Our Included Services:

• Fully Managed Hosting on Virtual Private Servers
  We host our client’s websites on Virtual Private Servers. Using our VPS systems, we allow your website to use more resources than typical shared hosting, preventing your website from crashing due to lack of resources and memory. In addition, we host considerably less websites on one server when compared to shared hosting services, which eliminates any negative affects from spammy websites that can often be found on shared hosting servers.
• SEO Coaching for Top Search Engine Rankings
  You want to be at the top of the search results. We know how to get there. As part of our services, we provide coaching to help you achieve top rankings, and remain at the top once you get there. There are a ton of “seo specialists” that will charge you thousands to get you ranked highly, but will never show you how to do it. Our coaching will teach you what to do, how to do it and even walk you through and assist in making it happen.
• Total Support for Your Success
  Your success is our success. If we were like most hosting providers, our focus would be on obtaining our 1,000,000th client. With that many clients, giving real support is nearly impossible. However, since our goal is much lower than having 1 million clients, we can focus on really helping each one of our clients reach their top potential.
• Website Software Updates and Maintenance
  Website software is constantly updating and changing. If you do not keep up with the changes, your website can become out-dated, struggle to stay in the search engine results and make your overall experience miserable. We take the hassle out of keeping up with software updates, as we manage the entire thing for you. All you need to focus on is adding your content.
• Website Security Updates
  A website that does not address security is just asking for trouble! Hackers are always looking for vulnerable websites that they can take over and redirect traffic from. If your website handles any sensitive information (client emails for example), you could risk exposing that information as well. We keep up with the latest security threats and ensure that your website has the most up to date security measures possible.
• Affordable Website Design Updates
  If you want modifications to your website design, we offer affordable options to make the changes you want. Instead of having to hire an expensive website designer to make the changes, you have us as your own personal designer to modify the designs as needed.
• Managed Email Accounts
  Keeping up with email addresses, adding them, managing them and deleting them as needed can be time consuming. We manage all aspects of your email addresses for you. Need an email address added? Sure, we can do that. Need a spam blocker configured to minimize spam? Let us know and we can make the changes. We are here to help!

But I just want basic hosting for my website!

Well, in that case, we may not be the best option for you. Our monthly service fee, which includes our hosting services, start at $29 a month. While this is still less than the typical VPS server programs available online, it is still a bit higher than most shared hosting packages. So if you are seeking basic shared hosting, allow us to make a recommendation for you.

BlueHost is one of the best when it comes to shared hosting. Their monthly fees are affordable and their service is above par for typical shared hosting companies. With this type of services, we are proud to have established a referral partnership with BlueHost for any of our potential clients that need less than the services we offer. Click our affiliate link to view the services BlueHost offers: http://www.bluehost.com/track/unitedmarketing

Love Doing Interior Designer Websites (1)

Recently we have begun doing a number of websites specifically for interior designers. We love working with interior designers on websites! Together we can create a website that showcases their talents, as well as providing valuable information for potential clients. It also allows us to enjoy the creative talents of those in the design industry!

If you are an interior designer in need of a website, we invite you to allow us to get you started. Not only can we provide you with a great looking and stylish website design that is perfect for interior designers, but we can also help you get your website found online. This can help you stop chasing down potential clients and let them actually find you!

Use the comment/question form below to request more information, or call us at 704-684-9438. We are here to help take your business to a new level!

(1) Image Credit: Logan Circle Loft by Christopher Barson

Google caused me to pause today (1)

I had a big “oh my” pause moment today in regards to Google. In doing some research in regards to SEO today, I noticed something. I had seen this before, but never really found the time to explore it very far. It was a newer feature that Google is now offering, called Google Public Profiles. Here you can create a small profile of yourself, including your picture and links to your website(s). The profile can be highlighted at the bottom of search results if someone is searching by name.

For me, it was the free “dofollow” links coming from Google that interested me. Now, whether Google will give any real link credit coming from themselves I do not know. But it can’t hurt rankings in other search engines! And its just another way to remind Google of your websites, with appropriate text anchors!

The pause… oh, yeah. I’m getting there! One of the features of the public profile is the ability to verify your name. This might be useful if your name is well known to prevent others from trying to grab interest of others by using your name. So I decided to go ahead and verify my name… after all, my name is often abused in so many ways! (LOL)

To verify your name, you go to another new feature from Google, called Knol. Here you can verify your name by either a credit card or your social security number. GULP! There was my pause… my Social Security Number? Do I trust Google that much? They have so much information already… do I go so far as to give them my SSN?

Again, I don’t think in conspiracies… but the fact that Google is so big, has accumulated so much data, has one of the most popular email services (and rising popularity with documents), its not too far a stretch to wonder what the end goal here is. And so very clever to have so many great features where people just willingly give up some very detailed personal information.

Do I go forward with the verification? I don’t know. I do not have an active credit card (and they can’t verify via debit cards yet.) My only option in doing it will be giving them my social security number. Maybe its my years of being around finance and credit, and all the news about ID theft… all added to some great Hollywood flicks… and I pause. What do you think? Would YOU verify, or stop to pause?

(1) Image credit: My Flickr Face, by ViaMoi

Quit Complaining About Google (1)

I am getting rather tired of web “professionals” that want to complain about Google, and for that matter other search engines as well. Its one thing to offer criticism on what and how search engines work and perform as a way to offer suggestions on how they can improve. But what I am referring to are the complaints about how Google doesn’t do this or that and how they are “evil” in some way because they don’t simply give a lazy webmaster what they want.

Some of the complaints that are most frequent involve Google not indexing their all important website, or ranking another website above theirs. Of course they can come up with all types of conspiracy theories to uphold their complaints, but in reality they are just being lazy or focusing in the wrong place.

Instead of working with the search engines and optimizing their content and structure to accommodate the search engine’s requirements, they complain that the search engines aren’t playing fair or doing things right. One thing that gets lost is the fact that Google.com is owned by Google, Inc. Google, Inc is a company that needs to make a profit to survive and grow. Their main source of revenue comes from ad placements within the search results they display.

Google.com is not a community driven website in which the users vote a website to be more important. It is a system in which Google, Inc does the best they can to provide a FREE service that attracts online users to use the service in finding websites relevant to their needs. Google makes the decisions as to which are most relevant, based upon their own internal systems. As long as the results continue to be relevant, users continue to return.

This is a basic principle in business. Provide a service people want to use and keep them coming back for more. Find a way to make money with that and “poof”… you have success.

Am I a major advocate for Google? Well, not really. I don’t mind Google at all. As a matter of fact, I use Google to serve my own purposes, both in searches but also in getting my websites ranked so that others will find MY websites in those searches. Actually, I am an advocate for good business and the ability to make a profit and a living. I do not believe that making a profit is evil, and while some argue it may be evil if it is at the expense of someone else, I would argue that ALL profit is at the expense of someone else, no matter how big or small. If you have a job, you are preventing someone else from having the job you are doing. So in that your job is at the expense of someone else that could use that job.

So for those of you that are complaining about Google, quit. Google is not costing you anything, and if you do your job as a webmaster correctly, this FREE service can actually help you make money!

(1) Image credit: “Just Expressing Her Opinion” by Cayusa @Flickr

Google is Keeping Secrets (1)

Recently I read an post on a webmaster’s forum discussing the secrets of search engines that Google will not tell you. The gist of the posting was that Google will not tell you what successful webmasters are doing to get ranked. It also indicated that webmasters themselves are not sharing much of the information. Personally, I think the nature of business is overlooked too often when discussing issues like this.

From Google’s standpoint, they are an advertising business. They have built a solid and very profitable business based on selling ads along with “organic” search engine results. These results are based on their interpretation of what they feel is important to their end users. Do they care if their end users are actually finding what they are looking for? Of course… but not because they actually care about the end user’s experience. Rather, they want to remain the #1 search engine in the eyes of the end users. So they continue research and make changes to algorithms to maintain that top position. The competition is gunning for them, so they must continue to change and evolve.

From a successful webmaster’s point of view… why in the world would they willingly provide their competition the exact formula to supplant them within the organic search results? I for one will share tips and ideas, but will never provide a straight out formula guaranteed to get anyone to the top. It is the time, effort and knowledge gained that allows me to not only get to the top, but stay there. And since this is an ever changing formula, this requires the webmaster stay on their game or get supplanted.

I guess it all comes from your purpose for being online. If you are seeking to make money, then your motivations are different and you focus on getting ranked highly in a search engine so that you can earn more money. If your desire is to be part of a global web where ideas are freely shared and information is the great equalizer… well, (and how do I say this tactfully?)… maybe you should create a new search engine that is not focused or predicated on making a profit. Of course, there will be a need for money to make it all work… so good luck with that.

All things in life are a business. All things live or die based on the profit they make. Even the best of the “free web” need to be monetized in some way. Even “non-profits” still make profits. If they go in the negative, they die.

So if we are to understand these basic principles, we need to understand that to get to the top of the search engine results, we either have to spend the time and effort in our own research, testing and learning, or be willing to pay a price for the knowledge someone else has accumulated. If time is truly money, then only you (the potential webmaster) can determine if your time or money should be spent on such things.

he benefit of using services such as Found By Design is that you can save the time and trouble of trying to figure it all out for yourself. Our system and process is designed to help the average user shorten the time from start to top of SERPs, while also being affordable. From websites that get ranked, to SEO services for business, Found By Design is here to assist you in getting to the top!

(1) Image credit: Can I Tell You A Secret, by Aleera @ Flickr

Bing / Twitter Just Hype

At this point, this is just hype. When you arrive at Bing, you have to click on the “Twitter Search” located at the bottom of Bing’s home page. It seems they are running a different engine all alone for Twitter. When you get to this Twitter Search page, you find a list of Hot Topics and some recent Tweets about that topic. Oh, yeah and you can search the Twitter tweets for any subject you like. [yawn]

How Bing Missed It

Bing - Twitter: Just A Tweet about Nothing! (1)

Bing should be integrating Twitter in the actual search results in some way. Even if they aren’t in the full list of search results, there should be something in a sidebar with relevant Twitter posts… maybe under the Related Searches? This would be more of an integration. What they offer now is nothing better than what I can do at Twitter, or on most of the Twitter programs out there for your computer! I guess the idea is that I am at Twitter posting something, and well I wonder who else is posting about this… oh, I know.. BING! Yeah, right. Twitter’s integrated #search feature allows you to click on a subject preceded by the # sign and get instant results. In the sidebar of Twitter I can see the top Topics right there… So what is Bing offering?

Microsoft’s Mindset Strikes Again

Microsoft has seriously gotten too full of themselves. They automatically assume that 90% of the online users NEED them to find what they are seeking, just like 90% of computer users need them to operate a PC or a word processor. Microsoft has proven themselves with Windows and Office. But they have yet to figure out the internet (which surprises me quite a bit!) So instead of coming up with something awesome that adds value to the user, they simply copy the functions of Twitter and slap the Bing logo to the top. I guess they save real value add-ons for the paying customers!

I guess we will see what Google does with this. Not sure how they will integrate Twitter, but it will be much more creative than Bing. Then again, maybe Microsoft is just in a rush to get Twitter on their search page FIRST, that they don’t care if it is a waste of time. Maybe they will improve it, but for now… I am not impressed. Bing missed the mark in a big way.

What’s Your Take on Twitter and Bing?

Everyone has a different perspective, so I would love to hear your thoughts on the subject. What are your thoughts? Comment below…

1. Image: “TweetBing” by Ed Nailor

Natural Anchor Text for Links

I recently read an article about Linking Strategies for 2009 and while most of what I read was basic common sense to anyone that has been around the internet for a while, one point stood out to me as something I should share. In Eduard’s “7 golden rules of white hat link building” section of the article, point #3 is about “Natural anchor text distribution.”

In this section, Eduard writes

A natural anchor text (or link text) means that not all links have the ‘perfect’ anchor text. But search engines can detect this and devaluate your site. So make sure you realize a natural anchor text distribution.

The point he is making is that too many times SEO experts put such a focus on the importance of the perfect anchor text for your links and that doing this may in fact send up red flags that the links are artificial and not natural. Artificially obtained links to a website can become devalued by Google as they may be seen as an attempt to game the search engine system. Natural links just happen and its those links that Google places the most value on.

As Eduard says in his article, natural links are more than just the perfect anchor text for your links. In many cases, a natural link may just be a URL to your website. In other cases, it may be a link with your website’s name as the anchor text. And other times it could well be the specific keywords you are seeking for your website as the anchor text. The point is that there should be some variety in the types of incoming backlinks you get.

Let’s break this down in an example…

One of the keyword targets for this website is “business website design.” If every link to our website included the perfect anchor text of business website design, Google may see this as something we have done specifically for manipulating this search result. However, if people also link to our website with links such as FoundByDesign and http://foundbydesign.com, then the combination and “distribution” of these types of link appear more natural.

So when working at your link building strategies, be sure to vary your link anchor text. Anytime you are in control of setting the anchor text, make sure you remember to vary the different types of anchor text, and when using keywords for your anchor text, be sure to use variations of those keywords as well. This will be a more natural way of linking to your website and help provide the boost you are seeking in the SERPs.

NoFollow and DoFollow Links

Another thought along the sames lines has to do with “nofollow” backlinks. Again, SEO experts will exclaim all day long that you need to get incoming links to your website that are not tagged with a “nofollow” tag. And while this type of link does provide more link power for your site, not every link you get will be a “dofollow” link. In the natural world, you will get links to your website that are indeed tagged as “nofollow.” If all the links to your website are only of the “dofollow” variety, this may be seen as unnatural and could also be seen as gaming the system.

Remember, Google pays attention to links just as much as it does content. If you content is considered to be too keyword heavy, you could be seen as stuffing keywords to manipulate the search engine results, possibly preventing you from getting ranked. Likewise, if backlinks to your website are considered to be artificial, these links may be seen as manipulative and not natural, possibly hurting your rankings. Google wants good quality, unique content to provide their users. Google trusts natural links to your website to be an indicator of the popularity and value of your website. If either seem to be manipulated, Google may in fact decide to elevate another website over yours.

Linking to Found By Design?

While we would love to have backlinks using great anchor text with appropriate keywords, we have decided that we will leave that up to the end user to decide how to link to us. Instead of saying you must link to us in a certain way, we are happy to thank you for the link itself. Now, if you would like to add a few keywords to that link, we’d be appreciative of that as well!

Stop worrying over Duplicate Content

SEO blogs, experts and amateurs have been talking about this duplicate content “penalty” for quite some time and in many ways the talk is off base! In this article I plan to explain what this so-called “penalty” is supposed to be and why duplicate content is not an issue  on your website. So settle in and enjoy!

What is the Duplicate Content Penalty?

The theory of the “duplicate content penalty” says this: If you have the same content (or in some extreme theories, very similar content) on multiple pages within your website, or on other websites, your website could be removed from the Google SERP rankings. Under this theory, many SEO “experts” would have you think that if you run a website that uses typical blog features, your website could easily publish the same content on a number of pages within your website, such as Archive pages, Author pages, Tag pages and Search pages. Their fear is that with the exact same content being seen on multiple pages, Google may think you do doing something wrong and therefore may penalize you by removing your website, or at the very least, the content in question, from their search index.

For the most part, this is simply a myth! Google’s Webmaster Central Blog said this about the subject:

Let’s put this to bed once and for all, folks: There’s no such thing as a “duplicate content penalty.” At least, not in the way most people mean when they say that.

source: Demystifying the “duplicate content penalty”, published September 12, 2008

You see,  according to that same article, any penalties for duplicated content are enforced under extreme circumstances. These circumstances are basically practices that are intended to manipulate the search engine results. This would include:
Duplicate content on multiple websites or subdomains

Scraping content from other websites for content on your website

Intentionally having the exact same content on multiple pages within your website
(This is the one that most SEO experts will use in their arguments, but we are about to see the difference in a moment)

So unless you are actually trying to use content published elsewhere as your own content for rankings purposes and are not adding anything unique, there may be a chance Google would not include your content within their search results. In this article, we are going to assume that your stress isn’t coming from using content found on other websites, but the content you write on your own website.

So Lets Explore Content on Your Website

There are 2 ways you may see duplicated content on your website that Google does not “penalize” you for. Here are these 2 ways, with simple examples…

1. URLs with variables
   www.example.com/widgets/
   www.example.com/widgets/?color=blue
   www.example.com/widgets/?color=blue&comments=show
   All three of these URLs point to the exact same page, but all 3 are specific URLs that could be found on your website. These could be counted as 3  (or more, depending on the number of possible variable combinations) unique webpages all with the exact same content.
2. Special Pages with Content
   This would include CMS and blogging systems showing content on Author pages, Search pages, Category pages and more. In this example, the same article written by the author Joe Smith and placed in the News category could easily be seen in 3, 4 or more pages.

In both cases, Google does not penalize you for this, but will try to determine what Google feels is the best URL to show in the SERPs. In the case of Special Pages such as Author pages and Category pages, while the same content may be shown on these pages, chances are there are additional articles that are shown on these pages, so there won’t be an exact duplication… more a compilation of content.

Even though there is no penalty for this duplicate content, you may want to consider a couple things…

• Google is deciding which one is appropriate for their SERPs. While you may think that www.example.com/widgets/ is the more appropriate URL, Google may find that www.example.com/widgets/?color=blue&comments=show is the more appropriate URL for their results.
• You may be preventing other content from being found. While you want Google to visit your website, you don’t want Google wasting time looking at the same content over and over again. In most cases, Googlebot does not stay on your website until it finds every single page on your website. It kind of stops by, takes a look and explores what it may find. If it keeps seeing prominent URLs and the multiple variations of that URL, it may spend all its time looking at those and not have time to find other content.
• Bandwidth can be burned with multiple duplicate content pages. Kind of like the previous concern, if Googlebot is constantly reviewing the same page, but with diferent URLs, Googlebot is eatng up bandwidth on your website for no reason! You’d much rather Googlebot is looking at other content it can index while using that bandwidth.

Therefore, you should have a good structure to your websites, as well as using some proper techniques to help give Google some help. If you have URLs  with multiple variables, consider consolidating the variables if you can, or using the canonical tag which shows Google what the preferred URL is. If you are using a CMS or blogging system, consider restricting the information shown on secondary pages. Rather than the full article being shown, use an excerpt or just a list. This will minimize the amount of content shown in multiple places and will also help narrow down the appropriate page for Google to explore and index.

Even if you don’t make these small changes, stop worrying about the duplicate content “penalty.” Google does a pretty good job in determining which pages should be shown, and even if they get the specific page on your website wrong, you have the chance to get ranked and get traffic. So go ahead.. post that content and stop worrying!

Adding Video can Boost SEO

There are a number of ways to optimize your website for search engines, one of which is the use of video. Most people immediately think of video as being this mega viral thing that takes the world by fire. However, not all videos have to be big viral hits to be effective. The proper use of video on your website can make a big impact on how your website is viewed by the search engines, and more importantly by visitors that come by!

I will point you to a case in point. Terry McDonald, a local real estate agent in Charlotte, NC did a very simple video introducing the Charlotte area for his potential clients. The video itself was low key, to the point and friendly… but in no way was it some major viral success. However, this video has been a great marketing piece and even gained attention of at least one local mortgage lender (me, when I was in the mortgage industry) that linked back to his site and video. As a matter of fact, I am going to share more link love today as I link back to his Charlotte NC introduction video now!

Not only is the video showcased on his own real estate website, but it is also hosted on YouTube.com which gives him a tremendous audience as well. Many people search YouTube directly for subject matter in addition to the other major search engines. Remember that Google actually owns YouTube now and that relevant video content will also show up in Google search results!

There are a number of ways you can create video. You can record yourself using a webcam or camcorder. There are a number of video editing software programs available that can help make even the most amateur videos look at least semi-professional! Editing your videos allows you to add items such as your website URL, phone numbers and even links to your website embedded within the video itself!

Personally, I use 2 software programs for video creation and editing, both from Techsmith (a major leader in video editing software).  I highly recommend checking them out. Below are quick summaries about the programs as well as links to download the programs if you so choose to.

• Jing: [download here]
  Jing is a free software program that allows you to record actions on your computer screen and also take screen shots. This is a handy little program that is perfect for instructional and tutorial type videos. The only real limitations are a 5 minute maximum recording time and there are no real editing options for videos. Screen shots can be editing with text, highlighting and callouts.
• Camtasia: [download here]
  Camtasia 6 is a great, full featured video editing software package that allows you to a number of items with video. It can easily edit your Jing files as well as virtually any video you can shoot. You can add text, call outs, hot spots for links, focus in and out of areas, add audio, edit the time line and even add images for transitions! While the link to Camtasia is an affiliate link in which I will get a small fee should you decide to purchase it, this is a very powerful program that I personally do use and endorse.

Adding video to your website can help add additional content and create a “stickiness” that can be found by the search engines and keeps visitors coming back. Give it a try and see