When Fresh 2 Desk engaged Brazen Web Design to handle their web development needs moving forward we had a discovery meeting. In this meeting we identified the current issues they had with their existing website. Those issues were:

1) Inability to allow customers the option to subscribe to weekly produce delivery thus requiring customers to return to the website every week to place their orders. As we just mentioned, convenience means a lot these days! So this was at the top of the list to accomplish with the new website.

2) Secondly, with the ability to allow weekly recurring orders they still needed to allow the customers the ability to suspend service in case they go on vacation or take a leave from their position temporarily. So with that in mind we added to the scope requirements the ability to allow customers to suspend their weekly service and re-activate it at their own discretion. We also added the ability for a customer to view all past and current invoices, as well as the ability to cancel the weekly recurring service.

3) Thirdly, we identified that we also need a way to allow customers to leave special “Notes” attached to their orders. This would be optional, but some people have special requirements for delivery or possible food allergies that must be considered.

4) We also noticed that the current website for Fresh 2 Desk did not have a mobile site to allow people to place orders on the go. Again we added this to the scope requirements to allow consumers to place orders on the go from their mobile phone or tablet.

5) Lastly, we wanted to take the existing branding put in place and revamp the website to improve customer interaction and make the checkout process quicker.

With the help of timely feedback by the client we were able to accomplish all these goals!

Last week we officially took the new www.fresh2deskkc.com website live for our client and thus far it has been a smashing success. The idea is unique, the produce is the best in Kansas City, the prices are down right amazing, and the customer service is second to none. If you are interested in getting on the path to health while not losing convenience, then get on board and try out Fresh 2 Desk KC.  If you are curious if they are currently serving your company, take a look at their current approved Kansas City Workplaces Here! If your company is not listed, do not get distraught just yet! You can request to have your Kansas City workplace approved for delivery here.

Do you have an eCommerce business that needs help achieving some goals to improve customer’s needs and increase profits? If so, we can help! Just fill out our request for web development evaluation here.

Google gathers business information from numerous websites (online Yellow Pages directories, and other sources) to populate Google Maps search results. Yes, you can easily enter your business information into the Google Local Business Center for free, but to be listed at the top of the list you’ll need to optimize.

Here are Some Tips for Optimizing Your Google Maps Listing:

You should try to get listed in other local directories as well.

Local Search Engines like Google Maps get their information to supply the mapping information by collecting details about local businesses by crawling and compiling data from other online websites, directories and databases. Therefore, having listings with the local online “Directory Pages” can (and most often does) help your listing to get positioned higher up, thus driving more traffic to your site.

Here’s a list of some additional directories that you should try to get listed in:

MerchantCircle.com (Includes Reviews of Local Businesses)
http://www.merchantcircle.com/

AllPages.com
http://www.allpages.com/

CitySearch.com (Includes Reviews of Local Businesses)
http://www.citysearch.com/

InsiderPages.com (Includes Reviews of Local Businesses, Google Maps uses this system)
http://www.insiderpages.com/

Local.com
http://www.local.com/

SuperPages.com (Idearc)
http://www.superpages.com/

Yelp.com (Includes Reviews of Local Businesses)
http://www.yelp.com/

Industry Specific Directories:

PhotoClicksPro
http://www.photoclickspro.com

PhotographyDirectory.org
http://www.photographydirectory.org

PhotoLinks.com
http://www.photolinks.com

Here is the hierarchy of optimization techniques listed by importance:

1. Completeness of information in your listing

2. Keywords included in your company name

3. Website Optimization - use City and State keywords in your Titles and Meta Tags, add your address to your web pages.

4. Category w/ Search Terms 

5. Proximity to center of city

6. “Flair”-photos, videos, coupons, payment methods, parking instructions

7. Listings in directories that include local address info (SuperPages.com, YellowPages.com, CitySearch.com, etc.) Number of In-Bound Links (IBLs) from local city websites and directories

8. Total number of reviews

9. High ratings in your Google reviews (More stars can mean higher positioning)

Google Maps is a great way to make it easy for your customers to find you so you can build your business. If you have a business that caters to local customers in your city or town, add your free listing on Google Maps and optimize it for TOP ranking!

A Simple Step-by-Step Tactic for Better Rankings in Google Local:

Step 1: Do Lots of Searches Related to Your Business & Region

Step 2: Identify a Handful (or a Few Dozen) Businesses that Consistently Get Top Rankings

Step 3: Go to the Local Business Profile for Each of These

Step 4: Click on the Links to “More About this Place”

Step 5: Go to those Sites & Get Your Business Added/Updated

Step 6: Repeat Step 4 & 5 for the “Reviews” and “User Content” Sections

Many hosting providers issued warnings this weekend about a widespread dictionary attack on WordPress blogs using “admin” as their username. According to these major web hosting providers, tens of thousands of IP addresses have been involved in such an attack as of publication; more attacks are to be expected in the near future. This attack affects all WordPress blogs regardless of the host; as long as your username is “admin,” you are vulnerable to the attack.

How to Know if you have been Hacked?

The main attack reportedly began the other week, declined later in the week, and picked up again Wednesday morning last week. You will know you are a victim if:
• you cannot log into your account;
• if you experience a very slow backend on your WordPress site if you can still log in;
• extreme cases may involve your site going down for short periods.
This could affect your business, especially if you rely on your site to bring in new customers and sales.

Protecting Your Blog Against Hacking

If you have a WordPress blog with “admin” as your username, please change your password immediately. Follow the standard requirements when creating a secure password:

1. Do not use your name or your birthday as your password.
2. Use a random combination of upper and lowercase letters.
3. Include special characters in your password (@#$%^&)
4. Your password should be at least eight characters long.

Contacting your blog host and password-protecting all the wp-login.php files on your server is also recommended. Finally, if you will create a new WordPress blog or website, choose a unique username to avoid falling victim to hacking attacks like the recent ones.

Getting Help from BrazenWebDesign.com

If your blog is managed by us, then you need not worry about these hacking attempts as we already have things secured from a website and hosting level. If you manage your own WordPress site, please change your password to a more secure one immediately and contact us if you think your blog has been compromised. We offer a service to review your WordPress blog, update it, secure it, fix truncated files and lock it down from hacking. We create unique and secure access information for your WordPress blogs and websites to ensure your site is protected. You can email us directly here or you can call us at:
(913) 782-3966

We will help you regain access to your account and help you track any changes the hackers may have made that can compromise your business and your online marketing efforts.

1. Tasteful and Creative Graphics

Graphics should reflect the professional image of the business or organization. They should be creative and appealing to your target market. Graphics set the stage for the most important part of the site: the content. Your graphics should attract the reader, not distract them from the content.

2. Minimize Animation

Animation can be fun, but if it is used it needs to be used sparingly and with a purpose. Animation can be distracting and annoying to a site visitor so make sure if you use animation at all, it is going to be useful to the site visitor and not just a pretty annoyance.

3. Easy to Read Design

If your site is content-intensive and you want people to actually read it, you should make sure the font size is big enough. We recommend at least 10 point font. Smaller fonts cause eye strain. Sometimes if you have a lot of content you must be creative in the structure and layout so that people are not turned off by all the text you have to deliver.

4. Avoid Splash Intro Pages

Splash Intro pages delay your readers in reaching you. It’s like extra packing on food when you are hungry. You don’t want to have to mess with it. Allow your users immediate access to the important text and menu on your site, so they can quickly find what they are looking for.

5. Easy to Follow Menus

Some sites have multiple menus. Depending upon how the site is built, you may not even notice a menu. Menu items above the logo and header graphics often go unnoticed. This is called banner blindness. Important menu items should not be put there. On some sites there is not a link back to the home page from pages down in the site. The user gets lost in the site. They should be able to navigate around the site without using the back button.

The user needs to have an intuitive menu to get a sense of where they are in a virtual space. The main navigation menu items should appear on every page. For sites with complex hierarchical menu choices, a breadcrumb trail at the top of the content section will help the user understand where they are. An example of a breadcrumb trail is:
Home > Products > Cameras

6. Written for Internet Readers

Business writing can tend to be full of jargon, long sentences and big words. Some site owners are tempted to put existing material from business documents on their web sites. Don’t do it! The content needs to be rewritten to make it easier to understand. We recommend a conversational writing style: writing it like you would say it, without the ums. When writing for the Internet, be concise, be specific and be informative.

7. Content Rich

Users will appreciate your site, your services and your products more when you provide specific information. Include product specifications, cite actual work done or show comparison charts.

8. Titles Reflect the Page Content

The page title can be seen at the top of your browser window in the blue bar. When a user bookmarks a page, the title shows up alphabetically in the favorites list. The title should tell the reader what the page is about.

9. Small File Sizes
Graphics heavy sites take a long time to load. Your customers may be running on older systems or browsers. Large file sizes will frustrate them. Readers who can’t load your site in 8 seconds or less, will most likely click away.

Interested in having your next website developed by an experienced website design company? Click Here to Get a free website design proposal and mockup!

I love talking about what I do for a living. No more do I struggle to figure out how I am going to fill the time when giving a presentation about what I do; but rather bring a stop watch to limit myself from talking too long. I enjoy web development so much that I could talk for days and I tend to forget not everyone loves it as much as I do. Mind Boggling to me……

From the time I was 4 years old I was told that I should choose a profession based on what I enjoy to do. “Don’t choose a profession based on money or because of what others expect you to be. Choose a profession that will make you happy, as most likely you will be doing it for most of your life.” my father preached. Of course he did remind me that making a good salary will help make things easier! In the end I believe my professional chose me and I couldn’t be happier. Sure there are bumps in the road, but the good definitely outweighs the rough patches.

With all that said, do not forget to make time for what is most important in your life. The people we love. I recently took an 8 day vacation with my family and it was the most consecutive number of days I have been out of the office since starting the company. Yes, I do have the luxury of working from anywhere in the world, and having a staff that continues to stay on task while I am gone; but it still made me a bit uneasy. Okay okay, the sun, sand, ocean, and corona’s helped put my nerves at ease but it wasn’t a cake walk!

For me there is nothing more important than my family and if I didn’t have them in my life the work wouldn’t matter. Below I am sharing a picture of me with my youngest son (Ethan Myles Lais) last month in Florida.

I know I know…..poor child, we missed some spots on his face with the sunscreen!!!!
Love this little guy!

Meet Ethan Myles Lais (5 yrs old this coming July) with his Daddy:

What does this all mean?!?!?! What’s the Difference? Let me explain…

There can be a lot of confusion between the use of the these different match types in various search or SEO functions. I will try to clear this up as easily as possible for everyone.

Here is the short explanation:

Broad match = Contains all the words, may be in any order, and may include other words

Phrase match = Contains all the words, in order, and may include other words before or after the phrase

Exact match = Contains only these words in this order

There’s a big difference between using these things yourself in a Google search, and the traffic data you’ll see in Google AdWords Keyword Tool or other keyword research tools.

Want some examples?

Exact-match search volume will show you how many people are searching for the keywords you enter. So if I input “web design” it will show me how many people are searching for the words “web design” on Google. With me so far?

Broad-match search volume does something different. It shows how many people are searching for the keywords I enter, and other “relevant variations”. So if I enter “web design” it’s going to show me the aggregate search volume for “design web company” “kansas city web design company” “dallas graphic design company on web” and the list goes on, and on, and on. This is why broad match has such a higher volume than exact match in so many cases because it is a million different combinations of words, only one of which is the exact keyword phrase you entered.

Phrase-match search is a bit more strict as it has to not only contain all the words in the search, but they have to be in order, although the phrase can contain other words. For example if the search phrase was “web design” as noted in the beginning then some phrase-match examples are “dallas web design” “kansas city web design” “web design company”, etc..etc..

Whether your doing keyword research for an adwords PPC campaign or an organic SEO campaign you want to make sure you are looking for words that have a decent amount of monthly “Exact-match” volume while also making sure the competition is not ridiculously thick so you can get good exposure. Getting on the first page of Google for all the gazillion different terms that broad-match takes into account is nearly impossible, you might be able to get on the first page for a handful of them, but that means you’re only getting a small percentage of that traffic. When doing PPC adword campaigns “Phrase-match” is a good option with some phrases that can give you the best of both worlds.

In the end it is always best to have an internet marketing professional manage your PPC campaign or choose the best keyword phrases to target in your Organic SEO campaign, unless you have extensive knowledge in this area. We have seen clients waste upward tens of thousands of dollars in a single month and get very little quality leads. It is very important to manage PPC and organic seo campaigns daily to make necessary adjustments that brings in the most quality traffic possible that will land you sales.

The Schema Difference
Schema isn’t like Meta Tags. It’s much different. Schema codes are inserted into div tags and h1 tags and span tags. The way the Schema code is integrated is such that the whole HTML code will not be affected.  Search is becoming more complex as our world becomes more complex. There are now more things and categories than ever before. Schema is a new tool to help search engines know which page or which content falls under which category. It is a helping hand for the big 3 search engines – Google, Yahoo, and Bing. You can read about their take on Schema here:

Google: Introducing Schema.org: Search engines come together for a richer web
Bing: Introducing Schema.org: Bing, Google and Yahoo Unite to Build the Web of Objects
Yahoo: Introducing Schema.org: A Collaboration on Structured Data

The Schema Simplified Explanation
Schema is a small piece of code added to your HTML that indicates to search engine what a certain page or paragraph is about. Google, Yahoo and Bing are using it to further enhance the “AI” or algorithm of their search engine.

Schema Code Example
<div itemscope itemtype =http://schema.org/CreativeWork>
<h1 itempro=”about”> Why Schema Might be the Next BIG Ranking Factor</h1>
<div itempro=”author” itemscope itemtype=”http://schema.org/Person”>
Author: <span itemprop=”name”>Sean Si</span>
(born <span itemprop=”birthDate”>September 6, 1988)</span>
</div>
<span itempro=”genre”>SEO</span>
<span itempro=”keywords”>Schema, SEO, Ranking Factor</a.>
</div>

The Breakdown
Itemscope is a shortcode for specifying what kind of an item you are discussing about. It usually comes with the itemtype shortcode which is for tagging your page/entry as to what it is about instead of the search engines depending on the number and placement of your keywords. In this example, I used the itemtype CreativeWork because my blog entry falls under that category.

Itempro is a shortcode for identifying the properties of that which you have specified an itemtype for. For example in this code, I identified what the properties of itemtype CreativeWork is about using the itempro=”about”. In english, I’m telling the search engine that the Page is about CreativeWork and it’s about Why Schema might be the Next BIG Ranking Factor.

You could see several itempro codes inside this short set of words because I tried to specify the properties all of the itemtypes as much as I could. I figured this might make a positive impact on search engines. The more specific, the better. It’s also more work. You can have as much itemscope, itemtypes and itempros as you deem necessary as you could see – I have 2 itemscopes, 2 itemtypes, and 5 itempros.

You can check out the complete documentations by Schema.org here:
Getting Started with Schema
Different types of Schemas
Schema FAQs
Schema Data Model
Schema Discussion Group

Disadvantages
As you’ve already guessed, the downside about Schema code is that it is very tasking to install and implement in all your pages. Unless you have only a handful of pages.

Another disadvantage of Schema is that it cannot be implemented in a WordPress post – this is because WordPress automatically deletes HTML codes that it doesn’t recognize. You can put it inside your template editor though. For example, if you’re using Thesis theme, you can put it inside using your Thesis Hook plugin.

So how will Schema Affect SEO?
Right now we can only make assumptions as to if it really helps rankings, but what we do know is that Google, Yahoo, and Bing do look for it and that is good enough reason for me. At anytime Google, Yahoo, and Bing could add yet another twist to their algorithm that rewards sites using Schema!

Tip: Implement the Schema code in one or two pages in your website where you want customers/readers to land. See how it affects your rankings.

Please do NOT create a bunch of google accounts and leave your company reviews. You will get penalized dearly and if you do not think google is smart enough to figure out what your doing, think again.

We have recently created a nice professionally designed 1-page PDF google reviews guide that we hand out to our own clients that walk them through the process of leaving us a review about our quality work and customer service. We have found this to be extremely helpful for the less technical savvy clients that we work with. Let’s face it, we are in the business of working with some less technical savvy people, hence why they usually require our services.

We are thinking of developing and providing a free PDF guide on leaving google reviews that anyone can fill out with their company information and generate a nicely designed PDF to hand out to their own customers. When completed we will update this blog post and provide everyone access to this script so they can create their own professional google reviews how-to-guide that you can email or print for your customers.

Just a quick overview of what this guide will entail is:

- How to locate your own business short URL for Google+ and google Local Listing.

- How to create a google account quickly if you don’t already have one.

- Step by Step information on how your customers can write a review about your business.

- How to publish the review

That’s It. Here is what a successful local listing “WITH REVIEWS” looks like, and as you can see not only will it help with your local business ranking, but it stands out over the rest!

GOOGLE MAP RESULT LISTINGS:

GOOGLE LOCAL RESULT LISTINGS:

GOOGLE ORGANIC SEARCH RESULT LISTINGS:

Google Reviews show up almost instantly in search results, so this is something you can receive benefit from quickly. However, if you want to get your gold stars with the # of reviews you have to display in your search results then you must implement the Aggregate Reviews Rich Snippet code in your website pages. This is just one of the MANY items our search engine marketing firm handles for our clients.

If you are interested in learning more about our company’s search engine marketing services, then just fill out this seo anlaysis form by clicking here and we will get you a complete seo review within 2-3 business days.

We are constantly looking for long term business relationships so we can grow together and share in each other’s success.

If you have a need for a new web design, mobile app, or custom application then send us a free web design and proposal request now by going here! We turn around custom mock-up designs and proposals within 2-3 business days.