both and are often in high demand. Therefore their services are often expensive. Most web designers are only concerned about page design and customer interaction and usually lack search engine optimization knowledge. On the flip side, search engine optimizers usually lack designing skills and generally lose out to designers who build pretty pages. Business clients often fear having a website “being too cluttered with text” and feel that images, pictures and presentation build perception and trust. There is no doubt that good presentation builds perception, however it is completely useless if your website isn’t found in the first place. That’s where optimization comes into play.

Some of the ugliest but successful websites ever known place on page #1 for free in Google’s search results. Why? Generally speaking, they usually have good content and other relevant websites link to it. They also have frequent visits by search engine spiders (explained below) looking for updated content. These are but a few reasons as to why they do well, however they are some of the most important reasons.

Invite some friendly creepy-crawly spiders!

Search engines employ “spiders”, their own automated web search, that constantly searches or “crawls” the entire world-wide web over and over again to find websites and updated website content. If and when they find your website, they try to establish your theme based on titles and content, schedule a time to revisit more of your website content and follow your links to see what else it can find. The more a web spider “crawls” your website files, the more important your website appears to that search engine and the higher your website places in the search results for your keywords.

To gain a better perspective, here’s a link to a website containing free and wonderful website research tools. This link Search Engine Spider Simulator will show you results similar to what a search engine spider “sees” when it crawls your website. Can you read your content and does it make sense? If not, don’t worry too much as you are in the majority.

When was the last time your website was crawled? Try this: search for your website in Google by only typing your website address (example: yourwebsite.com) in the search window, not in the top address window. Your website should come up first in the free search results area. If not, then Google may not even know your website exists. No wonder you’re not getting web traffic! Simply put, if you are not listed in Google, your business website really doesn’t exist to your potential customers. Statistics prove that Google is by far the most respected and therefore the most used search engine in existence. You need to be in Google if you wish to compete online. As for other search engines, at the time of this authoring, MSN ranks second, then Yahoo!, then the rest.

If your website does come up in the Google search, click on the blue “Cached” link under your description. On the page that opens, Google will tell you when it last crawled your website. Check this regularly. If it’s been longer than one month on average, you are not very important to Google and likely other search engines as well. Your website would rank much higher if it was visited more often. You can’t control the visit schedule, but you can make changes to your website to peak the spider’s interest to want to come back more often. I’ll focus more on this in a later article.

What to look for and what to do

So what can I do right now you ask? Start with a simple evaluation of your website then get with your webmaster and make some changes. Here’s a list of the top 10 simple but common mistakes I find. This should get you started for now:

1. Wrong title used in the title bar at the top-left of the browser window. Is your business name in here, or even better, does it say Home Page? It shouldn’t be either unless that is your keyword or key phrase people search for.
2. Your domain name is renewed every year with your registrar as opposed to expiring beyond five years or more. Year-by-year renewal doesn’t show a stable domain. Contact your domain registrar and extend your renewal date today!
3. Your business name, keywords or important logo text is placed inside an image. Search engines can’t read images. To test this, try to select, then copy and paste the text in question. If you can’t, it’s part of the image and not readable by a search engine.
4. Too many pictures or images, ads, and not enough content. Images and pictures should also have a little yellow box giving alternate text in case the images can’t be viewed.
5. Navigation links don’t contain keywords or are made of images.
6. Too many keywords making both the content read poorly and search engines marking it off as spam.
7. No theme established to explain the website content. Would you read a book if you didn’t know what the title meant?
8. No document title hierarchy and improper structure.
9. Geographical advertising area keywords not used correctly.
10. Poor keyword use, poor placement, or lack of key phrases in the content.
11. Wrong content used. In other words, doesn’t relate to the website theme at all.
12. Lack of inbound links from websites that relate to your content.

In the articles to follow, I’ll break down each of these areas and explain how to make the needed corrections. Of course, I’ll use plenty of examples to help any beginner make those needed changes. Keep in mind that these are not the only search engine optimization techniques used, just a short list of the most basic ones that can make a huge impact on small business websites not already utilizing them.

About the author: John Kelly is a free lance web designer and search engine optimization specialist. His niche is small business website optimization and consultation. He is also the webmaster and I.T. specialist for YourCollectionSolution.com.