Seattle SEO, PPC, Blogging, Website Setup - Snowball SEO

$299 Professional Small Business Website

Charles — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 21:46:30 +0000

Turn Your Website Into A Lead Generation Machine
Your site will be more than an online brochure. With contact forms and a blog(optional) it will be an interactive hub for your online marketing.

Rank Higher In Google
Your site will be optimized for search engines so you will be easier to find online when potential customers search for your product or service online.

Track Your Online Traffic
Each site is set up with Google Analytics so you can track the number of visitors and where they are coming from.

Get Up and Running for $299
A web designer may quote you $1000-$2500 for a new website because they are creating the site from scratch but we use pre-designed templates that will cut your costs significantly (Limited Time Offer).

Unlimited Email Support
We’re happy to answer as many questions as you want via email. We also show you how you can easily make content changes yourself to update your site information.

View Demo Sites
Email charles@snowballseo.com to get started or for any questions.

Basic Website Package Features
-Professional website up and running within days
-Search engine friendly site design
-Many high-quality designs to choose from
-Initial data entry of your small business information
-Google Analytics installed so you can track your site traffic
-Contact forms installed
-Blog installed
-Instruction on how to easily update your site yourself
-Free hosting for 1 year (a $75 value)
-Free domain registration for 1 year (a $10 value)
-Unlimited support questions via email

Approximately $2,000 value for $299.

To get started email me a good time to meet at charles@snowballseo.com.

Customer Testimonials

Charles — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 12:19:54 +0000

“Charles Sipe of Snowball SEO worked with Dream Dinners on implementation of a new social marketing strategy, providing extensive research and an inventory of relevant keywords, then recommending the best ways to integrate those findings into our web content and meta descriptions. We learned a great deal and are well on our way to experiencing success.”

-Ruthann Tobiason
Marketing Manager
Dream Dinners www.dreamdinners.com

What are the Major Factors that Influence Search Rankings?

Charles — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 09:03:37 +0000

The major factors that influences whether your site will rank highly in Google for your desired keywords can be broken down into two categories, on-page factors and off-page factors.

On-Page Factors
On-page factors consist of keyword optimization of the metadata and the content. After you have determined a good keyword to target, you want to include it in the title of your page, the meta description, in the first sentence of the article, and scattered throughout the article. Google “spiders” will recognize the frequency of the keywords and determine that the page must be about said keywords.

Off-Page Factors
Off-page factors are the links from other relevant and reputable sites. Getting links is difficult but are an extremely valuable factor in your Google rankings because Google considers links as votes for your sites. A page that has lots of incoming links must be good, according to search engine logic, and therefore ranks higher than a equally good web page with fewer quality links.

Champion Arms’ New Site

Charles — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 20:13:08 +0000

I recently set up a new website for Champion Arms, a shooting range and gun store in Kent, Washington. Their previous site was completely in flash, which typically ranks poorly in Google because Google’s spiders can not see flash.

For example this is what Google shows when you search for “Champion Arms”.

Champion Arms does have a local business listing in Google which is excellent, but if you look closely at the first result for Champion Arms it says “Enter Flash Site”. This is basically all Google “sees” on their site.

If you enter the search phrase “kent gun store” into Google. Here is what shows up:

Champion Arms does not show up on the first page of Google for this important phrase. In fact, their competitor Bear Arms has the #1 position. By rebuilding the site to be Google friendly it will help Champion Arms rank higher in Google. We also set up the site with Google Analytics to track the number of visitors and how they find the site.

Here is the front page of the site:

You can view the new site at www.championarms.com.

See our demo sites, for more available website designs. Some web designers will quote $1,000 to $2,500 for a new website. We can set up a new professional small business website for $300.

Great Examples of Typography

Charles Sipe — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 12:27:33 +0000

The fonts you use for your website are an important decision, as they will often reflect your site’s tone and affect its visual impact.

When I was just getting started in design, I asked one of my favorite designers what single thing I could do to improve and expand my capabilities as a designer. His answer: “Read. Read everything you can get your hands on, empty your bank account, then read some more”. Looking back on 7 years of designing, I’d have to say that was the single greatest bit of advice I ever received. So, without further ado, here’s my list of recommendations.

Universal Principles of Design: 100 Ways to Enhance Usability, Influence Perception, Increase Appeal, Make Better Design Decisions, and Teach Through Design by William Lidwell, Kritina Holden, and Jill Butler. Out of every book on my shelf, this is the one I find myself returning to time and again. This is an amazing little hardcover that breaks the entire world of design into 100 distinct, easy to follow concepts that will focus the way you think about anything that’s been designed (and that could be everything, but I’m not here to debate religion). If you’re to buy one book on this list, this is the one. Useful, practical, easy to read.

Soak, Wash, Rinse, Spin by Tolleson Design. This was one of my first design books, and still one of my favorites. Chalk full of useful information about the process behind successful design projects.

Screen: Essays on Graphic Design, New Media, and Visual Culture by Jessica Helfand and John Maeda. For anyone who’s ever complained that there isn’t enough relevant, contemporary, erudite writing about modern design dillemas, I submit exhibit A. As one reviewer on amazon put it: “Things we all were thinking… only worded much better”. This tiny book packs a whallop of mind-bending analysis.

Noise Four by Attik. Often called the “big white book” or “the design bible” (although I would disagree), this 5lb book is a visual feast of experimental design pieces. Great resource if you’re seeking a quick entry into modern experimental graphic design or just some inspiration to break up the monotony of cut and paste projects.

Visual Creativity by Mario Pricken. Great analysis of the mental processes behind “visual imagination”. This book systematically breaks down different types of visual imagination and provides lots of great excercises that one can practice to enhance their own capacity to blow people’s minds. Oh, and it catagloues some of the greatest pieces of advertising in the last couple years on high quality glossy paper. Perfect coffee table fodder for the budding graphic artist.

Typography 27 by the Type Directors Club. Really, any book from this series is worth its weight in gold. If you’re going to follow one series of design annuals, this is it… phenomenal from every aspect.

Grid Systems in Graphic Design by Josef Muller-Brockmann. THE definitive guide on grid systems in graphic design. A fantastic guide for solving just about any design problem with a grid. If you haven’t cracked into grid systems yet, this is the book; if you’ve backslidden in your ways, now’s the time to reaffirm your faith.

I’ll be adding lots more in the future… I pride myself on a library of great design books and magazines. For any budding designer looking for a way to go beyond the standard textbooks, books are a great way to get started (and I would argue that these are perhaps a better, more robust form of education than the textbook variety).YouWorkForThem.com and Amazon are great places to pick them up on the cheap too.

Integrated jQuery Effects Included

Charles Sipe — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 02:27:15 +0000

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Ready for Action, Right out of the Box

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This is a Headline

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Specialized Blog Feed

Charles Sipe — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 02:26:38 +0000

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Ready for Action, Right out of the Box

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Professional Wordpress Theme

Charles Sipe — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 00:38:47 +0000

This is from the Blog and it’s a test post. You can edit or delete it, then start blogging!

Why Google is the New Yellow Pages for Small Business

Charles Sipe — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 02:51:15 +0000

Before Google small businesses often relied on the Yellow Pages to get found by local customers. Today fewer and fewer people pick up the Yellow Pages when they are looking for a small business to solve a problem. Instead, we often turn to Google to find a product or service we are looking for.

Since Google is the first place people often look when they are looking to solve a specific need it would be a great marketing advantage to be listed on the first page of Google for key search terms that your target customer would likely search for in Google.

How to get on the first page of Google
There are two main types of Google listings – the organic results and the paid results. The paid results are similar to the Yellow Pages, in that you are paying for placement. If you pay the most, you will be on the top of the list. Paid Google ads are quick to implement, but cost money every time someone clicks on it.

The other option is to get listed organically. This can be done through SEO, or search engine optimization, which focuses on how to get you ranked higher in Google by creating interesting, relevant, and useful content that is linked to by trusted sources.

Content can be an article related to your business like How to Keep Your Lawn Green, or How to Take Advantage of the First Time Homebuyers Tax Credit. If your content is worthy, other sites will link to you which tells Google that you are a quality source of information, which will lead to higher Google rankings.

Twitter is the Ultimate Marketing Research Tool

Charles — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 08:37:12 +0000

By now many are realizing the tremendous potential of Twitter as a marketing vehicle to communicate to a community that has given you their permission and attention. According to TechCrunch, Jason Calicanis just offered $250,000, just to be listed on the suggested Twitterers for 1 year, and thinks a spot on this prestigious list will be as valuable as a Superbowl spot within 5 years. Even Facebook wants to be like Twitter as demonstrated by their new profile page. Twitter has appeared to have made it mainstream with Twittering celebrities like britneyspears, the_real_shaq, aplusk (Ashton Kutcher), jimmyfallon, just to name a few. The network effect means that as Twitter continues to grow it will become more valuable to each user, and thus more valuable to marketers.

One of the major applications of Twitter is in market research. Imagine having a test group of millions, that can provide real time consumer feedback at a unprecedented level. Companies will be able to release a new product and almost instantly find out what people think. Additionally they can get take the pulse of customer sentiment and then make changes to increase customer satisfaction. Twitter could also empower customers to get their complaints heard as unhappy customers will have a way to tell thousands of followers about their bad experience. All it takes is a short text message that gets retweeted and a brand’s reputation can be tarnished overnight. This could mean a stronger focus on improving customer experience to prevent a fiasco ten times worse than Jeff Jarvis’ infamous Dell Hell blog post. Optimistically, companies will be able to better understand the customer by listening more closely and using the data mined from the Twitersphere to create improved products and services that will increase customer satisfaction.

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