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Wednesday, July 01, 2009

What PAontheweb.com is found for on Search Engines?

I am constantly amazed at our statistics. When we started Paontheweb.com 7 years ago I never imagined we would be the states number 1 website directory. From time to time people tell me what search they did and found us on the first page of Google. Frankly, we are very good at SEO (search engine optimization) which means getting people’s websites found on the first page of Google for the search terms they need. Local Pennsylvania business is our specialty. If you need to be found for what you do and where you are located in Pennsylvania feel free to give us a call 866.316.6913. We will ask you the key phrases you want and often not bill you until you are on the first page of Google. It all depends on how hard we think it will be to get you there. I know it is a risk on our part and NOBODY else in the industry offers that. You have probably seen the scam emails promising to get your first page rank on various search engines. We know that you don’t want to throw money away on empty promises. We are the real deal and we have proved it and can prove it to you. Just for Giggles click here to see a very long list of key phrases PAontheweb.com is found for. Look at the very bottom of the list. You will see last month we were found for not only the terms visible on the document but for over 100,000 other search terms!

Friday, March 06, 2009

I.T. versus Web Master

Would you ask the guy who does body work on your car to fix your engine? That is the best analogy we could come up with. More to be read below:

Information Technology personnel are usually trained in the functional aspects of computers and software. I, as a web master turn to these people when I need a computer at the office networked together with other computers or when I have a hardware or software issue I cannot easily fix on my computer. Like any field there are good I.T. people and not so good I.T. people. In the worst case scenario if you hire a bad I.T. person your email or other basic systems may not operate smoothly. In most cases a web master can fix and or help you in this area.

Web Masters are personnel who specialize in web architecture. As stated by Wikipedia their primary work is done in designing, developing, marketing and maintaining websites.  What Wiki doesn’t tell you is there are several aspects of web development that have their own specialties inside the term “web master.” These are Designers, Programmers, Search Engine Optimizers and finally people who understand Search Engine Marketing which is basically pay per click or pay per impression advertising. It is rare to find anyone with all the skills mentioned above.

If someone decides to go to school in the field of computers they will not be in the same class if one picks Information Technology and the other picks Web Design. Paontheweb.com has taken on interns from the web design aspect. Frankly, we are not impressed with the level of knowledge our schools are turning out. The most likely reason is a good Web Master is worth his weight in Gold. You will not be likely to find them teaching for lower wages. The old saying comes to mind, “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach”.

Many people will tell you they can put you into a website. That is true. Just about anyone can do that today. So, what is the difference? I’ll give you a list:
1. Does your website look like a kid did it or a professional?
2. Do the images look correct and stay out of the way of your text?
3. Are your images search engine friendly?
4. Does your website show up on the search engines for the terms you want to be found under?
5. What are your traffic statistics like. We can guarantee a certain number of visitors.
6. Do you need to store data (information) online and retrieve it from anywhere, privately?
7. How about giving you the ability to control parts of your website?
8. What about your Title, Description and SEO score? Does 40 to 50% sound good or would you rather have 90 to 100%.

Paontheweb’s approach is a three person team. Each person has knowledge of all areas of being a basic web master. However, each member of our team has their strengths. We create custom designs that convey your image to the world. We specialize in search engine optimization and only turn to search engine marketing when absolutely necessary. We create sites that gather and store information you can access anywhere from an internet connection. We supply you with the ability to change any area of your website content, add pages and more.

We respect I.T. professionals and even call on them from time to time. If you needed a heart transplant would you go to a general practitioner or a specialist with a good reputation?  Would you ask the guy who does body work on your car to fix your engine? We do hope you get the picture. Why not contact us today to see what we can do to improve your website.

Monday, March 02, 2009

There are a number of things to know about email forms.

1. The from email address should be an address that actually exists as an inbox or forward.
2. Set up domain keys and spf records. Go to cpanel. Under Mail you will see Mail Authentication. Click that icon and Enable them both.
3. If the customer who is receiving the email from the form is on our server there is no issue. However, if the customer uses another email address it may be best to establish the noreply@customersdomain.com inbox as an actual inbox. Next, you set up a forward for the noreply@customersdomain.com to go to :fail: No such person at this address
4. All forms should be tested to make sure the client is receiving their forms without revealing an email address that can get spammed.
5. Many spammers harvest emails by submitting a bogus form and waiting for the reply or auto reply to see what address they can spam.

Friday, February 27, 2009

Did you know? What do you think?

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Slow loading websites - Are they a problem with high speed users?

We still find websites that are slow loading even on high speed cable. If you are the website owner or webmaster you may not notice the speed of your website loads. The first time any website is loaded the images and sound files go to your temporary Internet folder making it load faster on your machine the next time you visit. Trust us, if your website loads slow the first time on high speed cable you may want to try to make it load faster. One phenomenon is people with high speed are not willing to wait at all for a page to load. If it is not there immediately they will probably leave.

Good practices include never using flash entry pages, large file sized images and or sound files. Sound files are so 90’s anyway. 

Tuesday, December 02, 2008

Ipowerweb is a rip off

I just wanted to warn everyone about how bad Ipowerweb sucks. Years after I cancelled four accounts their system automatically billed my credit card. The date had long been expired. You would think that would be enough to stop the card from going thru. Not in this case. According to their representative Doug who I spoke with at 10PM on 1 Dec 2008 this happened during a migration of their servers. It picked up on old data and failed to bill 2 times. On the third time someone went in and updated the credit card expiration date. He promised all this money would be refunded.
The next day I get an email from their billing support. See email below.

"Hello Michael,

Lloyd Kaper
Billing Specialist"

I wrote back explaining that Doug assured me I would get a full refund as it was their “system glitch” that did the billing. The reply was as follows:
"Hello Michael,

Lloyd Kaper
Billing Specialist"
My response to this was “please get me a supervisor.” We will see what they say. However, this is not the first issue I experienced with Ipowerweb. A long time ago we moved all of our clients to our own dedicated server. We do the same thing. We bill our clients for hosting. Believe me, we never give anything but a full refund when something is not the clients fault. If a client terminated their services and our system billed them they would deserve nothing less than a full refund. We’ve never had that happen because we manually remove all accounts from our system up client request. If you want the worst service in the world we recommend going to Ipowerweb. They’ll get you messed up either with billing or support. It is my humble opinion that they are the worst provider I’ve experienced to date.

Tuesday, July 08, 2008

Email versus Paper

The benefit of Going Green! Stop and think of all the paper, ink and gasoline it takes to deliver your paper coupon. Why not get a website from us, build a list of customers email addresses and let your customers know about your discounts and offerings? If you are spending more than $100 per month to send out paper contact us today! Click Here to contact us.

Friday, June 27, 2008

The Web and Gas Prices

Recently a client called and suggested we’re all doing bad because of gas prices. In the web business it is just the opposite. Most smart business owners know now is the time to be found through their website. With gas prices toping $4.00 and no end in sight more people turn to the web before getting in their cars.

If you don’t have a well optimized website now is the time to get one or update your old one so it can be found. PAontheweb.com specializes in getting you found on Google, MSN, Yahoo and others for “what you do and where you are located.” Did you ever wonder why you don’t show up on Google for anything other than the name of your company? We know the secret and we’re here to help.

We are so confident of our search engine optimization for small and medium sized local businesses we often don’t charge until you have achieved your position on Google. We don’t know anyone else in the business that does that.

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Are your pages indexed with Google?

Link backs to PAontheweb.com often reveal that folks are not getting their pages properly indexed with Google. If your page does not appear in Google’s index then the link back does not do us or you any good.

How do you know if your pages are indexed? Go to your website and click the various pages and paste the web address into the http://www.Google.com search bar. If no results come up then the page is not indexed and you’re not benefiting.

Do you need help? PAontheweb.com prides itself on getting our clients 100% indexed with Google, Yahoo and other search engines.

Google sends around 80% of all search engine traffic. If you win with Google you’ll win with with the majority.

Contact us today for more information. 717.489.0188 or use our Contact link by clicking here.

Thursday, November 15, 2007

Flash websites and search engine optimization

A common practice is creating flash intro pages or image intro pages to websites. PAontheweb.com gave up that practice a long while back. Why? It can prevent search engines from indexing your site properly. I know 90% of all good webmasters know this already. However, we see many who still practice it. You should consider reading this article by Google. http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=72746&query=flash+intro+pages&topic=&type=

We have found sIFR to cause websites to load slowly and do not yet use this method. Opinions may vary. We certainly use Flash Elements and Headers to bring out certain points for clients. We do not normally do all Flash sites (although we can if you insist).

Monday, February 19, 2007

Helpful website tips

If you are a local business serving local people you should list your service area on the home page of your website. This serves two purposes. First, it triggers the search engines for words relating to the area your business serves. Second, it allows website visitors to immediately see where your service area is.

How may times have you found a local business website when searching Google and found it to be the correct town but in a different state? You may do a good search on Google but it doesn’t bring up the results you want because the webmaster of the website you’re looking for did not do their job correctly. Making sure the correct content, title tags and description is the job of your webmaster. If you’re doing it yourself then it is your job.

Why do we still have professional webmasters when there are so many do it yourself websites out there? The reason is it takes years of study to develop a website properly. Anyone can do a MySpace website. They typically look horrible and never really get found through search engines. Of course, the price is right; free. Remember, you get what you pay for.

Why not have us take a look at your website? We’re not spamming people and telling them we’ll get thousands of visitors a month to their website. That is unrealistic for the average small to medium sized business. It is not just the number of visitors you get to your website that counts. It is visitors who are looking for the goods and services you offer that counts.

If you want our help with your website we suggest our Premium Listing service which includes website hosting and a good analysis of your website. The Premium Listing keeps you on top of your competitors and is only $50 per month in most locations. Of course, Philadelphia and other major metropolitan areas cost more due to the limited amount of Premium Listings available in any location. Contact us for more details toll free at 866.316.6913 or local to central PA at 717.489.0188. Due to spam issues we do not give out our email address. However, we do have a quick contact form. Click Here

Saturday, June 10, 2006

How to get your website found in PA

How to get your website found in PA. (Case studies)

When we opened in March of 2004 we had no idea how successful we would become in the search engine optimization and search engine marketing arena. In less than 6 months we were at the top of the big 3 search engines, Google, Yahoo and MSN as well as the minor engines like AOL, HotBot, Altavista, Lycos and many others.

Anyone doing a search for PA websites, Pennsylvania websites (or web sites) was finding Paontheweb.com on the first page of all the search engines. We soon discovered we were being found under many other search terms that we were totally unaware of. These terms are too numerous to keep track of. In addition, changes to Google’s algorithms can place us on the first page one day and the second page another. The other major search engines are more consistent.

Follow these links to see the proof on the big 3:

Google http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=pa+websites
Yahoo http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=pa+websites&fr=FP-tab-web-t400&toggle=1&cop=&ei=UTF-8
MSN http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=pa+websites&Form=MSNH

A client asked us for the search term Hershey Homes. Here are the results. This one took a bit longer as the term was more competitive. The client is HersheyHomesForSale.com (aka LaurelForHomes.com). You will find either Paontheweb.com, HersheyHomesForSale.com or LaurelForHomes.com on the first page.

Google http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=hershey+homes&spell=1
Yahoo http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=hershey+homes&fr=FP-tab-web-t400&toggle=1&cop=&ei=UTF-8
MSN http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=hershey+homes&Form=MSNH This one is a number one ranking for the client!

There are many case studies we could show you. However, what is important to you is what we can do for you. Are you ready to find out? Contact us under Company Info when you’re ready to succeed or call us toll free 866.316.6913.

Thursday, March 16, 2006

Email campaigns as advertising, do's and don'ts

The great thing about the internet and electronic advertising is it has the power to give people a look at your business like no other medium. The bad thing is if it is done wrong it can hurt you more than help you.

Here are some pointers on what not to do. Do not spam people with email. You don’t like it and neither does anyone else. Not only can this ruin your business reputation it can get your email banned from many different spam organizations today. We’ve had several clients that have been “Black Listed” by a number of different services. It can be time consuming and expensive to get yourself removed from the Black Lists. To see if your website email is Black Listed visit http://www.dnsstuff.com. Insert your domain name if you don’t know your I.P. address and scan the results for Red color bars. One may not hurt you. Multiple red bars are cause for concern. However, one red listing from a large spam house can do you great harm.

When you do send out group emails always have a remove feature. Either a link to automatically remove the email from a list or a simple “Reply with Remove in the subject line to be removed from this mailing list” should work. Warning: Many companies like AOL now provide their users with a “Report as SPAM” link in their mail browser. Many people will report you as a spammer instead of using your Remove feature. There is no guarantee that people will not mark you as a spammer when you are innocent of wrong doing.

You can alternately use a Newsletter service. We offer newsletter services that include all the compliant features for SPAM. In addition your personal email will not be affected if someone marks you as a spammer. The cost for these services varies based on the number of emails you want to send, graphic design work for the newsletter and the urgency of your request. The strength of doing things this way is most systems can tell you how many people opened and read your newsletter, if the reader clicked a link and where they went after that. In addition it can tell you if the person forwards it to a friend or opens it later for a second look.

Where should I advertise?

The age old question is where is the best place to advertise? Let’s think about this in modern terms. By all standards Billboards, Radio and T.V. have been around for a very long time. In relative terms the internet is new. This may be the most important article you read on advertising so we suggest reading it all.

TV is good but what do you do when a commercial comes on? You change the channel or use your fast forward if you have some kind of digital video recording device. If you decide to purchase TV commercials try to get what the industry calls Book Ends. These are the first 10 to 15 seconds coming and going between the show and the commercial break time. You’ll optimize your exposure since most people see a few seconds as their favorite program goes to commercial and is always flipping back to see if their show has returned from the break.

Radio is good but what do you do when commercials come on? You change the channel again. Hum a few bars of “let’s go surfin’ now, surfin USA” from the Beach Boys. The best radio ads are the quick ones during Traffic, Weather and News breaks. Most people stay tuned for those features. Of course, as satellite radio takes over there will be less of this.

Billboards are good. They range in price from hundreds to many thousands per month. All of this is based on the amount of travelers that see them. Of all the billboards you see how many do you really remember? Until you get home, to work or wherever you are going you’ve completely forgotten about what you saw. When you drive the same road every day you also develop Billboard Blindness. You don’t even see them anymore. They are good for getting a new company name out there initially but they are not very cost effective.

Magazines, Newspapers and other print media is good. There is a certain group of people you will reach in print advertising. However, the numbers are significantly dwindling. This is mainly due to the internet. With most articles and news online who uses print any more? I’m sure there are some but I don’t know anyone that reads the newspapers that is under 60.

Yellow Pages is Not a good place to advertise. There are two main reasons. First, they are extremely expensive and you’re locked in for a year. Second, who uses the Yellow Pages anymore? The only time I use them is when there is no computer available.

Internet advertising is the hottest thing going. There are many reasons. First your text link or banner ad can be clicked on to take people to your business website. Instead of 60 seconds of air time or a small square in print you get many pages of information across to your potential customer. If your banner ad is developed correctly you get the same branding effect that you do from billboards, print and TV ads with the extra value of the website link. With a website link people can get more company information and your contact information. Try getting your phone number on a billboard, TV or Radio ad to stick in someone’s head. It just isn’t going to happen.

Also see What kinds of internet advertising area available

So now you’ve had an E Seizure, what do you do about it?

Please refer to Entrepreneurial Seizure Examples
If you are the person who had the E Seizure and you realize it you are tempted to avoid the person or organization that made the offer. This only compounds your problem. Yes, you’re embarrassed to admit your mistake. However, most companies run into this over and over. You’re not the first and you won’t be the last.

For example, our company understands and will think more highly of you if you contact us after you realized you made a mistake. We don’t hold grudges. By admitting to yourself and others that you messed up you can begin the healing process that will grow your company. Do you want to grow your business or watch it fail? It’s all up to you.