Have you ever tried to find out Why Isn’t Anyone Coming to My Website?

OK, so assuming your website is up to date, looks attractive, is easy to navigate and the pages load quickly, if you’re still not getting much traffic, you probably are performing poorly with the search engines. Search engines today are like the Yellow Pages were ten years ago. Most people, when they’re searching for something on the internet, look at the first couple of results pages, maybe three. If your page is not showing up, they never get to see what you have to offer. So What Can I Do? Consider getting a free SEO analysis from Coastal Web Services. SEO stands for search engine optimization. A search engine analysis will show us where your site falls as far as search engine results as they relate to the key terms associated with your business. Once we know what the problem is, we can go about helping you fix it. Using some behind-the-scenes techniques and using text optimized for SEO, we can improve your ranking with the search engines, and improve your bottom line. A couple more things to consider that will increase traffic to your website include adding social media links and a blog. Social media is an effective way to get more visitors to your site, and blogging gives your site fresh content (Google loves fresh content), and if your blog is informative (How to Do This, Why Is That), your site will come up when people are searching for answers.


Contact Us:
323 Williams Street Suite C,
Bel Air, Maryland 21014.

Did You find it Ever Where is your website being hosted

Where is your website being hosted? Want to know where your website is being hosted? Most website owners have no clue who is manageing their website. Your domains and web hosting is usually setup by a technical person and as long as it is working no one seems to go any further. It only becomes an issue if you want to move your webiste, update to a new website or are unhappy with your email as hosting is where most small businesses manage their emails. Click this link: whoishostingmywebsite? Type in your web address Then it will come back with information as to where your site is being hosted. You will see some basic information about your site, including the ewebsite of your hosting company. Hopefully they will have a phone number to contact the appropriate person when an issue arises.


Contact Us:
323 Williams Street Suite C,
Bel Air, Maryland 21014.

website design in Baltimore - coastalwebservices.com

Contact US:
Coastal Web Services
Coastal Web Services Office
323 Williams Street Suite C,
Bel Air, Maryland 21014.
410-420-9390
Phone MD: 410.420.9390
Phone CA: 949.682.6346
http://www.coastalwebservices.com

Holiday Marketing Tips for Your Business Website & Social Media Campaigns

Update your website Your website is the online face of your business, and you need to make a good first impression to folks in the holiday spending mood. This is especially true for e-commerce websites. If you haven’t updated your website in a while, now is the time to update product photos, special offers, banners, and your homepage with holiday verbiage. Now is also a good time for ANY business to come up with special offers for Thanksgiving, Christmas or New Year’s. Write Holiday-Specific Content Your blog is one of the best tools you have to drive holiday traffic to your website. While blog content like, “Holiday Gift Guide for Your Teenager” helps e-commerce businesses, caterers, realtors, lawyers, dentists, and home improvement companies should get creative to do similar holiday-themed posts. Examples include: Catering / Event Planning – Creative Holiday Party Ideas: Event planners and caterers should showcase their holiday decorating and party planning skills by providing tips on how to hold the best holiday party. Give tips on recipes, desserts, DIY decorations, games, and everything that would make a fun party. Realtors- Home for the Holidays: There are so many family-friendly events in Baltimore during the holidays. Realtors should use the events, such as the Symphony of Lights, to show how amazing living in Baltimore really is and why buying a home in the area is perfect for families. Lawyers - Why Writing A Will Should Be One of Your New Year’s Resolutions: This is the perfect opportunity for lawyers to explain why having a will is important. Explain the benefits and how not having a will can impact the family. Dentists – Eat, Drink and Be Good to Your Teeth This Holiday Season: This is a great opportunity to remind people about good oral hygiene, and ways to avoid cavities and staining their teeth. Home Improvement Contractors – Easy Ways to Spruce Up Your Home for the Holidays: Offer tips on installing new lighting, painting, molding, a new front door, and more. Share on Social Media After you update your website and create holiday-themed content, start sharing on social media. Post your products, deals, blogs, etc. on your social media platforms and engage with your followers. Throughout the holiday season, people are looking to spend money. Using your website and social media platforms, you can get in front of potential buyers and convert them into paying customers.

Contact US:
Coastal Web Services
Coastal Web Services Office
323 Williams Street Suite C,
Bel Air, Maryland 21014.
410-420-9390
Phone MD: 410.420.9390
Phone CA: 949.682.6346
http://www.coastalwebservices.com

Creative Ways to Get Customer Testimonials - coastalwebservices.com

A good web design and strong content will go a long way in getting potential customers to your web site. But some of the most powerful messages on your website don’t come from you; they come from your satisfied customers. Great customer testimonials tell people that your product or service is not only legit, but awesome enough that other people are happy enough to recommend it. The question is, how do you get believable testimonials? Let’s look at some of the sites you can collect reviews upon, as well as how to encourage reviews from your customers and how to gather them from all around the web. Facebook Reviews If you have a Facebook page and are set up as a local business, your page now comes with a Reviews tab. Make this tab visible, and encourage your Facebook fans to go over and enter some reviews. LinkedIn Recommendations LinkedIn recommendations are only available for individuals (not companies), which is great if you’re a sole proprietor like a doctor or freelancer. But if you own a company with employees, you can encourage your employees to join LinkedIn, and if they get recommendations, you can ask to use them on your website, either on a page related to the services they provide, or on your About Us page. YouTube Video Reviews Video reviews are stronger than written reviews, and Google loves video. Encourage your satisfied customers to add videos to their own YouTube account and let you know the link so you can add it to your website. You could also create a video review in your office or at the client’s home when a job is done. Local Search Directories Local search directories such as Google Places, Yahoo Local, Yelp, Merchant Circle, and CitySearch allow members to write reviews. If you have great reviews on these sites, you should share them on your website as well. You can encourage satisfied customers to write reviews on these sites, and not just for your website. The reason is simple. If you are trying to get Google search traffic to your local business, you want your business to come up in the search with the most reviews. Google Alerts and Social Mentions Finally, there are likely customer reviews that are written about your company on other sites, such as personal blogs, that are unsolicited. Setup daily notifications via email on Google Alerts and Social Mention for a variety of relevant terms in order to keep track of brand mentions, including your name, business name, brand, and specific product names plus the word review. Use these alerts to find out about any reviews and ask the people who have mentioned your business you can feature their comment or story on your website. Usually people are happy to oblige, especially in exchange for a link from your site. The Down Side of Reviews There is one downside when it comes to opening the door for reviews on your Facebook page, local search directories, and other sites that you can’t control, and that is the chance that not all of the reviews will be positive. Whenever you come across a negative review about your business, it is essential that you respond to it. If someone comes across a negative review, but also sees that you have offered to help solve the problem in a public forum, then that potential customer will see that you do care about your customer’s happiness, which may lead to a positive impression after all. Setting a Google Alert on your business allows you to keep on top of reviews of all kinds.

Contact US:
Coastal Web Services
Coastal Web Services Office
323 Williams Street Suite C,
Bel Air, Maryland 21014.
410-420-9390
Phone MD: 410.420.9390
Phone CA: 949.682.6346
http://www.coastalwebservices.com

Web Site Design Tips for Small Business - coastalwebservices.com

Make your site inviting to new and existing customers
There’s nothing like an outdated, cluttered, clunky Web site with spelling errors and broken links to drive away prospective customers. How can you make your site an inviting place? Here are some tips for improving key aspects of your web site.

Navigation – Your web site design needs to have a well thought out layout, so customers can navigate it easily. Make sure all important sections are prominently listed. Link as many pages as you can into the main navigation bar, instead of having subpages from pages. You can also link internally to other pages on your web site through your web content.
Branding – Incorporate memorable elements of your brand into your web site, such as your logo, company color scheme and motto or jingle if you have one. Make your logo prominent on your home page and put it on all other pages to promote your brand.
Home page – Visitors should be able to tell immediately what your business does. Any call to action such as “Buy Now” or “Call Now” should be visually prominent on the page.
Content – If your main business is offline, just give enough clear, concise information to get customers to call or email. If you sell your products or services online, provide complete information to give customers the confidence to click and buy.  Either way, consider having someone familiar with SEO do your web content writing.
Refresh content – New content draws customers back. One easy way to update your content without a lot of code changes is by starting a blog.
Think SEO – Keep search engine optimization (SEO) in mind during web site design. Photos and splashy graphics may look nice, but won’t be read by search engines. One fix: have a text link that says “View portfolio” instead of a graphic button. Search engines will read the text more easily.
Colors – Use complementary colors that make your text easy to read. Clashing colors such as red text on a blue background make text too hard to read and turn off visitors.
Be easy to reach – Make sure your contact information or an obvious link to it is at the top or bottom of every page of your site.
Sound good – Music or narration that starts playing automatically when your site loads is an immediate turnoff for many visitors. If you must have sound, make sure it’s easily disabled.
External links – Links that take visitors to another web site should always load in a new window. Make sure your site stays in front of the customer, even as you provide them with additional resource information.

Contact US:
Coastal Web Services
Coastal Web Services Office
323 Williams Street Suite C,
Bel Air, Maryland 21014.
410-420-9390
Phone MD: 410.420.9390
Phone CA: 949.682.6346
http://www.coastalwebservices.com

Do’s and Don’ts of Reviews and Testimonials

DO Mine Your Recommendations
People may already be saying nice things about your business, your products or you on other websites. If you find these tidbits, you can use them in your web marketing.
Go through these sites like you’re panning for gold. Be ready to copy any nuggets you find and paste them into your site, and always mention what site the review came from:

• Google Places (find your listing in Google Maps)
• LinkedIn recommendations
• Google+
• Bing and Yahoo!
• Open Table for restaurants, Trip Advisor for travel, etc.
• Yelp!, Merchant Circle and other local listings
• Twitter

You should be watching these listings anyway, either by subscribing to updates from each site or through Google Alerts set up for your business name. Hopefully, everyone has positive things to say about your business. If you come across a negative review, it is vital that you respond to it. If a prospective client comes across a negative review, but also sees that you have offered to help solve the problem in a public forum, then that potential customer will see that you do care about your customer’s happiness, which may lead to a positive impression after all.

DO Check Your Inbox for “Reviews”

• In many cases, “reviews” show up in your inbox. They’re emails from happy clients. Your first instinct should be to write back and say thank you. Your second instinct should be to use these testimonials in your marketing. Ask for permission first.
• If appropriate, you can also politely ask the sender to copy and paste the review into a site such as LinkedIn, Yelp! or your Google Places page. If they do, you should be eternally grateful.

DO Solicit Reviews from Superfans

Satisfied customers are usually happy to talk about their experiences. We know it’s hard, but you have to get over the hesitation and social awkwardness of asking for the favor. Just do it. It’s worth it. Then thank them profusely. If they’re giving you a testimonial for your web site, you may even want to link back to them.

DON’T Make a Testimonials Page

It’s very common for businesses to want an entire page just for testimonials on their web site. They’re great right? Maybe not so much. Do you think people will go to a page to read them all? Do you ever visit “testimonials” pages? Probably not.
In general, testimonial pages are not frequently visited (check your Google Analytics). But if you take those testimonials and put them on pages about products and services, they will lend credit to other content. Testimonials are supportive content, so add them to pages like a bow on a package. All wrapped up, nice and neat.

Contact US:
Coastal Web Services
Coastal Web Services Office
323 Williams Street Suite C,
Bel Air, Maryland 21014.
410-420-9390
Phone MD: 410.420.9390
Phone CA: 949.682.6346
http://www.coastalwebservices.com

Creative Ways to Get Customer Testimonials

A good web design and strong content will go a long way in getting potential customers to your web site. But some of the most powerful messages on your website don’t come from you; they come from your satisfied customers. Great customer testimonials tell people that your product or service is not only legit, but awesome enough that other people are happy enough to recommend it.
The question is, how do you get believable testimonials? Let’s look at some of the sites you can collect reviews upon, as well as how to encourage reviews from your customers and how to gather them from all around the web.

1. Facebook Reviews If you have a Facebook page and are set up as a local business, your page now comes with a Reviews tab. Make this tab visible, and encourage your Facebook fans to go over and enter some reviews.
2. LinkedIn Recommendations LinkedIn recommendations are only available for individuals (not companies), which is great if you’re a sole proprietor like a doctor or freelancer. But if you own a company with employees, you can encourage your employees to join LinkedIn, and if they get recommendations, you can ask to use them on your website, either on a page related to the services they provide, or on your About Us page.
3. YouTube Video Reviews Video reviews are stronger than written reviews, and Google loves video. Encourage your satisfied customers to add videos to their own YouTube account and let you know the link so you can add it to your website. You could also create a video review in your office or at the client’s home when a job is done.
4. Local Search Directories Local search directories such as Google Places, Yahoo Local, Yelp, Merchant Circle, and CitySearch  allow members to write reviews.  If you have great reviews on these sites, you should share them on your website as well. You can encourage satisfied customers to write reviews on these sites, and not just for your website. The reason is simple. If you are trying to get Google search traffic to your local business, you want your business to come up in the search with the most reviews.
5. Google Alerts and Social Mentions Finally, there are likely customer reviews that are written about your company on other sites, such as personal blogs, that are unsolicited. Setup daily notifications via email on Google Alerts and Social Mention for a variety of relevant terms in order to keep track of brand mentions, including your name, business name, brand, and specific product names plus the word review.

Use these alerts to find out about any reviews and ask the people who have mentioned your business you can feature their comment or story on your website. Usually people are happy to oblige, especially in exchange for a link from your site.
The Down Side of Reviews
There is one downside when it comes to opening the door for reviews on your Facebook page, local search directories, and other sites that you can’t control, and that is the chance that not all of the reviews will be positive.
Whenever you come across a negative review about your business, it is essential that you respond to it. If someone comes across a negative review, but also sees that you have offered to help solve the problem in a public forum, then that potential customer will see that you do care about your customer’s happiness, which may lead to a positive impression after all. Setting a Google Alert on your business allows you to keep on top of reviews of all kinds.

Contact US:
Coastal Web Services
Coastal Web Services Office
323 Williams Street Suite C,
Bel Air, Maryland 21014.
410-420-9390
Phone MD: 410.420.9390
Phone CA: 949.682.6346
http://www.coastalwebservices.com

SEO company in Forest Hill - Coastal Webservices

Contact US:
Coastal Web Services
Coastal Web Services Office
323 Williams Street Suite C,
Bel Air, Maryland 21014.
410-420-9390
Phone MD: 410.420.9390
Phone CA: 949.682.6346
http://www.coastalwebservices.com

Google launches new reCAPTCHA - coastalwebservices.com

Google recently announced that they will be replacing the annoying reCAPTCHA test with a simple “I am not a robot” check box. Captcha, standing for Completely Automated Public Turing test to Tell Computers and Humans Apart, is designed to prevent automated spamming of sites, by asking humans to type in distorted words or phrases.

CAPTCHAs often appear before a user can write a comment on a blog, create an account for a service, buy tickets for an event or fill out a “forgot password” form.



This is what the No CAPTCHA reCAPTCHA looks like:

Contact US:
Coastal Web Services
Coastal Web Services Office
323 Williams Street Suite C,
Bel Air, Maryland 21014.
410-420-9390
Phone MD: 410.420.9390
Phone CA: 949.682.6346
http://www.coastalwebservices.com

CMS web Design maryland - coastalwebservices.com

CMS Website Design

A CMS stands for Content Management System. It was designed so that any computer user can edit text and pictures on their website without being a web designer. A CMS is not a perfect fit for all customers all though there are plenty of CMS sites in use today. Review the pros and cons to determine if this is a fit for your needs.

Benefits of a Content Management System:

-Stop using FTP to update your web site
-Stop paying for web updates
-Update your web site from any web browser connected to the Internet
-Add & update web content in seconds!

What is content management?

A content management system (CMS) makes it easy for you to update your website without having to know anything about web development. With just a few clicks you can update articles, upload photos, change the text on your homepage, or add new products to sell on your website. If you’ve ever used web mail (like Hotmail or Yahoo), you already have the skills necessary to use a content management system.
If you’re interested in making changes to your website all on your own, we can set up a custom CMS for you. Just let us know what areas of your site you would like automated and we can prepare for you a free proposal.

Contact US:
Coastal Web Services
Coastal Web Services Office
323 Williams Street Suite C,
Bel Air, Maryland 21014.
410-420-9390
Phone MD: 410.420.9390
Phone CA: 949.682.6346
http://www.coastalwebservices.com

Why Isn’t Anyone Coming to My Website

OK, so assuming your website is up to date, looks attractive, is easy to navigate and the pages load quickly, if you’re still not getting much traffic, you probably are performing poorly with the search engines. Search engines today are like the Yellow Pages were ten years ago.

Most people, when they’re searching for something on the internet, look at the first couple of results pages, maybe three. If your page is not showing up, they never get to see what you have to offer.
So What Can I Do?
Consider getting a free SEO analysis from Coastal Web Services. SEO stands for search engine optimization. A search engine analysis will show us where your site falls as far as search engine results as they relate to the key terms associated with your business. Once we know what the problem is, we can go about helping you fix it. Using some behind-the-scenes techniques and using text optimized for SEO, we can improve your ranking with the search engines, and improve your bottom line.
A couple more things to consider that will increase traffic to your website include adding social media links and a blog. Social media is an effective way to get more visitors to your site, and blogging gives your site fresh content (Google loves fresh content), and if your blog is informative (How to Do This, Why Is That), your site will come up when people are searching for answers.

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Contact US:
Coastal Web Services
Coastal Web Services Office
323 Williams Street Suite C,
Bel Air, Maryland 21014.
410-420-9390
Phone MD: 410.420.9390
Phone CA: 949.682.6346
http://www.coastalwebservices.com

 

Where is your website being hosted - coastalwebservices.com

Where is your website being hosted?

Want to know where your website is being hosted? Most website owners have no clue who is manageing their website. Your domains and web hosting is usually setup by a technical person and as long as it is working no one seems to go any further. 

It only becomes an issue if you want to move your webiste, update to a new website or are unhappy with your email as hosting is where most small businesses manage their emails.

Click this link: whoishostingmywebsite?

 
Type in your web address
Then it will come back with information as to where your site is being hosted.

You will see some basic information about your site, including the ewebsite of your hosting company. Hopefully they will have a phone number to contact the appropriate person when an issue arises.

Contact US:
Coastal Web Services
Coastal Web Services Office
323 Williams Street Suite C,
Bel Air, Maryland 21014.
410-420-9390
Phone MD: 410.420.9390
Phone CA: 949.682.6346
http://www.coastalwebservices.com

Harford County Mobile Website Design - coastalwebservices.com

Harford County Mobile Website Design

Coastal Web Services is now a mobile website design company in addition to a custom web design and SEO services company. We are now getting a lot of requests from our customers to design a mobile website for their business. Their competitors are starting to get them setup and they don’t want to be left behind. You certainly want to capture as much business as possible, and the best web design for a mobile site, if designed correctly, will make it faster and easier for the customer to contact you. The mobile website design is focused on the customer calling you right away versus the web surfer taking the time to research information, then possibly contacting you. Most customers have a good general idea of what is involved, but listed below are some basic details so you know what to expect and how you get the process started.

Do you have some more samples of mobile website designs?

Yes. Listed below are some additional samples to view if you are considering how to design a mobile website. We will show a couple designs that display their main site then their mobile site. In the design we try to keep the look and feel of your two websites similar.

Contact Coastal Web Services, your local mobile website design company, for a quote on your new mobile site!

Mobile Web Design Samples

Web Marketing and Video Marketing - coastalwebservices.com

 

Web Marketing – Video Marketing

Video Marketing Mistakes to Avoid:

You’ve probably noticed it yourself.  Just about any time you search for something on the Internet, several videos show up in your top search results. Did you know YouTube is the second largest search engine? Cisco recently predicted that global online video traffic will be 55 percent of all consumer internet traffic by 2016.

If your video marketing strategy is still in the ideas phase, it’s time to get moving. A good web production company can help you use web videos to your advantage. Video is a very effective marketing tool when done right. But some do-it-yourself videos produced by small businesses sometimes do more harm than good. Here are some common mistakes and how to avoid them.

• Making a video just to make a video  Did you ever have a teacher or a coach tell you “When you fail to make a plan, you plan to fail?” Well, turns out, they were right. You have to ask yourself if your web video serves a higher strategic purpose. Is it branding you? Will it encourage customers to buy your product? Read More........

Contact US:
Coastal Web Services
Coastal Web Services Office
323 Williams Street Suite C,
Bel Air, Maryland 21014.
410-420-9390
Phone MD: 410.420.9390
Phone CA: 949.682.6346
http://www.coastalwebservices.com