IMPORTANT NOTICE RE: Email Accounts

One of the servers on which we host websites had to be rebuilt, earlier this week, for stability reasons. We have received reports of clients having difficulty sending and/or receiving email.

If you are a client having problems with your email, please contact us online or by calling 828-452-1848 and we will resolve your problem immediately. Important: if you contact us online, please be sure to provide your current email password and a phone number for verification. Thank you.

Coming Soon: New Payment, Billing, and Services Management System

We are preparing to roll out a new system which will automate billing, account payments, and your ability to manage or add services. We’ll have more details for you, soon, but wanted to give you a heads up on this next step in our growth.

AdWords Changes

AdWords is now looking for landing page quality - if your landing pages look spammy, you’re going to pay more per click. Read more at the official blog.

ColdFusion MX 7 Hosting

Did you know that Topsail Consulting offers Cold Fusion MX 7, PHP, Perl, and Tomcat web hosting, in addition to our web design and search engine optimization services? Contact us to learn more.

What’s Your USP?

What’s your USP? You know, your “Unique Selling Position.” What makes your business stand out from all the competition? Maybe it’s that yours is the only business selling a given product, your low prices, your ability to deliver in bulk, or just good, old-fashioned, customer/client service. Whatever it is, the odds are that you have gotten very good at expressing it in face-to-face conversations, whether with potential customers or clients, with friends and family, or with business networking partners. Does your website express it, though? Is it clear and prominent on your site who you are and why people should do business with you, instead of with your competitors? Today would be a great time to sit down, take a hard look at your site, and decide if you are really making the most of it.

Happy Fourth of July

To all our American clients and business partners: have a happy Independence Day!

Google AdWords

You are probably at least somewhat familiar with Google AdWords (if not, read this). What you may not know is that advertising with AdWords can be profitable, even for a small to medium business or one which is brand new to the web.

We have helped number of companies get AdWords accounts up and running and have cut huge amounts of “dead” traffic from some accounts (as much as a 75% savings). Imagine that you sell TVs. You want to show up for searches for “TV,” for lots of product names, and for terms like “plasma flat-screen.” What you don’t want is to pay for visitors who are looking for “TV listings,” “flat-screen monitors,” “hdtv service.” For any site, there are dozens of terms which are close to being exactly what you want, but not close enough. They result in “dead” clicks - and dead cash leaving your bank account. Even the searches you think are good often turn out to be duds, or even hemorrhages on your bottom line.

We use a number of techniques to record, monitor, and analyze exactly which searches pay off, which don’t, and how to get the most out of the ones that do. Curious? Contact us to learn more.

Squirrelcart Shopping Cart

Did you know? Topsail Consulting now offers the Squirrelcart PHP-based shopping cart. We have worked with it on numerous sites and have had good experiences with it: it’s easy to setup and administer and has lots of great built-in features. Plus, we have a volume license, which lets us off it for only slightly more than most of our other hosting plans. Contact us to learn more.

Welcome to the Topsail Consulting Web Design Blog

This is a new addition to the TopsailConsulting.com site. We will post on web design, search engine optimization, web hosting, e-commerce, and more, here, so check back often!