Archive for the ‘Online Software’ Category
Three Reasons Your Business Website Hosting Could Affect Your Search Engine Rankings
Thursday, January 5th, 2012As search engine optimization concerns go, business website hosting is usually pretty far down the list. After all, Google, Yahoo, and Bing care what’s on your site and who they can see linking to it rather than the server it lives on… don’t they?
While it’s true that your on-page SEO and inbound linking strategy is likely to have the biggest direct effect on your search engine position, your choice for web hosting may factor into the mix more than you think. Here are three reasons finding the right post could affect your search engine rankings:
A good hosting plan will load your site quickly and keep it online. All other things being equal, the major search engines seem to prefer websites that load quickly for users. They also place a preference on sites that don’t experience a lot of downtime. In other words, Google and the other engines don’t want to send searchers to a destination that’s likely to frustrate them, or not be there when they need it – both good reasons to choose a quality business website hosting plan.
Your business website could share server space with a blacklisted site. If another webmaster or business owner has been using the same server as you, and using it to spam people or run a shady online company, then there’s a small chance that you could be penalized for their indiscretions. Keeping good company, and staying in the right neighborhoods, is important to your SEO campaign.
Having the right hosting company makes it easy to add new content. The easier it is for you to go into your site’s file manager or CMS, the fewer reasons you’ll have to put it off. You want it to be a simple process to update and optimize the content on your pages, which is an area where a good business website hosting plan can be worth its weight in gold. Fresh content is the cornerstone of any sustainable SEO plan, so choose a hosting plan with that in mind.
Finding a business website hosting provider might not be your first SEO consideration, but it’s one that matters more than you might think. Given that the top spots on Google are more competitive than ever, doesn’t it make sense to have every possible advantage on your side?
With all of the different ways Design Extensions can help your business be seen, isn’t it about time to give us a call?
Online tools we use and love: Basecamp
Thursday, October 14th, 2010There are a few tools that we couldn’t live without. Tools that change we way we do business, make it easier for us to communicate with clients, or more efficient at what we do. These tools work great for our business and they really would apply across many different markets.
This is the first edition of this series and is focused on a product called Basecamp by 37signals
We have used Basecamp since February of 2005. Since that time, our gross sales have increased over 3 times what they were at that time. A big part of that is Basecamp.
Basecamp allows us to manage many more projects that we could have in our previous system. It allows us to not just manage them, but keep them running smoothly, keep communication flowing and most of all, keep it simple.
The best thing about Basecamp is not what it can do, but what it can’t. It can’t do complex time charting, it doesn’t integrate with salesforce.com, it can’t send out e-mail newsletters, and it can’t solve all of the world’s problems. But what it does do, it does very well.
It allows us to manage tasks, milestones, files, and messages between our staff and our clients. Our team is virtual, we work from wherever is convient each day and Basecamp allows us to have all of the information we need for each project at anytime, from anywhere.
If you are currently looking for a way to manage projects better, I would highly recommend checking out this great piece of online software. They even offer a free trial. It’s not just for those in the web design business, it’s for businesses of all types.
Leave a comment if you have suggestions for other online tools or software that you use a love for your business.
