Content Strategy & the Web Development Process

Not All Web Development Companies Work The Same Way

content strategyAll web development companies do not work the same. We each have our own internal processes, philosophies and ways of doing business that provide very different client experiences. Some web development projects include an internet marketing component, while other projects can be simple brochure-style website. Some of the experience a client receives is based on how we describe our capabilities to our prospects or how well we convey the value of our services. Other factors that can affect a project, of course, are the project’s goal, purpose and budget.
At Orion Group, internet marketing services are a standard inclusion in most proposals we send out. Occasionally the internet marketing consulting line items are marked as an optional deliverable – it’s in the proposal, our prospects can see it, and they can decide for themselves. If the budget just isn’t there or if they’re confident in doing it themselves, they don’t have to purchase the service. Continue reading

Fixing Business Listing Errors in Local SEO on Angie’s List Can Be Confusing

Dealing with local SEO issues like yellow pages tech support can be frustrating at times. That is a good reason to leave it up to the business listing correction experts, like us. It gets even more complicated when support staff are feeding their clients misinformation.

fix listing errors on angies listI believe that the tech support department of Angie’s List may be confusing their search engine terminology. I wrote Angie’s List to have them update the phone number in a listing for one of my clients recently. I followed up a few weeks later since I did not see the live listing data updated yet.

They replied saying that the listing had been updated. They also said that if you are not signed in to the website (as a member) and you are seeing outdated info (which they may have updated already), AND you found the page via a Google search, then it is a Google cached page that you are seeing. Huh!?! Continue reading

Why Businesses Need Facebook

Businesses Need Facebook

Since my internship two years ago at a local organization in Green Bay doing social media content management and recently starting my job at Orion Group, I have explored why businesses need Facebook as a means of marketing. Facebook is a social platform where people share their personal feelings, beliefs, desires, and lives. Why then, do businesses need Facebook as a means of revenue growth or something that helps with exposure and profit? Continue reading

A Domain Name Worth Its Weight In Gold

To most people, domain names are simply the addresses for their favorite websites. However, a select few understand that these Web addresses, also known as URLs, are a vital commodity in the real world, and large businesses and new startups are willing to pay top dollar for the right names. In some cases, this can amount to a foresighted investor becoming an instant millionaire. Continue reading

Legal Issues Faced by Bloggers

image of scales of justiceIf you are thinking about starting a blog or if you already have one, it is important to understand that in the eyes of the law, bloggers are considered to be active journalists. This means that you face nearly all of the same legal issues that magazine and newspaper publishers face. You may believe that you do not have to worry about these issues because your audience is small, but this is entirely false. Continue reading

How To Make A Side-By-Side Competitor Ranking Report from a Linkdex Export CSV File

Before discovering this technique, I wasted hours copy/pasting client & competitor ranking data into it’s ‘proper’ place on a spreadsheet. Pivot tables save a LOT of time when working with ranking exports from Linkdex! See how it is done in a few short minutes with this video.

Turn this…

linkdex export

Into this… Continue reading

Good Content, Pay-Per-Click Marketing, Email Campaigns And Other Types Of Internet Marketing

types-internet-marketingIn order to drive more visitors to your website every day, a marketer should frequently post fresh and relevant content on a website, get your business verified by Google, and launch a pay-per-click advertising campaign by using the services of Google AdWords.

High-Quality Content

The more often a website owner posts new and relevant articles on the site, the higher the positions of the site’s pages will be in the search results. The headline and the first paragraph of each piece should contain your targeted keyword phrases because Google’s bot will rank the webpage more highly for groups of words that are in the first few sentences of the article, especially if it is in the title. Continue reading

Orion Group’s Top 10 WordPress Plugins

WordPress PluginsIn the last couple months several people have asked me what WordPress plugins are the best, which do we use on our sites, and what each plugin does.  There over 31,000 plugins in the WordPress repository, and thousands of paid plugins and add-ons available on the web.  It can be hard to figure out what to use.  So to get started, here’s a list of our top 10 plugins that we use on our latest sites. Continue reading