Seasons Greetings!

As the end of the year quickly approaches, we wanted to take a moment and thank you for your business.   We hope your experience with us has exceeded your expectations.   Holiday Cheer and Happy New Year from our office to yours. 

Melaney Noll

Marketing Your Website for 2007

You’ve chosen a great design.  Your company logo is in place.  Your domain names are pointed and you have great content up.  Now what?  What can you do to usher people into your new website?  For 2007, we offer the following cost efficient suggestions to help market your new website:  

1. Set up email accounts with your domain name.  By setting up email with your new domain name, any one that receives email from you can start identifying you with your domain name. 
2. Make sure that your domain name is on your business cards, letterhead and email signatures.  Websites are your representation on the web.  With 28 million people searching for professional services online in North America alone, it is important that all advertising and company information be accurate and updated everywhere.  Prior to the initial phone call,  the web is often the first place potential clients will be checking you out .
3. Update all advertising.  Make sure to update your print advertising as well as your online listings with your new site.  Sites such as mapquest, google, and yahoo allow you to list your business information for free.  Utilize these free marketing devices. 
4. Send out an announcement of your new website! We suggest using a postcard mailer and sending it to colleagues and clients to urge them to view the new changes you’ve made to your website.  
5. Utilize email - send clients emails when new changes or updates are made to your site.   If you are a newsletter subscriber, remind them that the newsletter is updated weekly.  This will help to promote repeat visits to your site.   

Regardless of your marketing methods, we hope you are finding your sites to be useful and user friendly.  We are happy to assist and offer advice in any way we can.  Please call.    

Search Engine Optimization:

The Importance of Keywords

"Keywords" are the target words and phrases that Internet users enter as querries in search engines such as Google and Yahoo!  In marketing your website, it is important that you understand the function of keywords and their value in the search engine optimization process.

A search querry typically consists of a two-to-five word phrase people type into search engine querries when looking for websites relevant to the subject matter they are interested in finding.  Search engines then refer back to their database of indexed websites and match up keywords based on an algorithm that takes into consideration many different factors, one of which is keyword relevancy.  Because of this, strategic placement of target keywords in your web page body text is important, as well as in your title tags. (See November 2006  issue of Alert!)

Here are a few tips and suggestions with regards to keywords:

• Do not use keywords only lawyers would know. Select terms that your potential clients would use instead of industry-specific terms.
• Only use a few keywords per page. Your content on each page of your website should be focused to one specific subject matter rather than many subject matters.
• Include keywords in title tags. Tie in the title tags of one page to be relevant to the content of that page.  (See November 2006  issue of Alert!)
• Do not flood your page with keywords. The balancing act is to write the content of your page for human readers. Overuse of keywords are given negative weight by most search engines.

If you would like more information on using keywords and creating better content for your website, please contact us.  We will be happy to give you even more suggestions!

Content Matters: 
Using Website Fonts

The way text appears online and in print are very different.  Fonts that are appropriate and easy to read on paper are often not the best choice for your website content.  If you use a font that is more appropriate for printed media, your website may appear unprofessional and messy to the viewer.  Keeping all your content the same, but simply changing the font can have a significant impact on how the information you are providing is received by your readers.

One important thing to keep in mind when creating your website is readability.  You want to use a font that has a high readability for not only your human readers, but for search engines as well.  Remember, search engines can only “read” the fonts that are picked up as text.  This is limited to the Serif and Sans Serif typefaces and must be created in HTML as opposed to a graphic image of your text, which can't be seen by search engines. 

Serif fonts are most appropriately used in print media.  Serif fonts are the typefaces with an additional “line” on the end of the letters.  Sans serif fonts are the more streamlined fonts that do not have serifs.  Sans Serif fonts are best used on web pages and in online media that is not intended for printing. 

When you experiment with different fonts, you will notice that each typeface looks unique among the other fonts and each typeface has an ideal situation in which to be used.  The font you choose should create an aesthetic harmony between your content and your format, producing a visually effective display of your words.  Remember, before an eye reads the page, it sees the page.  A “scripty serif” font is likely not the best choice for your attorney biography because the words will look flowery and fluffy, but that same font works extremely well in a romance novel. 

Keep in mind while preparing your content for your Custom WebExpress website and selecting a font that you are describing a law firm and your font should be appropriate to your profession.  You should strongly consider the default typefaces as recommended on your website.  The designers of Custom WebExpress websites carefully choose default typefaces that “match” the look of the page design they have constructed.  Simply stated, it is likely be the best choice for that page.  Just because it is “default” does not mean that no thought was used in its selection, and just because you can change it doesn’t mean you should change it.

Also, please keep in mind that the larger your font, the more likely it is that your reader will feel like you are “coming on too strong.”  You do not need to post in 24pt. font simply because you can.  Stick to the more conventional 10 or 12pt. font, and your online readers will thank you.

Product Highlight:
Track Your Website's Performance

NextClient offers LiveStats.xsp; comprehensive, interactive reports that deliver live statistics of traffic to your NextClient website.

• Detailed traffic reports show visits and IP addresses.
• Page reports reveal popular entry and exit pages, time spent on pages, and more.
• Executive summaries keep your firm up-to-date.

You get a suite of search engine reports that tell you which search engines and keywords send the most visits to your NextClient Website.

• You see which popular search engines are sending the most visits.
• Keyword reports show you the organic keywords used to find your website.
• Custom reporting lets you track your Google and Yahoo! pay-per-click keywords.
• Keyword reports help you optimize your website for better search engine ranking.
   

Take advantage of our Holiday Special.  Sign up for LiveStats.xsp by December 31, 2006 and save the $25 set up fee!

For more information on how to get LiveStats.xsp for your website, contact our Web Services Consultants at 1-866-903-6398, ext. 2.