Shimmering Resumes’ website requires many categories to showcase the extensive number of articles and its sample resumes, presented in a before and after format. After careful consideration, we put together a website with a Volusion e-commerce capability as well as design that captures, is easy to navigate and appealing and professional. The setup allows for a steady flow of additional articles and has already led to impressive SEO.

We at Bay Area Web Solutions look forward to helping design new websites for more companies aiming to have a unique web presence, and meeting their distinct business needs.

Services Completed:
Design & Development
eCommerce
CSS/HTML
Content Management System
Search Engine Marketing

Website URL
www.shimmeringresumes.com

Shimmering Resume’s Yelp Review of Bay Area Web Solutions:

Bay Area Web Solutions has been handling my web design as well as advising me on ecommerce issues for the past several years for my online business, Shimmering Resumes. I couldn’t be more pleased. I had tried other providers and not been satisfied. With Jason’s assistance, my web presence has gained nationwide respect. He handles design issues but also provides creative solutions to the kinds of unanticipated problems that every business encounters.
Paul Freiberger

Shimmering Resumes

Webmasters rely on advertising to bring in income and pay the bills. This is a known fact of life in the online world and it is generally accepted among website visitors as well (most website if visit on a daily basis are ad supported). While advertising is common, Google has recently made changes to its algorithm that could negatively impact website rankings with too much advertising on their sites.

Are you worried your site is in Google’s cross hairs? Give me a call, I am available for a search engine optimization consultation.

Too Much Advertising

According to Google, websites with a large amount of advertising above-the-fold could be penalized by Google. This means that if you have too many ads on the upper portion of your pages, your site could go down in the Google rankings. Does this mean that having some ads on the top of your page will automatically move you down in the rankings? Not necessarily. Google says that this will affect less than 1% of sites on the Web.

If my website has too many ads, will it get downgraded by Google? If you have to ask, I think we all know the answer.

Who Will Be Affected

Since only a small number of sites will be affected by this change, the majority of website owners can keep doing what they’re already doing. Those who are most likely to be affected by this are those who have an abundance of ads at the top of the page, and you know who you are. When it is difficult to find any original content on the page, this reflects negatively on the site and the user experience.

For example, when you see multiple pop-up ads and banner ads on the top of the page, this could cause a site to be downgraded in the eyes of Google. If the top of the page is all advertising and it doesn’t have any content until you scroll down, this is a negative for the user. This is considered spam and can hurt your site in the Google search engine rankings.

Factors That Are Unknown

Although the basic idea behind this policy is simple enough, the specifics are held by Google. Webmasters can’t really be sure of several factors in this regard.

• What is too many ads? This is a pretty vague area that webmasters can get confused on.
• What is considered above-the-fold? The fold is different for various monitors and for different browsers.
• How much does it negatively impact you in the rankings?

Can I Fool Google with CSS Design?

Although this change has the potential to impact site owners, it may not be as big of a deal as some are making it out to be. In some cases, you may be able to get around this issue with CSS design elements. For example, you could put all of your advertisements towards the bottom of the page and then use CSS design elements to display the ads up towards the top of the page. Because of this, Google will not be able to see where your ads are being displayed unless they manually check the site. This lowers the likelihood that your site will be downgraded in any way due to where the ads are placed on the page. On the other hand, Google has proven itself to be sharp when catching such cheats. If they don’t find you out now, they will and you will most likely pay… just ask scrapers.

This is pretty simple, if you are worried that you have too many ads, read what Google has to say http://insidesearch.blogspot.com/2012/01/page-layout-algorithm-improvement.html. If you see a drop in rankings, I would stop wondering and start eliminating ads from above the fold.

Da Lusso Design’s website requires many visual presentations to showcase the various interior design images from the company’s past work.  After careful consideration, we put together a Word Press-driven website with a JavaScript slide show on the homepage as well as design that captures the eye. The built-in blog will lead to better SEO, and ease of posting images to the portfolio page will allow for client-based updating to the site.

We at Bay Area Web Solutions look forward to helping design new websites for more companies aiming to have a unique web presence, and meeting their distinct business needs.

Services Completed
Design & Development
CSS/HTML
Content Management System
Blog
Search Engine Marketing

Website URL
www.dalussodesign.com

Da Lusso Design’s Yelp Review (filtered out for some reason) of Bay Area Web Solutions:

Jason was patient and listened to exactly what I wanted. I ended up with the website I had envisioned and felt the process enjoyable. I look forward to working together more. Thank you!”
Jacob Scherer

Home Staging and Interior Design Company

Tracking Hours

Tracking hours is essential to marketing… it is how I get paid. Yet, I find that I get caught up in the task at hand and forget to simply write down how much time the task took. This year, I will diligently record my worked hours, from tasks to phone calls to meetings.

One tool I will be using for this is Harvest tracking at www.getharvest.com. It is priced well, easy to use and works well on my desk top as well as my Android phone.

Improve

I am constantly learning new stuff and this year will be no different, only to set time aside to research and learn new techniques and skills.

Search Engine Marketing
Focus on Local SEO. I find that most of my clients are looking for be found in the search engines, not ready to pay for a full blown nation wide SEO campaign but looking local SEO in the Bay Area.

Facebook
Facebook design will soon be a service offered by Bay Area Web Solutions,

Conferences
If I go to a conference it will be SMX West, but it is tough to shell out the cash for it. Sometimes I think that it would be better if I stayed at home for 3 days and watched Lynda.com videos and listened to podcasts.

Correct Prioritizes & Life Balance

Sleep
Some tasks can wait, ask yourself what is more important than sleep, possibly deadlines and must finish projects, but there are also tasks that can wait until tomorrow. No coffee after 1pm, this may mean I scold myself with a Grande Americo as I pound it at five to one, regardless, it is a resolutions.

Family
No one ever sat on their death bed and said I wish I spent more time at work, I know I won’t, so in 2012 I am looking for ways to spend more time with my family.

Exercise… enough said.

Business Development and client work.
Both are important, one pays now and one pays off in the future. I want to do both, but I need to find the right balance in 2012.

Business Development

Will I keep these resolutions, only the future will tell, but I do wish you a happy new years and ever better success in the New Year

May times if the design is old or information is out of date, users wonder if they should stay on this ghost town of a website. A Holiday Logo will show that you are alive and well and in the spirit of the season.

A few client’s logos for the holidays:

While they won’t solve your branding issues, holiday logos have several advantages:

They let your customers know that you are active and alive

Website can live on regardless the condition of their company. May times if the design is old or information is out of date, users wonder if they should stay on this ghost town of a website. A Holiday Logo will show that you are alive and well and in the spirit of the season.

It is fun & freshens up your web design

Come on Ebenezer, do I really need to explain this. You put lights on your house, why not your website. Spread some cheer and freshen up your design.

Generally cheap and an easy win

Throughout the year, you will look at your site wondering what “should I change”; you may even call a web designer and contemplate a redesign. By adding a holiday logo you get a quick win, and it should be fairly cheap. While not a redesign my any stretch of the imagination it can be a quick win as it brings a smile to your clients/bosses face.

Yelp is a platform for business reviews that acts as a community driven, virtual consumer advocate, powered by the voices of all types of consumers.  While it has its ups and downs, the best being the confidence reads put in the reviews and the worse being the filtering of legitimate reviews, Yelp is a weapon to be used by your business, if you know how to use it correctly.  Since anyone can sign you up and make a review of you company, you really don’t have to do anything to get it started, but if you are smart you can harness good publicity and avoid paying for yelp.  For more about paying for Yelp please see my other blog post Is Yelp Worth it?

How to use Yelp, Without Their Advertising Fee

Help and be helped…Join Yelp
The new economy (the Internet) has opened up a world of marketing opportunities, such as Yelp, that don’t cost a dime. However, there is one rule that applies to all who are striving to reap the benefits of the super-marketing power of the web; help and be helped, specifically; Yelp and be yelped.

The first step in learning how to use Yelp without paying for it, is to join. Create a personal profile and review businesses that you like.

The testimonies on your website can be helpful, but Yelp reviews will likely carry much more clout. To have the best of both worlds, cross promote your Yelp reviews by referencing Yelp on the testimonials page/area of your website.

Add your business profile.

Once you are an established yelper, integrate your business by creating a Yelp profile for it. Once you have done this you can:

• Communicate with your customers by responding to reviews
• Use widgets to show off your 5 Star reviews
• Get stats on how many people visited your Yelp page

To get started, go to your business’ Yelp page and click on “Edit Business Info”, you will fill out a few forms and be verified by your phone number.

Show Yelp off on your site

Good reviews, especially four or more stars, should be proudly, shamelessly displayed for all to see. After all, you have earned them!  Why not prominently place the Yelp logo on your website, and storefront, showing how many great reviews have been written about you?

Even better use the Widget provided by Yelp, here is the one for this website:

Where did my review go?

When happy customers want to show their appreciation, they are inspired to write a favorable review on Yelp. Unfortunately, if someone writes only one, solitary review, it will likely never be seen. Yelp tends to “hide” the reviews of yelpers who only write one or two reviews, apparently to discourage businesses from planting phony reviews for themselves.

The free market rules

While it is not advisable to ask customers to write reviews for you, it is advantageous to ask for feedback, and encourage yelping, in general, to support fellow consumers and businesses in general. Honest, constructive reviews can be helpful to everyone by promoting positive changes in the marketplace.

Cross promote

The testimonies on your website can be helpful, but Yelp reviews will likely carry much more clout. To have the best of both worlds, cross promote your Yelp reviews by referencing Yelp on the testimonials page/area of your website.

Click to Yelp

A clickable Yelp logo can link directly to your reviews on Yelp. Of course, it is best if it opens in a separate browser tab, enabling customers to easily click right back onto your site.

What is Yelp?

Yelp is probably the top peer review website around.  You can find practically any service anywhere and read peoples experiences using them. Yelp  offers an advertising service that will basically enhance your Yelp presence without altering reviews for you.

In this case, the widget they are paying for works against them, leading to reduction in sales and inquiries with the same amount of traffic.  Literally, the client was paying for less sales

What do you get when you pay Yelp?

• “Enhanced Listing” Meaning you will show up with a different background color to stand out as well as show up on pages of reviews for similar company’s.
• On page widget, meaning on your website
• Guaranteed clicks, depending on how much you are willing to spend (this is on Yelp not on Google)
• Add images and deals to your Yelp page
• View stats on how your Yelp page is doing

Is Yelp Worth it?

Let’s take a look at what you will be getting and my client’s experience using it.

Let’s start with the clicks you are paying for and the enhanced listing. The way they do this is through showing your ad on other Yelp reviews that are similar product offering and location.  When I investigated the type of clicks the client was getting I found the relevance was so far off, the clicks were borderline inappropriate.  This is what happens if your field does not get enough clicks and Yelp is not able to get you the clicks they committed to…. You get clicks that are worthless.

Example: I found my client’s ad showing up on a plumbers site… and no, my client was not a Plummer.  This is one of the oldest tricks in the book, and with this trick, Yelp is not worth it.

Next is the on page widget.  This is designed to show visitors how many 5 star reviews you have in real time.  This seems like a great idea, but what good is the widget if Yelp continually filters out five star legitimate reviews.

Example: I have actually seen clients go from fifteen 5 star reviews (with a least the same amount filtered out), to three 5 star reviews.  In this case, the widget they are paying for works against them, leading to reduction in sales and inquiries with the same amount of site traffic.  Literally, the client was paying for fewer sales.  Is Yelp worth it… not in this case.

Finally, there is no way to know if a referral from Yelp had anything to do with a paid click or just an organic search. “What is a Yelp advertising click and what is a regular yelp search click?”  This was my question and I never got a good answer.  What this means is in the analytics, I could not tell if Yelp ads were driving traffic or was it simply people searching for the service, finding the review and clicking on the URL on the Yelp review page.

When should I use Yelp?

• You have a lot of 5 star reviews… I would start at 20
• You live in a competitive area
• Your offering is in a competitive area, meaning that your service or product is searched alot
• Your website will really use the widget to its maximum potential
• When you are actively seeking out reviews from real customers and clients.

Yelp is an awesome resource to large and small companies.  You should embrace the fact that they will be around and figure out how to best use them for your online company.  Is Yelp worth it?  This depends on your company, but know that for many small companies you will be throwing your money away.

Cost is not the only issue to avoid a redesign. If you like your site, only need a minor changes and will be satisfied with evolutionary changes, not revolutionary changes; a redesign is not for you.

Here are few questions to ask yourself when thinking through the process of a new website vs. making changes to your current website:

If you answer yes to these questions, you need a new website:

1. Is your website completely ugly and difficult to look at?
2. Is the site impossible to use and difficult to update due to poor code?
3. Are you embarrassed to have your name on it, always saying things like “here is our website address, but do judge us by it, we need to get it updated.”?
4. Are you looking to make structural changes, like moving navigation?
5. Is your budget over $1500
6. Do you want to take advantage of new technologies, such as modern Content Management Systems?

If you answer yes to these questions, you need only to make updates:

1. Does your current site meet your Internet goals?
2. Do you get positive comments about the site?
3. Are you proud to show off the current site?
4. Are you looking for simple content changes?
5. Looking to swap out a few images?
6. Wanting to change the color palette?
7. Do you have a budget under $1500?
8. Do you find it easy to make changes to the site?
9. Do you rank well for you top key terms and find that you are getting a satisfactory amount of traffic and business from the website?

Cost is not the only issue to avoid a redesign. If you like your site, only need a minor changes and will be satisfied with evolutionary changes, not revolutionary changes; a redesign is not for you.

Cost considerations

Remember, website updates have a huge work creep aspect to them. Your list of 12 changes will quickly become 20 and the hourly rate that you are paying may creep up on the amount you would have paid for redesign. For example:

Consider what you will be getting with the new website:

1. Modern design to start with, instead of making an older site look modern
2. Better code. Technology changes and so does how websites are built. Starting from scratch will allow for better underlying code.
3. SEO. Clean semantic code is good, going through and updating your content is better, but sitting down and listing off keywords and a holistic search engine marketing approach is best. You can do some of this through updating your current site, but it is best to do it with a new site.
4. Easier to make changes in the future
Putting a dress on a pig is not going to help, but throwing away an asset is also a big mistake. Of course I would rather work on a website redesign vs. making changes to the current site, all web designers would, but you need to make this choice on your own, I hope this post will help you make the right decision.

Turn on ShareASale, take off Google Checkout
After the normal hours of set up and creatives uploads, we were ready to go live… so I thought.  For the next serveral weeks we would try to get Google Checkout to pass the right variables through our shopping cart (www.volusion.com), but out of frustration, I threw up my hands and simply removed Google Check out. Soon after our account was approved and the affiliates started rolling in.  Unfortunately, I quickly found similarities with most of these affiliates: they were all coupon sites.

In the end you get the sale you would have gotten anyway, but now you owe a commission to a coupon website that only got in the way of the purchase.

My first question was, “Why coupon sites when we have not provided any coupons?” it did not add up, until I realized the scheme.  First, you sign up and pay for the affiliate program.  Second, if your “auto approve” is on, coupon sites join your program.  Then, when someone visits your site and is considering purchasing, they naturally Google “Coupons for company-X”, and guess who shows up: Your spammy affiliate, promising a coupon that you never approved.  Due to the fake discount on your product the visitor clicks on their link, only to be disappointed as they return to your site with no savings.  “Oh well”, the visitor thinks as they purchase your product.  In the end you get the sale you would have gotten anyway, but now you owe a commission to a coupon website that only got in the way of the purchase.

So far here is my experience working with the affiliate network:

• I have spent a bunch of time setting up the account and making creatives.
• We had to take off Google Checkout due to incompatibility issues with ShareASale , Google Checkout and our shopping cart.
• Worked through our description in order to find more affiliates
• I have automatically added a ton of affiliates, spammy, spammy, spammy coupon sites.
• Paid our commissions to coupon sites that offer discounts that we have not authorized or given, leading to the affiliate coupon scam

I am sending an email to ShareASale requesting direction, but I see they have a paid program that will help me find better affiliates.  So the scam is this: You pay $650 to sign up, for that you get an account with spammy affiliates and have to pay more to get better affiliates?  This remains to be seen, but I hope there is a better answer than this.

How to avoid the affiliate coupon scam

• Turn off Auto Approve in your settings.
• Decline all questionable affiliates
• Fill out your profile and engage affiliates somehow
• Make a page on your site that will rank for the keyword term “Coupons for Company-X” and simply show what promotions you are having and that any other coupon are not valid and should be avoided.

As of right now, the jury is out on ShareASale, right now it looks like a bust, but I hope for my clients sake I am wrong.

The client needed a website that would be automated, offering the capability of posting a blog and sending it to Facebook and Twitter.  We also implemented side widgets that indicate the latest posts, the most popular, comments and tags. I built this in Word Press with several plugins to increase Search Engine Optimization and social presences.

The client required a clean, easy-to-read site that can support large volumes of compelling content.  Our goal was to meet this request with a distinctive professional and elegant look, using the back-end technology to make it easy to use.

The client is happy with the results and offered this comment: “’Thomas Edison said, ‘Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.’ We want Career-Help to be a valuable resource for those seeking to help themselves. That design shows that you listened carefully to our vision for Career-Help. You have designed a site that can change people’s lives.”