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 I'm already hearing from people who are planning their booths for next year's bridal shows. But this is a great time to redo your website.
If you remake your website now, you'll be in time for brides who start looking for vendors during the Christmas proposal season, and your new content will be indexed in time for search engines to deliver your listing by January or February.
Why should you remake your website? Are you happy with the new business your website is bringing you? Check out this new site - Why-Your-Website-Sucks.com
Read the articles and the website critiques. Still think your website doesn't need to be redone?
"But remaking a website is expensive!", you say? Doesn't have to be.
What if I told you that you could have a beautiful, powerful and flexible website for under fifty dollars, excluding hosting? It's true. Actually, you might even be able to do it for FREE!
I'm talking about using a content management system called Joomla! Joomla lets you build a powerful website without having to know any web languages or ftp, etc. It's easier than using a video editing program. And Joomla is free.
Your web design - the way your website will look and be navigated, depends on a "template". There are tens of thousands of free templates for Joomla, but I usually prefer the commercial ones because they look more professional overall, they tend to have cleaner code, easier optimized for seo and good ergonomics.
Some template vendors I've used and love are - RocketTheme.com, iJoomla.com and YouJoomla.com. Changing a template is often as simple as a couple of mouse-clicks, but the initial setup of a complex template can take a full day of work.
There are also thousands of extensions for Joomla. An extension is an add-on program that extends the power and flexibility of your website. Joomla extensions come in the form of components that display content in the main area of your page; modules that display content around the peripheral areas of your page and plug-ins that can affect all content.
Some extensions are major, like Virtuemart which is an online ecommerce store that is as powerful as any commercial online store application, while some are more simplistic such as showing a slideshow of images, etc. It is unlikely that you can think of anything useful that an extension hasn't already been written for. Most extensions are free.
For some examples of Joomla websites, here are a few I have done or am currently working on -
More Joomla website examples that I've done are shown near the bottom of the front page on CompuSolver.com.
As you remake your website, remember these rules:
- Aesthetics - your website must look great
- Attention-Grabbing - you must grab the viewers' attention and make them want to read the front page content
- Interest - your front page must engage the viewer and make him want to go deeper into your site
- Branding - Everything about your site must reflect your branding
- Marketing - each page must have a purpose and its content must reflect that purpose
- SEO - remember you are creating content for two "audiences" - your viewers and the search bots. You must combine your knowledge of marketing with your knowledge of search engine optimization and weave your sentences carefully.
- Call To Action - ask for the job on every page and give the viewer a way to commit right now.
As for content - remember to write for both audiences - humans and search-bots. You should probably have a separate web page for each city you intend to cover. Both url and page title should include the keyword phrase, like "Muskogee wedding videos", etc. You could have an h1 heading tag with that same keyword phrase and repeat the phrase about eight times in a 400 - 500 word article.
Include some info about the city, perhaps suggest some good rehearsal venues, and have one or two images (don't forget to have image names, alt and title tags include keywords for that page!). Be sure and have a menu link with that keyword phrase - one that points to the page. Now, call each of those rehearsal venues (and maybe some commercial chapels) and offer to include a link to their site in return for a link to your site (with your keyword phrase in the link text).
If they refuse, give them a link anyway and from time to time, ask them again. Check your logs and tell them how many visitors you've sent their way - they will come around!
Then, watch your SERPS for each keyword phrase. Study every site that comes in ahead of you (at least the top ten) and steal ideas from them.
Your goal is to get into the top ten listings for each keyword phrase and to have description text that is compelling enough to motivate viewers to check out your site (and be SURE that SafeWeb users see a green checkmark!)
PPC's are worth doing, (like AdWords, etc.), if you're willing to either hire a pro to run your campaigns, or study hard before placing your chips on the poker table. It is easy to pay for lots of clicks that don't convert into customers, if you're not careful. |
Whether you want to take your business to the next level, or give a little back to your choosen field by helping others, WVDR is the place to be.
