Who has the keys to your domain...and your web hosting account...and your PayPal account...and all the other online accounts that make your business tick?

As a business, personal, or non-profit website owner, if you didn't answer this question with a resounding "I DO!," you are putting your website and possibly even your entire enterprise at risk.

Many companies such as domain registrars, website hosts, PayPal, banks, and others that are required to keep your sensitive online information safe WILL NOT COMMUNICATE with anyone other than the person who is listed as the main contact in their records. And they certainly will not release user name, password, and other account information to anyone other than the officially designated contact.

Knowing this to be true, consider what might happen in the following scenarios if you are not listed as the primary contact and you do not have a copy of your login information:

• Your employee leaves the company.
• You decide to switch web designers, or your designer retires or closes the business.
• Your spouse divorces you.
• Your relative turns untrustworthy.
• You and your friend or business partner have a falling out.

Now further imagine that one of these common situations arises and you need to:

• Change your account password or contact information.
• Change your web hosting service.
• Change your domain registrar.
• Change your website designer or search engine optimization (SEO) company.
• Access your PayPal account in order to add new payment buttons.

Ouch! You could be in a world of hurt, as one of our new customers discovered recently.

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The bottom line is that YOUR contact information should be on ALL these accounts, and YOU should have a copy of all the login information for these accounts: that means URL addresses (e.g., paypal.com, namecheap.com, gmail.com, etc.), user names, and passwords. PLEASE do not rely on others to keep this essential information safe for you!

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Tip: Here is one way to find out who is listed as the primary contact for your website's domain and to learn the nameservers for your website hosting account:

1. Go to http://centralops.net/co/DomainDossier.aspx
2. Type in your domain name (e.g., pcartsonline.com). Omit the www.
3. Check the domain whois record box.
4. Click GO. (Note: If you have changed the information recently, it may take about 24 hours to see the most recent changes.)

Oh, in case you are wondering, when Precision Computing Arts / Fastwebdev sets up an account for you, we never list our company as the registration, administrative, technical, or billing contact. We always list you — the company owner (or your designee) — and we always provide you with the complete login information for every account that we set up on your behalf. PLEASE STORE THIS INFORMATION IN A SAFE PLACE!

Questions? Please contact us.

There are many ways to improve your standings in Search Engines such as Google and Yahoo (the two most-used search tools on the Internet). The fancy name for this is "Search Engine Optimization," or SEO. Some SEO requires very specialized knowledge; other SEO requires simple common sense and facility with website design tools. Please contact us if you would like assistance with SEO tasks, especially those that fall into the "common sense" categories below.

What does it mean to optimize my website?

To ensure that your site works well with the search engines, your site should be properly. Be sure that your site keywords and phrases are displayed in the places that search engines look at when indexing your website. To do this, review the areas listed below...

Website Content - most important!

• The visible content on your pages is the important area that search engines look at.
• Place your highest priority keywords and phrases in the content area of your pages.
• Your home page must include your most important phrases.
• Keywords must be placed near the top of your content area.

Page/Browser Titles

• The browser title appears in the title bar of your browser window.
• Be sure that your global browser title reflects the most important keywords.
  
• Use page specific browser titles for specialized pages. Page specific keywords are displayed right after your global keywords in the browser title

Page Names

• Search engines will look at the names of your pages and links when indexing your site.
• Keep your page names short.

Links on your site

• Create text links on your site that take visitors to important pages.
• Use your keywords in the text links.
• For example, if you had information on televisions...Instead of creating a link called "click here" or "product specials", you could create a link called "Plasma Television Specials"

High-quality external links to your website

• Search engines rely heavily on links to determine the relevance/ranking of your website.
• You want other websites to link to your site. This will generate traffic from those websites, and also will increase the ranking of your website.
• Links from websites that are very popular and related to your keywords and phrases will give you the biggest boost in search rankings.

Do you want some help figuring out the best keywords to use in your Pay Per Click system (e.g., Google Adwords or Yahoo Overture)? Do you want to find out what the competition is doing? If so, check out Google's FREE Search-Based Keyword Tool. Use this free tool from Google to generate a list of keywords found on any site, including your own and your competition's.

To use the tool:

1. Click here to start the SK tool (www.google.com/sktool/).
2. In the Website box, enter the website address that you want to analyze.
3. Click Find Keywords.

You can sort by any column (click on the column name), analyze the results in a variety of ways, and even export the keywords found. The tool is optimized for use with Google's Adwords system, but it's great all by itself. (Note that it shows a limited list of keyword ideas, not every possible keyword associated with the site you selected.)

To learn about more tools for selecting Pay Per Click keywords, visit the Pay Per Click Insider Tips article titled "Five Techniques to Dominate the Long-Tail".

Our clients increasingly ask us to help improve their website traffic and pay per click results using Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) techniques. These techniques can require considerable time to master and not inconsiderable expense to implement.

One way we can help is by sharing the latest information and tips about current SEO and SEM techniques. Recently, we explored some tips from Google and received an email newsletter from PPCSummit containing information that we would like to share with you. Most of this information is written in plain English that even we can understand, so we feel it's worth passing along to our clients. We've summarized these articles below and provided links to the original material for your reading pleasure.

One more tip: Consider running ads in craigslist. Most craigslist ads are free, craigslist offers local classifieds and forums throughout the world, and Google indexes craigslist ads! >> more about craigslist

Google Webmaster Guidelines

This article from Google provides essential guidelines for: Website Design and Content, Technical Tools (for webmasters), and Quality. Implementing these guidelines will help Google do a better job of finding, indexing, and ranking your website. Among the most important are the Quality guidelines, which, if violated, can cause your site to be removed from or penalized in Google's index. >> read the article

Facebook Advertising (You May Want To Try It)

Facebook has nearly 200 million users, of which more than 100 million log on to Facebook at least daily. This article introduces Facebook Advertising, an increasingly effective way to reach Facebook's targeted audiences (which typically make impulse buys) and to increase brand awareness. The article provides helpful ad creation tips that apply to Facebook marketing as well as other contextual advertising such as Google Adsense. >> read the article

How to Train Your Visitors to Improve Your Conversions

Your website's landing page should treat visitors like untrained dogs that need clear guidance to get them to do something, such as buy your product or contact your company. The article explains how to find the competition's successful landing pages on the Internet and how to design landing pages for your own site that get more conversions. The acronym MORE ? which stands for Marketing Effectiveness; Offer Clarity; Readability of the Page; and Engagement with the Visitor ? is used to illustrate key points. The article also stresses the importance of testing and measuring the results. >> read the article

Five Ways to Maximize Your Pay Per Click Conversion Rates

Companies using Pay Per Click advertising (PPC) such as Google Adwords or Yahoo Overture know that every click from a sponsored search costs money that can add up quickly. This article explains five ways to communicate your message so that more visitors will turn into leads for your products or services. (Many of these tips will improve your website overall, whether you use PPC or not.)

1. Clearly understand your target market and the 2-3 messages you want to convey.

2. Make the landing page relevant to the link the user clicked.

3. Make the site design usable and readable, with a clear structure and easy navigation.

4. Include several ways to contact you.

5. Test your ads at least once a month.

>> read the article

Using Social Media to Discover Better Keywords

Social media enables companies to learn what's being said about their products and services in real time. This article discusses social media tools that can help you uncover keywords that can improve your Pay Per Click (PPC) campaign results and search engine page rankings. Tools mentioned include TwitterSearch, Collecta, Facebook Lexicon, and Delicious Tags; these can supplement more traditional methods for discovering keywords such as Google's Keyword Tool, WordTracker, and Keyword Discovery. >> read the article

"Killer Insider SEO Tips": How to Create Targeted Web Traffic in a Week

Need tips for getting targeted traffic to your website and converting that traffic to leads? This article includes four mostly free ways to begin, including:

1. Keyword research.

2. Using social media and building links. (Google's page ranking algorithm currently relies heavily on high-quality links!)

3. Using Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to build content-rich, keyword-rich copy and search-friendly websites.

4. Evaluating your competition.

>> read the article