Give Your Website a Little Pizzazz

We're really talking little here - a 16x16 icon that will appear next to your website's title in the "favorites" list on Internet Explorer. Create an icon of your logo that is 16x16 in size, name it "favicon.ico" and upload it to the main directory for your site. Whenever someone bookmarks your site with IE, the icon will show up, thereafter, in their favorites list, catch their eye, and, hopefully, prompt them to revisit your site. If you've bookmarked our site, you should see our icon in your favorites list.

Starting Well

You may realize the importance of ranking well in the search engines. What you may not realize is the importance of starting as well as possible in order to rank well in the future. What do I mean? Well, if you create a brand-new site which has a poor link structure or few incoming links, the engines will see your site as insignificant, the first time they visit. This makes them less inclined to look at it again, when you make changes to help your rankings. Ever wonder why listings for some sites get updated all the time and why others barely get looked at by engines like Google? In a word: relevancy. Start well, end well. For information on Search Engine Optimization services, contact us today.

Tons of Traffic, or Lots of Overhead?

Have you looked at online advertising? If you've ever browsed the Internet, you know about banner ads and popups. If you've ever searched on a site like Google, Yahoo, or AOL, you've seen pay-per-click (PPC) ads. The question is: do you know how to advertise effectively? Popup ads are cheap, but they're also increasingly ineffective - more and more people block them, or simply ignore them. Banner ads, on the other hand, aren't cheap, but they're even more ineffective! Enter Pay-Per-Click. Using text-based ads such as those served up by Google Adwords or Overture. There are pros and cons to each, but the good news, either way, is you only pay for the traffic you get. Prices will also vary, based on the search terms you target. The most important thing is to measure your success - know which campaigns work and which need help, then measure your Return On Investment (ROI) to maximize your profits. Target the wrong words or write poor copy, and your costs are guaranteed to go up, while revenue plummets. Topsail Consulting offers managed campaigns for all types of online advertising; we'll be glad to help you identify the best places to spend your money and then work to get you more of it in return! Just contact us today to get started!

Until next time, may the spiders love your site, and may your visitors keep coming back for more!

Ed Cottrell, Editor and President