Not Just a Website – It’s a Resource Guide

Posted on February 21, 2012 by admin

After many months of design and planning, we are proud to reveal our new Clear Imaging website! This sleek new website is not just a website – it is a resource guide for our clients. At Clear Imaging it is essential for us that we set our clients up to succeed. To us, that means equipping them with the necessary tools and resources. This new website is an extension of that vision and on this website you will find a very special feature called the Marketing Toolbox that is designed to help educate business owners on the importance of SEO and capitalizing on social media for their business.

If you have been keeping up with our blog then you know that it is simply not enough to just throw up a beautiful website, walk away and expect your phone to ring off the hook. Having a website and having that website work for you is something that takes time, energy, a bit of know-how and dedication. While Clear Imaging offers services such as SEO and Social Media, we also want to teach our clients how to make those various platforms work for them. We want our clients to be successful with marketing their business, and that is why we have invested in “toolboxes” and blogs like this – to help further educate our clients.

The Marketing Toolbox is a new section that is now available on our website. The Marketing Toolbox explores why social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are essential to building and increasing your business reach. Unlike many other companies who simply tell you how great something is and then demand that you pay them to take advantage of these types of services, Clear Imaging actually gives tips and tricks on how to properly set up accounts. However, if you rather, for a small monthly maintenance fee Clear Imaging will set up and maintain your social media profiles for you.

In addition to finding resources and information regarding social media in the Marketing Toolbox, Clear Imaging also has a section dedicated entirely to blog marketing. If you are not blogging for your business it might be something that you want to think about doing. Blogging is a fantastic way to keep readers informed as to what is new and current with your business as well as providing them with valuable resources that link them back to you. If you are thinking about setting up a new blog – then you have to check out this new section of the Clear Imaging website!

Another new service that Clear Imaging is offering are mobile websites. With the popularity of iPhones and smart phones, this is something that no website should be without. Mobile websites are essentially smaller, more condensed versions of the full website and make navigation easy and quick on smart phones. With the age we live in, this is something that no business should be without.

At Clear Imaging we are very excited about all the new services that we are now able to offer our clients. We hope that you will take the time to tour our new website and gain some valuable tools and knowledge that will help you increase your own SEO.

 

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So, Why Don’t You Have a Website?

Posted on February 11, 2012 by admin

Since the beginning, businesses have had to find ways of getting their name out to the public and advertising their services. This is the very reasons magazines exist, commercials and any other form of advertisement. What people are slowly recognizing is that people are relying less and less on commercials and traditional advertisement and are heading straight towards the internet. Those that capitalize on this will be able to take advantage of the market and expand their business if they are willing to make the internet work for them. At Clear Imaging, we love what we do because we believe that we provide a fantastic service and product that in turn generates revenue for individuals and their businesses.

But it having a website costs a lot of money…

It’s true; websites traditionally do cost a lot of money. Most website developers ask for a very large retainer upfront before the work has even started – this retainer is often upwards of $5,000. At Clear Imaging, we do business a little different. We want to allow every size business the opportunity to have a presence on the internet. In contrast to having a large fee upfront, we have a minimal monthly fee. This allows us to customize your website to your specifications, make changes or add new content. We feel that this is a better fit overall because our clients benefit from our ongoing service.

I don’t have time for a website…

If you don’t have time to put into a website, then that is fantastic! That means that your business is rapidly expanding and you probably couldn’t handle any additional business that resulted from having a webpage. This is a common reason why people don’t invest in a website, and it is not invalid. With as fast moving as today’s society is, it is really difficult to carve out time for new projects. As always with any new project, it will require more time up front, but if you can dedicate 1-2 hours per week to growing your web presence, you will soon have a website that people envy.

I am not creative enough to design a website…

You don’t have to be. We have a fantastic team of designers who are incredibly creative and innovative. We will show you hundreds of layouts for your website. Then, one of our associates will meet with you on the phone to discuss what types of color schemes and what you would prefer the overall layout to be. Our clients can have as much or as little involvement in the design process as they would like.

If you are thinking that you need to do something to increase your marketing reach this next year and do not have a web presence – give us a call. If you do have a website, then we encourage you to review some of our past blogs for tips on improving your current website.

 

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How can blogs help my SEO?

Posted on January 29, 2012 by admin

Since you are reading our blog, we are assuming that you know all about how a lot of large companies are investing in blogs these days. But do you actually know the reason or why it is good for your SEO?

Blogs serve many purposes. In the “old days” many companies would send out mailers or email newsletters in order to give their clients an update on what was going on in the company. Unfortunately, newsletters or emails do not allow people to interact or correspond, nor do they boost your SEO. Blogs do all these things.

Aside from these benefits, many companies also choose to have blogs because it gives companies a platform in which to voice their opinions and also defuse any bad publicity. In addition, many feel that blogs “humanize” companies thus allowing them to feel less corporate and more personal. While many companies strive to become large and see tremendous expansion, many companies are also realizing that they are losing the personal and relational touch that goes with the growth of their company. Blogs are able to help companies communicate with their consumer base, reach out and encourage interaction. Many times, the CEO of a company will do a feature blog to help put a face to the company.

In addition to the branding benefits that blogs bring, blogs tremendously help with SEO. Blogs work in essentially the same fashion as updating your website on a regular basis. Blogs are short articles that range between 350-600 words that are geared around a topic that relates to the company. Within the blog, it is important to use keywords in the same way that you would use keywords for your website. A trick is to link those key words back to your website with hyperlinks. In addition to linking keywords, blogs forums such as WordPress allow for the importation of widgets. These widgets will drastically increase your blogs functionality. On WordPress, widgets such as adding an RSS Feed, Email Sign Up, and a Facebook link are excellent ways to help get people connected to your company.

With blogging it is important to not always be pushing your services. Think about it – do you want to take the time to read someone’s advertisement? Probably not, make your blogs interesting; give them a tip or an incentive to read it. It may seem awkward at first, but once you start getting in the habit of blogging, soon it will seem like second nature.

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Get Your SEO On In 2012!

Posted on January 19, 2012 by admin

By now you have probably been reading through our blog, decided that you needed to add a blog of your own to your webpage and maybe, just maybe you have added a couple pages of content to your website. Now it is time to sit back and watch the clients and customers roll right on in… Not quite… IF you have been reading our blog you know that the algorithms for website rankings are always changing, and while this may seem daunting to some people, it should be perceived as a great opportunity for most! This means that no one owns the market – the ones who rank number one for your industry today may not rank the same tomorrow. That means that it is ever changing and ever evolving – which is fantastic and exciting for anyone looking to create their own footprint in the world of SEO.

When advising clients, we encourage them to view their own personal SEO as a marathon – not a race. What we mean by this is that SEO is something that is built over time – not over night. It is important to not become impatient with the process, but to view it as a game or a challenge. Here are some tips to set reasonable goals for yourself in 2012 so that you don’t become frustrated with your SEO.

  • Dedicate a specific amount of time each day to your SEO. It doesn’t matter if it is ten minutes or four hours, find an amount of time that works for you and stick with it.
  • Stay up to date! Set yourself a goal of reading at least one article or blog related to SEO each day. The internet is always changing, it is important to change with it.
  • Content is key! Adding content to your website is crucial to success. If you are one of the many people who do not like writing articles for your website, look into hiring someone to do it for you. Or, set yourself a reasonable goal of one page per week.
  • Research your competition! There is no need to reinvent the wheel! Take a look and see what your competitors are doing – if it works, then do it!
  • Keywords are as crucial to your website as content. Do some research on what keywords people are using to search for your products. Be sure to use multiple key words on your website so that you do not limit yourself. If you are having trouble, Google Keyword Toolbox is a fantastic place to start.

We think that this is a pretty decent list to keep you busy for awhile! It is important to keep in mind that the search engines only scan web pages once every six to eight weeks – so while you may have done a ton of work five weeks ago, it still may be a couple more weeks until you see any movement on your webpage.

 

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Does your business need a website?

Posted on December 28, 2011 by admin

In our last blog, we discussed the process of how starting a website at Clear Imaging works – but we didn’t really get into if you SHOULD have a website or not. With the economy these days, many people are hesitant to get involved with something that will have a financial outlay – no matter the amount. This is a valid concern, the exception with a website is that it is a fantastic marketing tool that will help expand your business and help you obtain new clients. In contrast to the past, people are not going to the yellow pages anymore for recommendations on contractors, photographers, plumbers etc. They are going to the internet. Let’s say that perhaps they go to Google, and type in the search box, plumber West Hills, CA. Well, if you don’t have a website, you just missed out on that potential lead. In the past most businesses were able to survive based on word of mouth referral – that is just not the case these days, perhaps it is because there is too much competition – who knows…  Now it is time to up the ante, here we will talk about some of the basic reasons every business should have a website.
It will help you get found…
It won’t happen overnight, but if you are willing to put the time into it, your website can be the most powerful tool in your tool box. We have businesses that rely solely on the leads that their website generates for their business. So you might be asking yourself, so how does this all work? Do I simply throw up a website and the phone starts ringing off the hook? Well, it’s not quite that simple. If it was, then there would be no point in having a website – it would be an even playing field for everyone. We will touch on it briefly here, but if you want to educate yourself, check out our past blogs on website tips and SEO.

Essentially, the way that it works is that there are search engine crawls that happen every few weeks. During these crawls, the search engine “spiders” scan every single website and look for new content, key words and an array of other things. Essentially, this is how the website that lands on the first page of search terms get determined. The goal of having a website is to ultimately rank on the first page for search terms – that is how a potential client who searches for a plumber in West Hills, CA will come across your webpage. Now we will be honest, if you are not willing to put some effort into your website, then you will probably not see a whole lot of financial return. But those that do put in the effort see the benefits and reap the rewards.
If you have a business that is visually oriented, such as landscaping, photography etc. or if you are in a industry related service such as social media marketing or computer programming, then your clients will expect to see a website. People want to be able to do most of their research about the people they will work with from the comfort of their own home. In contrast to the past, people do not spend their days interviewing contractors, they simply want to see a great first impression and see a killer website with beautiful images. If you want to take your business to the next level, and up the ante so to speak, then having a professional designed website will give you the edge over your competitors that you have been looking for.

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Thinking about getting a website?

Posted on December 18, 2011 by admin

Why should I have a presence on the web?

Well, this is a very valid question, and if you have more business than you can handle and you don’t see it going away anytime soon – then chances are you probably are one of the lucky few who do not need a website. But, if you are looking for a new way to find clients, if you are looking to have more of a professional image – then you need a website. And you need not just any old website, you need a website that it truly fantastic and will capture people’s attention and enroll them in your service or product.

How does this whole process work?

At Clear Imaging, we are in the business of making beautiful website for a fraction of the price that it would normally cost. In contrast to most website developers who charge thousands of dollars upfront, at Clear Imaging we have a few different web packages for you to choose from. After you have selected a package that fits your needs, the price of that package is billed on a monthly basis. The benefit of this is that you as the consumer does not have to come up with a large amount of cash to get your project started. Most people who have a private website developer build them a page are not very good at updating the content when it is given to them. And why should they? It takes time to update a webpage and they can take that time and make more money building someone else a webpage. So now, guess what, you have just spent thousands  of dollars on a webpage that will hardly ever be updated and as far as SEO purposes, it pretty much worthless. In contrast, at Clear Imaging, we know the importance of SEO and we want our clients to be successful with their website. Therefore, we have implemented a ticketing system that allows our clients to simply submit a ticket for a change on their website – it can be added content, a new tab, an added picture –pretty much anything, and we will have it done for you within a couple of days! As you have read in our previous blogs, it is essential to keep your website updated and current for the search engines.

But I don’t know how to design a website…

At Clear Imaging, we don’t expect you to be able to design a website. We have hundreds of templates that will allow you to get an idea and preference of what overall type of layout and design you would prefer. After that, we take that template and discuss with you your color preferences and what types of concepts you would like to have implemented. And don’t worry, if even choosing a color for your website sounds overwhelming, our design team can help you! At Clear Imaging, we have some of the best website design professionals in the country, they understand what people look for on a website and can help you navigate all the choices that come with building a website from scratch.

If you are thinking that in 2012, you want to take your business to the next level and create a professional appearance, then don’t hesitate to give us a call! We would be more than happy to go through the different packages that are available and discuss with you the options for design that you have.

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Create a killer website!

Posted on November 20, 2011 by admin

In our past few blogs we have talked about what is search engine optimization, the importance of content and keywords. We are going to take a step back and go over some basic tips on what should be included on your website as well as structural advice. While designing and creating your website can be very subjective (it is a form of art) there are some key factors that are essential to make sure that you are giving people who visit your site a great experience.  

 Know who you are targeting with your website and write the content to be relative to them.

While this may sound simple, may individuals when writing content do not consider the population that they are trying to target. For example, if you are targeting a population that is over the age of 65, depending on your industry, you may need to take the time to explain new trends that have emerged that older generations may not be aware of. In addition, while it might be fun to check out synonyms that sound intelligent and more cultured for “regular” words, it is important to write things in a language that individuals will understand. Many website graders will actually take away points if the content that is produced is considered to be of graduate level reading, so just be careful!

It’s all about linking and going deep.

When writing content, one of the primary goals is to position your company as an expert on the topic that is being discussed. It can be very challenging to give yourself this type of credential when you only have one written page on the subject. Therefore, it is all about linking and going deep within the pages that you write. For example, if you are writing a page about some of the services that your business offers, add a hyperlink from one of the keywords on the original page to another page that will talk about the benefits of your particular product or service. Not only is this great from a consumer’s perspective, but the search engines love to see a higher ranking of indexed pages.

 Keep the content fresh and up to date.

 Nothing is worse than visiting a website in mid-July and it having a banner across the top that reads “Check Out Our Christmas Specials!” If you are going to have a website, it is crucial that you dedicate a specific amount of time each week to updating it and keeping it current. Studies have shown that people are turned off by websites that are not up to date and essentially the message they get is “we are to busy to care about our professional image”. If you can’t do this yourself, there are plenty of companies that are designed to help keep your website up to date.

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The Importance of Content!

Posted on November 8, 2011 by admin

So we are assuming that after our last couple of blogs, you are all madly working on your search engine optimization as well as your keywords – right? A few weeks ago we briefly mentioned the importance of having not only content, but updated content on your webpage. Don’t worry, if you don’t remember, we will start at the beginning and give you all the tools that you need to be a content wiz!

To really break it down, when we say content, we specifically mean written articles that contain keywords that describe various aspects of your company, product or service. Most of us have heard the age old phrase “Content is King”! But do we really understand what this means? If you do, then this will be an excellent refresher course, if you don’t, then you are going to learn a lot in a short time!

Remember a few weeks ago when we spoke about the search engine crawls that occur every few weeks? Well, that is one of the primary reasons that content is so crucial and important. Many people spend all their time, money and energy on beautiful web pages but neglect to populate it with content. This is incredibly unfortunate because when the search engines do their crawl, they do not recognize images or custom design layouts – they have eyes only for content and keywords. When individuals search on Google, Bing, Yahoo etc, the sites that come up are the sites that have content that is relevant to the search. Hence the saying “Content is King”.

When considering how you want to go about populating your site with content there are many different ways to do it. A few options would be to write the content yourself, have an employee write it for you or hire a professional to do it for you. The important thing to remember with content is that it is not something that is done over a weekend, content should be added to consistently so that every time the search engine crawls are conducted your site has had new information added to it. With this comes a warning, the search engines are smart creatures, if you plagiarize work, they will know that you are not the original author and they will actually punish you by demoting you in your rankings. –So make sure that all your content is original.

At Clear Imaging, we like to give this analogy to our clients. Your website is like a mansion; it is large, stable and has aesthetic beauty to it (the overall design). When your site goes live, this “mansion” is empty; it is your job to fill each room with beautiful paintings, rugs and furniture (I’m talking about content here people). Don’t think that the search engines will be overwhelmed with how beautiful your site is and automatically rank your site because of that, you have to furnish your new site with content… Because content is king.

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It comes down to keywords…

Posted on October 15, 2011 by admin

When it comes down to it, every person who has a website is trying to beat out and compete with others for the primo spots when individuals search for products or companies. So, the question is, who determines who gets what spot and when? If you have read our previous blogs, you would be able to confidently answer the Search Engines via their website crawls. In the past we have given you some search engine optimization tips, here we are going to give you a little bit more information on what exactly the search engines look for and specifically the power of keywords…

Think of your website like real-estate… And like real-estate it all comes down to location… And frequency…

While Google, Yahoo and Bing all have their secrets regarding how they actually rank websites, there are a few things that are common knowledge. When it comes to the search engines algorithms, one of the most important things is keywords. And like we mentioned above, it also comes down to the location and frequency of the keywords. Search engines like to see “keywords” near the top or in the title of a webpage and especially within the first 200 words of the website article. For example, if you are trying to advertise the “Durability of Pavers” then title the page and then also make sure that “Durability of Pavers” is mentioned near the top of the website article. We also mentioned frequency… The search engines will also analyze your website and compare and contrast it to see how many times you are using keywords in contrast to your competitors – he who utilizes the most keywords wins!

Now people over the years have attempted to outsmart the search engines with something called keyword stuffing. This is essentially where there is a page with no really content on it – it just solely contains keywords, in addition people will try to stuff keywords by making the font blend in with the background of the page so that it is not noticeable. Keyword stuffing is a very bad “no, no” and the search engines will outsmart you; they will pick up on it and penalize you for it.

So we have been talking a lot about keywords… And some of you may be shaking your head saying what on earth are keywords! Well, think of keywords as the search terms that individuals would use to search out and find your company. For example, if you were going on vacation and wanted to rent a boat for your trip and went to Google and searched for “boat”, you would get millions and millions of hits that would not be anything close to what you wanted. But if you said “rental boats in Long Beach California” you may still get some unrelated content, but ultimately you will probably find what you are looking for. So take this concept and apply it to your business and your website, think of the terms that people use when trying to find you.

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It’s all about the website rankings!

Posted on October 4, 2011 by admin

For most people, unless you truly just want to have a website to direct your clients to when they ask – most of us want to have our website work for us. And that is exactly what we are going to be discussing in this blog! So grab a pen and paper, and join us for what we think will be a fun and educational adventure to learning about how to optimize your website!

The first thing that you should know is what SEO stands for. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. Essentially this means how well your site is optimized for the search engines when they do their crawls for the ranking of websites. Every eight weeks or so, the search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo etc) do what is called a “crawl”. This is when they scan the internet for websites and determine who has content that is loaded with keywords and is continually putting up new content. Many people make the crucial mistake of having a beautiful site designed, they may create an “about us” page and then they walk away and become frustrated that their website never generated leads. Well, my fellow readers, the reason for this would be because there was no content on your site to generate leads from! Which leads us to our first point for improving your SEO:

  • It’s all about the content. It is crucial to update your website on a regular basis with new and fresh content. If you think that this is to much work for you, then consider hiring out the work. Let’s paint an illustration of how this works: Google scans your site a few weeks after it goes live, you are excited about your new site and therefore have created a bunch of great content for it and have been constantly adding to it – therefore Google recognizes that you are putting work into your site and rewards you by ranking you higher than others who are not adding to their site. A few months go by and you get busy, you forget all about your website. Just because you forgot about it doesn’t mean that Google has, therefore because you haven’t added new content when the search engines do their crawls, your rankings will go down. Moral of the message: keep adding content and keep updating your site.
  • It is all about keywords. Keywords are what people use when they are searching for products or companies similar to yours. It is worth your time and effort to figure out what keywords people are using to get to your site. In addition, make sure that these keywords are being used at the beginning of each page – this is important for the search engines.
  • Contrary to what many would like to believe, pictures do not count as content for websites. Pictures don’t contain data that would help lead people to your site, so if you are thinking that you updated your site because you put up some new pictures, well, that is good, but it won’t help your rankings!

So here we discussed the preliminarily basics on what search engines look for and how they rank websites. Be sure to check back for our next blog as we go into more detail and give you more tips as to how to improve your websites search engine optimization!

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