The Premier Online Marketing, Web Design and ECommerce Firm

Internet Marketing Landing Pages

2008-06-09T13:51:00.006-05:00

Landing pages have been around for a number
of years. Back in the day they were set-up for the search engines.
Over time people realized that these "landing pages" not only were
good for the search engines, but were good at converting visitors
because the content matched what they were looking for.

So at this point there are a number of different kinds of landing
pages. Our initial landing pages are set-up for conversions. They
allow the visitor to fill out the form, sign-up and get more
information all on the same page. At some point our long-term plan
is to add more pages to a site that are SEO'd properly and they
would also serve as landing pages for those terms.

So, in Today's SEO world landing pages are used when referring to pages that "convert" as well as to "drive traffic" from search engines.

The following links point to a few landing pages that we did recently. They are constructed very simply. Just one image at the top (search engines love simplicity) followed by a health amount of text below which will allow the pages to rank well for the clients desired terms. Yet, a page such as this, with an appealing graphic is something of a billboard as well and gives aus a great oppotunity to sell the prioduct visually and induce a click-through or conversion by enticing the user to fill out the form, thus providing yet another lead for our client.

Think of the pages below in terms of a billboard on a highway. The text at the bottom could be considered as a way to get people to drive by (a prime location) because it pulls people in from the search engines. The graphic at the top could be considered as the billboard.

Granite Countertops Miami

Kitchen Remodeling Miami

Marble Floors Miami

Bathroom Remodeling Miami

Wood Flooring Miami

Tile Miami

Two Harbors MN Website Design Commercial

2008-05-28T19:18:00.005-05:00

You might be asking yourself... what does the cute girl have to do with Two Harbors Mn website design? Good Question!

She is the star in our 1st web commercial. I'm not going to give it away, but both of my daughters will have starring roles.

Premier Spot iMarketing has been busier than ever since moving to our new location in Two Harbors, MN. The good news is that we took our time to build the right team and have the processes in place to handle the expected growth. We currently have about 10 website design projects in some stage of development and are expecting to add a few over the next week. Stay tuned as we'll be featuring our new designs as we launch them. We'll also be featuring our marketing clients and past designs so come back often for the latest.

If you are in the area stop in and visit our new location at 701 7th Ave in Two Harbors.

Duluth Minnesota Website Design

2008-05-23T21:37:00.004-05:00

Website Design or Interactive Marketing?

That is the question a lot of small business owners face when deciding which way to go before designing a website. This doesn't need to be a problem any longer. A good interactive firm will have a qualified web design staff AND internet marketing staff.

There are many qualified website design firms in the Duluth, MN area. I like to think that a small website and internet marketing firm in Two Harbors, MN fits the bill as well and is a great alternative to the higher priced Duluth website design firms. Premier Spot iMarketing was established in 1998 and has grown to hundreds of websites in all industries.

We are launching a new Web 2.0 Social Marketing Program over the next few months and I have included our intro video. We'll be adding video components and will be adding many different education videos over the summer. Come back and see the new information and videos. And... Duluth Minnesota Website Design searchers... we want YOUR BUSINESS!

Two Harbors Internet Marketing

2008-05-19T20:13:00.005-05:00

Internet Marketing and Website Design is needed in Two Harbors. It was a great Monday as we were approached by 6 different customer about a potential website or marketing plan. Four of the Six leads were very good and I believe we'll be able to make them work. The power of the Internet is a wonderful thing and a good old fashioned sign on main street helps as well.

(Before we get too far. The picture to the right is Governor Huckabee jogging in Ft. Lauderdale and yours truly was in the pack)

We received three leads from our Two Harbors Website Hosting email newsletter. Our offer (and it still stands) is to get away website hosting if the customer signs up for a maintenance or internet marketing plan. Our Internet Marketing plans are tremendous and include natural search engine optimization, link building, social bookmarking, youtube, myspace, facebook, etc.

We received one lead and deal from a previous customer that is starting another business. We talked for about 3 minutes, established a price and chose a domain name. Now that is a productive phone call!

The fifth lead was from a guy driving by from Duluth, MN that saw our sign and in need of a website. He called us from the car. Pretty exciting stuff!

The sixth and final (so far) lead today was an online inquiry from Cleveland, OH. This could be the biggest of all as it requires a full blown social marketing plan. We are currently doing this for a number of our clients and we would be a good fit. We'll see what happens.

Last but not least... we want to perform more Two Harbors Internet Marketing. So calling all Two Harbors businesses. We are waiting!

Search Engine Marketing Minnesota

2008-05-18T12:56:00.003-05:00

Search Engine Marketing Minnesota..... you might be asking, "what kind of headline is that?" Good question! Glad you asked and glad I have the opportunity to share:-)

It's just another way for me to drive traffic to this blog posting and eventually to premierspot.biz, our corporate website. The term, "Search Engine Marketing Minnesota" is only searched a handful of times each day, but it's what I call a "Buy Search Phrase" Anytime that search users are typing 3, 4 and 5 phrase search terms means that they know what they want. They aren't looking for general information. In fact... if you are reading this blog because you searched for "Search Engine Marketing Minnesota" I've just proven that you need to look closely at my company and give us an opportunity to bid on your project! We can do the same for your website.

Blogs are just one way that we drive traffic to our website AND share our knowledge with the world. We are strong believers in social bookmarking, which includes MySpace, FaceBook, Digg, Del.icio.us, Technorati and many others.

Two Harbors Website Design

2008-05-15T21:42:00.000-05:00

I'm excited to announce that our signs are up! Yes, that's right.... Premier Spot iMarketing now has signs up. Two Harbors premier website design company (in my not so humble opinion) is now located at 701 7th Ave and has the signs to show for it.

We have also launch a few new websites over the last week. Wild Ridge Estates, a Lake Superior Real Estate development was launch last week. This week Larry Peterson, a Century 21 Realtor based in Two Harbors and specializing in Two Harbors Real Estate launch his website this week.

Our current designs are for a 401K Quotes website, an International Moving Company website, Lake Superior Golf Course Website and a few more that are under wraps and we hope to promote in the near future.

I'm also excited to announce a promotion within our firm. Matt Falk has been promoted to website design manager and will take on all responsibilities on the design side of our company. Jake Nelson will continue to head up the marketing side. We have a wonderful group and I look forward to seeing the work we produce throughout the summer.

Two Harbors Web Design Company

2008-04-29T22:33:00.000-05:00

I'm excited to announce our new location. Premier Spot iMarketing has moved to 701 7th Ave. It's right across from our old location at the Harbor Landing. We have more space, more lighting, a breakroom / boardroom / meeting room (ok... it's a kitchen) and a nice front porch. I told my girls they could sell lemonade out front this summer.

We just launched a new website today. Take a look at www.wildridgeestates.com -- We're thrilled with the site and are expecting it to produce great results for our client. The site is a real estate website design and was created by our lead designer Mr. Matt Falk. Quite a few sites are in the midst of a design. I'll be reporting in on these sites over the next few weeks.

Over and out....

Two Harbors Website Design

2008-04-27T23:12:00.000-05:00

It's been a long long time... but I'm back. My family and I rolled in to Two Harbors on April 1st and we are all excited to be back. We were in Miami for almost 3 years while my wife went to school. During this time Premier Spot iMarketing went through some changes, but we all are better because of it.

So now.... we are in a 3 months promotion to do all the Two Harbors website design we can. We have special offers, we are doing meetings, you name it... we are doing it. So, if you are looking for a website design job and you are in or near Two Harbors give us a call.

Miami Construction

2006-06-30T18:37:00.000-05:00

We live about 1/2 say between Miami and Ft. Lauderdale on the Intercoastal overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. I used to have a beautiful view.... but now I have a blue tarp on my window and my balcony was removed today.

We're in the midst of an 18 month renovation project. So now I lost my beautiful view and one of our balconies. The Miami construction company is doing a good job... I just hope they finish early as I already want my view back!

Have a nice weekend... I guess I'll have to go to the beach now to see the ocean. Poor Me.... :-)

Eric

Miami Website Design

2006-06-29T17:00:00.000-05:00

First of all... this blog post has nothing to do with Miami Website Design, but I will get a ranking boost for the term Miami Website Design because of this post. The search engines love bloggers and will reward you with higher rankings in the search engines.

I don't blog enough. I need to blog more and should be able to within a few weeks. I'm getting very close to hiring my first full-time employee. I'v had part-time employees, multiple part-time employees, contract workers, but it always ended up being a drain on the finances. Compared to most Internet Marketing firms I charge very little. I believe I'm finally to the point where I can keep a full-time employee. The level of service I provide and the quality of work should both increase greatly. My wife and I are very excited. Hopefully the 70 - 80 hour work weeks will drop down into a reasonable 50 hours per week. At least for the rest of the summer.

I have very good clients in Minnesota. I'll call them my minnesota website design clients.... and if you are understanding the anchor text concept you'll see that I just told the search engines that this blog is partially about minnesota website design. I've never really promoted my own business over the last 8 years because I'm alway promoting my clients businesses. Hopefully that will change once I make my hire.

The reason I'd like to keep shorter hours this summer is because I have 2 weddings, which will require 2 trips to Minnesota from Tropical Miami, Florida. More on the weddings in another blog post. A trip to Myrtle Beach is also going to happen in early August. It's a week long family reunion and I hope to sit back and relax on the beach, the porch, and at a coffee shop with wifi.

Speaking of wifi... I'm working with another company (wi-figuys.com) on an incredible project. I'll talk more about that later too.

This is Eric Fransen signing off from Starbucks in Aventura, Florida.

RSS Feeds

2006-06-28T13:33:00.000-05:00

I'm more and more convinced that Rss Feeds (News Feeds) are the way to go. I'm personally signed up for about 15 feeds and I'm sure that number will grow much higher as more people put their own feeds out.

Why News Feeds? Have you ever been to a website that you liked and have never been back? That's what I do. I either forget about the website or even add the site to my favorites, but it gets lost among the rest of my "favorite websites".

If a website has their own News Feed (Rss Feed) I just subscribe to the feed. I use Microsoft Outlook as my Rss Reader. There are plenty of other options, but for me Outlook is the best choice. Whenever a new article is on the site and the website owner adds the article to it's news feed I instantly get it in my email. So now.... I don't have to go back to the website for me to know what is going on. The website is able to push information to me. Thank You! What a wonderful technology. If you aren't using RSS Feeds on your website or utilizing them to get the information delivered to you... you should be.

Take care and we'll see you at Starbucks:-)

Eric Fransen Now Speaks Spanish

2006-06-20T13:44:00.000-05:00

I have some great news.... I now speak Spanish! Not really, but I was on a television show in Peru a few nights ago and it looked/sounded like I speak Spanish:-)

My wife and I were the featured couple on the Discovery Health Channel during the birth of our 2nd daughter (Sarah Elisha) and now the show is on in about 10 countries throughout the world.

I do have a Learn Spanish on CD sitting on my bookshelf. At somepoint I will pull it out and learn some since I do live in South Florida. It would come handy time to time. The Hispanic Internet Marketing world is getting bigger and bigger and I'd like to get a slice of it:-)

Internet Marketing for Small Business

2006-05-25T00:30:00.000-05:00

The small business person has always ran their business the best they could Now, in the internet age there is a whole new aspect to their business that is very scary for a lot of small business owners. A few years ago it was real easy to get a small business website out on the internet and you just hoped somebody found you. And when they did.... you were excited! I know I was.

Nobody ever talked about SEO, SEM, PPC, Conversion Rates, Behavior Analytics, Urchin, Adwords, etc. What is the Small Business person to do that wants to have a successful small business website? There's only so many hours in a day and dollars in the register. How can this person have success online? It's easy.... but it does take two hours of work per week.

By Spending two hours each week promoting their small business website in message boards, forums, review websites, etc and adding 200 words of good text to your website each week. These are two areas will make a huge difference in driving new visitors to your website. Making your website an authority in your industry is key. As you do this other websites will have more and more links to your small business website and eventually your website will receive great search engine ranking status.

Are you are wondering why I have small business website throughout this article and why it's hyperlinked? Is so visit Premier Spot iMarketing at www.premierspot.biz and visit our Search Engine Optimization page.

Premier Spot Survives Hurricane Wilma

2005-10-28T07:50:00.000-05:00

Premier Spot iMarketing is back up and running after surviving Hurricane Wilma. Although its Miami offices are still without power, work is being done out of a Starbucks in Sunny Isle, Fl.

PSi had been based in Two Harbors, MN for over seven year when it moved its main office to Miami as the firms founder and president, Eric "EJ" Fransen relocated with his family to expand operations. PSi still has a strong presence in the Two Harbors/Duluth area and serves many clients in Minnesota.

The Hurricane and after math have been some of the most intense experiences I've been a part of. We experienced 100+ mile per hour winds for about four hours straight. Watching our sliding glass door buckle from our 5th story apartment was a pretty nerve-wracking experience. We basically huddled in our kitchen during the hurricane-force winds. Luckily our windows held and we didn't suffer any damage to the inside of our apartment.

Outside was another story... our parking lot was full of downed trees and many of them had cars underneath. When we ventured out to survey the damaged we were shocked to see all the downed trees, power poles in half, houses without roofs, walls, and missing windows in hundreds of buildings. A good place for pictures is http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/photos/12971969.htm.

The last five days have been difficult as 65% of South Florida is still without power, including most Gas Stations. I waited in line for four hours yesterday to fill up my tank and it looks like lines are worse today. There is even a city-wide curfew from 8 PM - 6 AM. This has truly been an eye-opening experience. I'm not sure what the national news is saying, but the locals that I speak with say this is worse than Hurricane Andrew. It's tough to imagine if you are not here, but I want you to realize that this was and is a very serious situation. But, compared to most we are doing and will continue to do fine.

To my clients:

As hard as it was (and still is) to be living in Miami during this disaster it's been almost as hard not being able to work with you, and your website over the last 4 days.

I just ask for your continued patience as I take care of the more severe website issues/updates first. I will be working out of a Starbucks in Sunny Isle, FL until power is back up in my area. Over the next 4 - 5 days I expect to be caught up with all of your updates, newsletters, and other internet marketing areas.

Again, I appreciate your patience and look forward to being able to work with your internet marketing after a 4-day Hiatus.

Sincerely,

Eric Fransen, President
Premier Spot iMarketing

More Visitors or Higher Conversion

2005-09-29T15:19:00.000-05:00

If you had to choose between bringing in more visitors or raising your conversion rate what would you do?

I'm in the process of going through this issue right now and I chose to raise that conversion rate! By tweaking your pages, optimizing your content, eliminate any page errors, and making the buying process easier... you can help your bottom line quicker by raising conversion rates. It's not easy bringing in a visitor. It's even harder to convert a visitor to a buyer. But, once you get your conversion rate up to a good conversion percentage (varies by industry) you'll be set.

Remeber.... your website is like a "testing lab". You can make changes in minutes. Please do... the worst thing you can do is keep your site the same if you aren't making (enough) sales. Add content and make changes until it's where it needs/can be.

One of my bigger retail site has had a conversion percentage of 2.2% for the last few months. That's a little above average. This month we made a lot of format changes and our monthly converstion rate is up to 2.4%. That might not seem like much, but if you add in the increased sales and the average sale price and we've made an extra $3,900 this month just on the .2%. If you look just at this weeks conversion percentage and we are over 3.5%.... so it's working!

Now, after we get our page fixed where we want it we'll go after more visitors.

Website Visitor Conversions

2005-09-27T22:08:00.000-05:00

What is a website conversion? It depends on what industry you are in and what your goal is for your website visitor. Most of you are thinking... goal? I'm not sure what I want the website visitor to do.

You want your website visitor to Buy Something, Request Information, Sign-up for a newsletter, Call you, etc. Depending on your business and your type of website will determine your goal.

A conversion rate is the percentage of visitors to your website that you "convert" into a sale. The sale could be just that.... a sale. It also could be filling out an email form. By putting a piece of code into your website you can track every how visitor came to your website, what search engine, what keyword/phrase and you can then tell what traffic converts into sales.

For more information on website conversion email eric@premierspot.biz.

Write A Press Release

2005-07-14T15:33:00.000-05:00

A quick and easy way to drive instant traffic to your
website is to write a press release. A quick 200 – 300
word press release can generate thousands of reads, hundreds
of new visitors, and many new inbound links to your website.

Just today we sent out a press release out for a client. Six hours after
being sent out the press release had 575 reads of the release
and 18 media outlets picked up the story.

Here’s my offer

Write a press release. We’ll optimize the press release and
send it out for you. We’ll keep you updated as of how
many people view the release, and how many media outlets pick
the press release up.

As a bonus… We’ll also check your inbound
links before we send out the press release. We’ll run
the inbound link report 30 days later to see how many “new”
inbound links you have.

Your cost will only be $24.95.

What we’ll need from you:

Press Release promoting something for your business or website

Contact Info (Business Name, Contact Name, Address, Phone Number,
website address, Email)

Desired release date (minimum 2 days out)

Our Premier Plan monthly SEO offers 1 press release/month. View our website
at www.premierspot.biz to see what else we offer.

Take Advantage of the Global Economy

2005-07-05T14:04:00.000-05:00

From the desk of Steve Phillips
design & development
PremierSpot iMarketing

Two Harbors, Minnesota
05 July 05

Greetings to all: I trust everyone had a safe and enjoyable 4th of July holiday? And that you all had a moment to pause and reflect on what limitless opportunities we all have in our lives, having the good fortune to live in such an incredible country.

I have personally been blessed to experience a number of career “migrations”, having left a commercial aviation career of long-standing, to arrive - through several metamorphoses – at the exciting world of website design, search engine optimization, and internet marketing.

One of the most incredulous concepts I struggled to grasp when first marketing for
the internet was the fact that there are an apparently unlimited number of people out there with equally unlimited resources, able and willing to spend whatever it takes, to get whatever they want, from wherever they want to get it!

The global economy, accessed primarily and most expediently through the internet, offers everyone with a business the opportunity to become an international player. Countries identified as “Western” – where the major impetus for internet development originated, and the majority of on-line development and oversight has occurred – seem to have an inherent advantage: Merited or not, the common perception of oversight and regulation – coupled with a respect for (and belief in) the trustworthiness and reliability of businesses based in politically stable., democratic countries – has enabled countless businesses to flourish and expand, through internet transactions.

For example, let’s assume that you operate a modest sawmill operation in the Midwest, traditionally dependent upon your local trade, walk-in customers for the majority of sales. Now suppose a "tree-hugger" in the Appalachian's has your SEO-enhanced site pop-up in his search engine, and wants you to ship him materials for a pre-packaged wilderness retreat… despite the fact that there may be dozens of closer, comparable operations capable of fulfilling his needs.

Should you simply refer him to a local “competitor”, advising that the extra expenses of shipping and handling would make your quote non-competitive?

Why not quote him the going rate, adding actual expenses for freight, and reasonable charges for the additional shipping and handling labor it requires to assemble and ship the order, and see what his response is?

You never know where it might lead: You could become the next "Eddie Bauer" web
presence, and principal resource for custom, up-country cabins!

We need to think globally, my friends...

Another example: We provide services for a client in fairly close proximity to our Two Harbors, Minnesota office. This business does thousands of dollars a day on-line traffic alone, selling to customers in a couple of dozen states and a handful of other countries on any given day: In a matter of months, their business has expanded so rapidly that they're straining the physical limitations of their present plant capacity, and are looking to find a facility where their operation can relocate to and expand from… all from their internet sales alone!

And to illustrate in the simplest terms possible: There are today quite literally thousands of individuals who make their sole livelihoods from virtual shops on eBay. Some may represent storefront businesses, but many more of them simply resell “collectibles” they’ve acquired at little or no cost through local garage and estate sales, or neighborhood antique shops, which they proceed to market and ship worldwide… for fun and profit! What greater illustration of the ability to “sell (buy) locally, market globally” could you possibly hope for?

Incredible as it may seem, there is no reason to believe that - despite the physical location or logistics involved with your particular product line – your business could not experience similar results. And what could it hurt, to try?

Think what incredible local publicity you could generate, sharing the fact that your sales include customers from other states, other countries: You can‘t buy that kind of advertising!

Perception is the key.

Creating an aura of perceived demand, often drives sales figures: If your product is in such demand by buyers from “exotic”, remote locations – buyers who are willing to incur additional expenses to have your products shipped so far (despite local resources offering equivalents) – your local trade may very well adopt this perception of superior quality, and attribute additional value to your product in their own minds, by equating increased demand with higher quality.

Why do so many Americans covert foreign automobiles, perceiving them to be of higher quality and greater reliability... while the reverse is often the case in so-called “third-world” locales… where ownership of an American automobile is considered (as hard as this may be to believe) more prestigious?

I know this may sound a little "Buckminster Fuller-ish" in theory, but what have you got to lose... except potential sales?!

The point is that you should not be afraid to expand your sales aspirations beyond what you have traditionally perceived to be the limitations of your locally-defined, physical “sales territory”. The internet has eliminated those constraints: It’s time you took hold of this opportunity, and exploited the very reason you even chose to have a web presence… to increase your market share and product sales!

And we’re here at PremierSpot iMarketing to help you achieve just that!

Content Content Content

2005-06-24T10:21:00.000-05:00

A combination of good search engine optimization and website content can transform your website into a sales tool. Combining the website content necessary to increase return visits and the SEO to get the initial visitor goes hand-in-hand. Combine that with a visually pleasing and fast loading website, and your website will achieve the results you desire.

“I don’t have the time to up-date my website everyday”, is the comment I hear from customers on a daily basis.

The small business owner has many items on their agenda on a daily basis. Understanding that adding new content or providing the content to their website management firm should be at the top of their list. The potential for new customer acquisitions and repeat customers from an updated website with good content is priceless.

Would you operate your retail location and never have:

· “New” specials in your store?
· Add new products to the shelf?
· Speak to the customers that come into your store?

Of course you would. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t have any customers after a few years. The same is true for your website.

Most small business are very comfortable with hiring in-store help, but are reluctant to pay for quality website updates and content. If you truly want to succeed in the online world you’ll need to make the financial effort necessary to do so.

How much should you update your website each day? A minimum of 200 new words a day on your website will do amazing things to your website traffic and content. The viewers will appreciate it, and will come back more often. Search engines will reward you for the updated content, and will move your website higher in the rankings for multiple keyword/phrases.

Some options on how it could be easier for you to add content to your website are:

Take 15 – 20 minutes each day to sit down in a quiet area to write something relevant to go on the website. If you upload it yourself great. If not send it to your website developer or SEO. I’m sure they would be very happy to upload your website each day. They should understand the importance of content and changes to your website on a daily basis.

Find a website that provides free info for your industry. Add that content to the website. Make sure you add the appropriate bylines and links to the articles author.

Have one of your trusted employees (or rotate the writing with your employees) write out the articles. It can be something they do as part of their daily routine. Most employees will enjoy it. It will also allow them to take more ownership into the website and business.

Free newsfeeds are available for most industries. It won’t always provide the most relevant information, but it will allow a viewer to read “new” information if they come back to your website and won’t take much time for you except for the initial set-up.

Top 10 Search Engine Positioning Mistakes

2005-06-10T08:54:00.000-05:00

When it comes to web site search engine positioning, there are certain common mistakes that I see people making over and over again. Here's a list of the 10 most common mistakes that I see people making. By avoiding these mistakes, you can avoid a lot of anguish and frustration in the long run.

1) Optimizing your site for the wrong keywords

The first step in any search engine optimization campaign is to choose the keywords for which you should optimize your site. If you initially choose the wrong keywords, all the time and effort that you devote in trying to get your site a high ranking will go down the drain. If you choose keywords which no one search for, or if you choose keywords which won't bring in targeted traffic to your site, what good will the top rankings do?

2) Putting too many keywords in the Meta Keywords tag

I often see sites which have hundreds of keywords listed in the Meta Keywords tag, in the hope that by listing the keywords in the Meta Keywords tag, they will be able to get a high ranking for those keywords. Nothing could be further from the truth. Contrary to popular opinion, the Meta Keywords tag has almost completely lost its importance as far as search engine positioning is concerned. Hence, just by listing keywords in the Meta Keywords tag, you will never be able to get a high ranking. To get a high ranking for those keywords, you need to put the keywords in the actual body content of your site.

3) Repeating the same keyword too many times

Another common mistake that people make is to endlessly repeat their target keywords in the body of their pages and in their Meta Keywords tags. Because so many people have used this tactic in the past (and continue to use it), the search engines keep a sharp lookout for this, and may penalize a site which repeats keywords in this fashion. Sure, you do need to repeat the keywords a number of times. But, the way you place the keywords in your pages needs to make grammatical sense. Simply repeating the keywords endlessly no longer works. Furthermore, a particular keyword should ideally not be present more than thrice in your Meta Keywords tag.

4) Creating lots of similar doorway pages

Another myth prevalent among people is that since the algorithm of each search engine is different, they need to create different pages for different search engines. While this is great in theory, it is counter-productive in practice. If you use this tactic, you will soon end up with hundreds of pages, which can quickly become an administrative nightmare. Also, just imagine the amount of time you will need to spend constantly updating the pages in response to the changes that the search engines make to their algorithms. Furthermore, although the pages are meant for different engines, they will actually end up being pretty similar to each other. The search engines are often able to detect when a site has created such similar pages, and may penalize or even ban this site from their index. Hence, instead of creating different pages for different search engines, create one page which is optimized for one keyword for all the search engines.

5) Using Hidden Text

Hidden text is text with the same color as the background color of your page. For example, if the background color of your page is white and you have added some white text to that page, that is considered as hidden text. Many webmasters, in order to get high rankings in the search engines, try to make their pages as keyword rich as possible. However, there is a limit to the number of keywords you can repeat in a page without making it sound odd to your human visitors. Thus, in order to ensure that the human visitors to a page don't perceive the text to be odd, but that the page is still keyword rich, many webmasters add text (containing the keywords) with the same color as the background color. This ensures that while the search engines can see the keywords, the human visitors cannot. The search engines have long since caught up with this technique, and ignore or penalize the pages which contain such text. They may also penalize the entire site if even one of the pages in that site contain such hidden text.

However, the problem with this is that the search engines may often end up penalizing sites which did not intend to use hidden text. For instance, suppose you have a page with a white background and a table in that page with a black background. Further suppose that you have added some white text in that table. This text will, in fact, be visible to your human visitors, i.e. this shouldn't be called hidden text. However, the search engines can interpret this to be hidden text because they may often ignore the fact that the background of the table is black. Hence, in order to ensure that your site is not penalized because of this, you should go through all the pages in your site and see whether you have inadvertently made any such mistake.

6) Creating Pages Containing Only Graphics

The search engines only understand text - they don't understand graphics. Hence, if your site contains lots of graphics but little text, it is unlikely to get a high ranking in the search engines. For improving your rankings, you need to replace the graphics by keyword rich text for the search engine spiders to feed on.

7) Not using the NOFRAMES tag in case your site uses frames

Many search engines don't understand frames. For sites which have used frames, these search engines only consider what is present in the NOFRAMES tag. Yet, many webmasters make the mistake of adding something like this to the NOFRAMES tag: "This site uses frames, but your browser doesn't support them". For the search engines which don't understand frames, this is all the text that they ever get to see in this site, which means that the chances of this site getting a good ranking in these search engines are non-existent. Hence, if your site uses frames, you need to add a lot of keyword rich text to the NOFRAMES tag.

8) Using Page Cloaking

Page cloaking is a technique used to deliver different web pages under different circumstances. People generally use page cloaking for two reasons: i) in order to hide the source code of their search engine optimized pages from their competitors and ii) in order to prevent human visitors from having to see a page which looks good to the search engines but does not necessarily look good to humans. The problem with this is that when a site uses cloaking, it prevents the search engines from being able to spider the same page that their users are going to see. And if the search engines can't do this, they can no longer be confident of providing relevant results to their users. Thus, if a search engine discovers that a site has used cloaking, it will probably ban the site forever from their index. Hence, my advice is that you should not even think about using cloaking in your site.

9) Using Automatic Submission Tools

In order to save time, many people use an automatic submission software or service to submit their sites to the major search engines. It is true that submitting your site manually to the search engines takes a lot of time and that an automatic submission tool can help you save a lot of time. However, the search engines don't like automatic submission tools and may ignore your pages if you use them. In my opinion, the major search engines are simply too important for you not to spend the time to submit your site manually to them.

10) Submitting too many pages per day

People often make the mistake of submitting too many pages per day to the search engines. This often results in the search engines simply ignoring many of the pages which have been submitted from that site. Ideally, you should submit no more than 1 page per day to the search engines. While many search engines accept more than 1 page per day from a particular domain, there are some which only accept 1 page per day. Hence, by limiting yourself to a maximum of one page per day, you ensure that you stay within the limits of all the search engines.

11) Devoting too much time to search engine positioning

Yes - I lied. There's another common mistake that people make when it comes to search engine optimization - they spend too much time over it. Sure, search engine placement is the most cost effective way of driving traffic to your site and you do need to spend some time every day learning how the search engines work and in optimizing your site for the search engines. However, you must remember that search engine optimization is a means to an end for you - it's not the end in itself. The end is to increase the sales of your products and services. Hence, apart from trying to improve your site's position in the search engines, you also need to spend time on all the other factors which determine the success or the failure of your web site - the quality of the products and services that you are selling, the quality of your customer service, and so on. You may have excellent rankings in the search engines, but if the quality of your products and services are poor, or if your customer service leaves a lot to be desired, those high rankings aren't going to do much good.

Update Your Content Daily

2005-06-08T21:24:00.000-05:00

How many websites do you come across that have been developed, look great, have good content and are then left alone? These types of stagnant websites have all the appeal of a 3 month old news paper. This is true for the human visitor and also for the search engine spider. The solution is easy – update you website content daily.

Why daily? Search engine spiders and site visitors alike find new content relevant and compelling. It keeps them coming back for more! Having new content makes your site continually interesting and offers the user a new experience every time they visit.

Your content can include news about your company, your products, and your industry. Focus on keywords within all your written content but make sure it is used sparingly and is well balanced. Your new content should be unique – i.e. not copied from another source on the web. This way you will avoid any possibility of duplicate content penalties.

Aim to write around 200 words of new content on a daily basis. Once you get into the habit of writing every day you will find it gets easier and easier. Search engine forums and information sites continually refer to the fact that ‘content is king.’ This is so true. It is arguably the most effective way to get your site highly ranked. This result for you is a constant stream of repeat visitors who are interested in you information and who constantly return to find out what’s new.

Press Release Power

2005-06-03T07:36:00.000-05:00

I'm sure by now you've heard about how Press Releases can help your marketing campaigns on the Internet. But besides from people telling you, do you have any quantitative evidence that it's worth the time to craft a newsworthy release?

From a search marketing perspective, this is one of the best ways of killing two birds with one stone. Besides getting exposure for your site, you are also creating web saturation. By having the possibility of your release getting picked up by multiple media outlets, you quickly and cheaply get eyeballs looking at your product or service, and ultimately, traffic to your site.

Being that the Internet has grown to being a social environment with the ultimate goal of personalization for each user, how can anyone get their message out?

With blogs, RSS readers and news aggregators becoming more popular, the user is becoming more selective to what they want to see. This is something every marketer should embrace.

Now, instead of spending thousands to blast an add that may only be relevant to 10 percent of your audience, you can now selectively target your audience and deliver your message.

Since the majority of us do not have Google's bankroll, we are left to find less expensive ways to drive visitors to your site. This is where one can get onto a level playing field with the big spenders.

To demonstrate the power of the press release, take a moment to review some stats on a campaign that was conducted in early December.

PR Service: PRWeb.com

Price: $80.00 USD
(Note: - you can submit free press releases, but you won't have access to any tracking stats, and you lose some services.)

For the above mentioned fee, the $80.00 includes:

Properly Optimized, RSS/XML Feed, Next Day Distribution, ability to attach files, featured, listing appears on: Google News, Overture, eMediaWire, Yahoo News, Excite News, DogPile, MetaCrawler, Inktomi, MSN News, Lycos News, AskJeeves News, Feedster and Topix News

Quite the bang for your buck, eh?

The Press Release in question was for a free service, and it was geared for Christmas use, so keep that in mind as you review the information.

Reads: 88,380

(This number indicates how many times the press release was accessed from the PRWeb site and other distribution points where they have the ability to measure a click through. This number does not include the number of journalists that have received the release through email.)

Estimated Pickup: 3,908

(This number estimates the number of times the press release was picked up by a media outlet. This does not indicate how many times the story appeared in the media. It simply attempts to estimate media interest in the release.)

Now how many places on the Internet can give you those type of numbers for getting traffic to your site?

To try and get an accurate number for a "typical" Press Release, another release was submitted in March of 2005, for a new paid-for service.

Reads: 80,375

Estimated Pickup: 1,362

Still pretty impressive, even if it's just to get some traffic, or brand name exposure.

If you're serious about your business, $80.00 is easily worth the investment for this type of return.

-To your online success! This article was written by Paul Bliss, owner of www.SEOforGoogle.com

For more articles like this visit Premier Spot iMarketing.

Google Patent Application - Seo Highlights

2005-06-01T13:17:00.000-05:00

Seo Highlights by Halstatt Pires

The recent patent application filed by Google details numerous items the search engine uses to rank web pages. The specific application is summarized as:“A method for scoring a document, comprising: identifying a document; obtaining one or more types of history data associated with the document; and generating a score for the document based on the one or more types of history data.”The patent application sheds significant light for those pursuing search engine optimization with Google. Patent applications can be difficult to understand, so following are highlights that you should consider for your SEO efforts.Update Your SiteUpdating your site is important when it comes to maximizing your rankings on Google. In addition to the manipulation of keyword density and meta tags, the patent application reveals that Google places significant value on how often your content is updated. The more often you update, the timely and relevant your site will appear to Google. In turn, this leads to higher rankings.To appease mighty Google, consider the following plan of action:

1. Update pages frequently
2. Add new pages to your site
3. Interlink the new pages with others on your site, and
4. Add new pages on a weekly basis instead of all at once.

When Google returns to the site, you want to make sure that there is new content. The high rankings of blog sites are evidence of this approach. Google’s Looking at Your DomainIn a new twist, Google claims that it analyzes the number of years of domain registration as part of the ranking process. The application suggests that domains that are registered for longer periods of time are given more value because such a commitment shows the site is not a fly-by-night jump page. It is recommended that you extend all domain registrations for as long as possible as part of your search engine optimization efforts. It is difficult to tell how much the registration process impacts the ranking process, but every little bit helps. Google claims that it also digs deeper into domain names to evaluate the legitimacy of the site. Factors in the evaluation include the web host and the “who is” information. According to the patent application, Google maintains a database of hosts that facilitate spamming of the Google search engine. While such hosts are not detailed in the application, pray to God that you are not using one. You should evaluate your host if your optimization efforts are not producing results.If your search engine optimization efforts for Google are failing, the patent application may provide answers. Talk about a perfect E-book!

Inbound links, link exchanges

2005-05-30T10:24:00.000-05:00

Link text (the text that is clicked on when clicking on a link) is singly the most important factor when Google determines the rankings for any given searchterm. This article isn't about that aspect of inbound links, although it is briefly touched on. This article discusses inbound links for their link popularity/PageRank value, and provides ideas on how to acquire them.

Why do we need inbound links?

Even before Google came on the scene, link popularity (linkpop) was being used by one or two search engines as part of their algorithm when determining the rankings for any given searchterm. Then when Google arrived with their link-based PageRank, link popularity took off and became an absolute essential ingredient in achieving top rankings.

The idea behind linkpop is that the more pages that link to a page, the more important the page is and it, therefore, deserves a higher ranking than it would otherwise have.

Some engines simply counted the number of links coming into a page (inbound links), but Google took the idea a step further. Each inbound link comes comes from a page which itself has inbound links. The more inbound links on the linking page, the more important that page is and, therefore, the more important the link to our page is. So Google gives more weight to inbound links from important pages that it does to inbound links from lesser pages. They call the idea "PageRank".

Google is the world's number one search engine, and currently provides the results for around 80% of all the searches done in the world. Because of that, it is vitally important for any website that relies on search engine traffic to do well in Google. Doing well in Google means making the site 'important' in Google's eyes and, to do that, the site must have good inbound links - as many of them as possible, and preferably from important pages (pages with medium to high PageRank values).

How do we get inbound links?

There are a number of ways. Some of them are:

Forums
Join forums and place links to your site(s) in your signature line. Use your main search terms as the link text - I'll come to why that is necessary later in this article. But before spending time writing lots of posts with your signature line in each post, make sure that the forum is spiderable by checking the robots.txt file, and make sure that non-members don't have session IDs in the URLs. Also make sure that links in signature lines are not hidden from spiders (view the source code to make sure that signature links are in plain HTML format and not in Javascript).

Link exchange centers
Find a join free link exchange center like LinkPartners.com. There you can find a categorized directory of websites that also want to exchange links. Be careful not to sign up with FFA (Free For All) sites because they are mostly email address gatherers and you can expect a sudden increase in email spam soon after you sign up. Also, only sign up with centers where you can approach other sites personally, and where they can approach you personally.

Do not join any link farms!!! Link farms sound excellent for building up linkpop and PageRank, but search engines (Google in particular) disapprove of them as blatant attempts to manipulate the rankings and they will penalize sites that use them. Once a site has been penalized, it is very difficult to get the penalty lifted, so avoid all link farms.

Email requests
(a) Search on Google for your main searchterms and find the websites that are competing with you. Then find which sites link to them by searching "link:www.cometitor-domain.com". Email them and ask for a link exchange.
(b) Search on Google for websites that are related to your site's topic, but not direct competitors, and ask them for a link exchange.

Buy them
There are websites that want to sell links. They are usually medium to high PageRank sites, and often the link will be placed on multiple pages, or all pages within the site. It's possible to approach individual sites where you would like your links to appear, but it is much quicker, easier and more reliable to use a middle-man service (or broker).

Link brokers offer links for sale on behalf of other websites (you could use the service to sell links on your site!). With these services, it is usual to be able to choose the type (topic) of the website(s) where you want to place your links. I am not aware of any disreputable practises with link brokering.

What type of links?

Inbound links serve three purposes:

(1) they add linkpop and PageRank to the site, (2) they send traffic to the site, and (3) if the link text (the text that is clicked on) is good, then the page's rankings can be improved.

(1) for linkpop, either text or graphic links are fine, (2) for traffic, text links are known to be more effective than graphic links, and (3) to positively affect a page's rankings, text links are the best. So get text links and not graphic links.

(1) for linkpop, get links from anywhere, (2) for traffic, get links from related sites, and (3) to improve the page's rankings, get links from anywhere - the higher the PageRank of the linking page, the better and, whenever possible, make sure that the link text is one of your main searchterms.

Summary

Inbound links are important for websites that want to move up the rankings. Inbound links, with the right link text, are essential for achieving top rankings.

Most websites are not natural link magnets, and link acquisition can be time-consuming and frustrating. Many websites that are approached by email will say no, but some will say yes. For top rankings, it is essential to take the time and get many inbound links.

Coffee Webmaster No More

2005-03-29T08:45:00.000-06:00

I'm back! It's been a crazy two months and I landed in.....

Two Harbors, MN - Home of the Agates. I went from being a freelance webmaster out of Starbucks on Omaha to hiring employees, leasing space, and having more bills! It worked out. I hired 3 good people. A SEO, a web designer, and a content person. It's a good group. But... I'm always looking for top-notch people... so don't stop calling.

The "nofollow" Tag

2005-01-20T08:21:00.000-06:00

This is big news for the search engine industry, and it's important that search engine optimizers and website owners take notice.

Google has introduced a new link tag, and it's ultimately designed to tell the search engines to ignore the link when it comes to calculating their algorithm. This new link tag is called rel="nofollow" and it can be added to any typical href link. By adding the tag to a link on your site, you're telling the search engines to ignore it. According to Google, "From now on, when Google sees the attribute (rel="nofollow") on hyperlinks, those links won't get any credit when we rank websites in our search results."

Yahoo!, MSN Search, and other search engines are taking Google's lead and beginning to recognize this new link tag called the (rel="nofollow") tag.

This new (rel="nofollow") tag, though, may begin to be used on many other sites--you can begin using it immediately, in fact.

Some website directory owners might consider adding links to their directory but only removing the (rel="nofollow") tag if the link submitter pays them to remove the (rel="nofollow") tag.

Google recently commented on the issue, "We think any piece of software that allows others to add links to an author's site (including guestbooks, visitor stats, or referrer lists) can use this attribute. We're working primarily with blog software makers for now because blogs are such a common target."

According to Ken Moss, the General Manger of MSN Search Dev & Test, "Any link with this tag will indicate to a crawler it is not necessarily approved by this page and shouldn’t be followed nor contribute weight for ranking...Over the coming weeks, our MSNBot crawler will start respecting this new tag, and sometime after that MSN Spaces will start to support this as well."

Blogs and SEO

2005-01-19T10:31:00.000-06:00

If you are wondering if Blogs help in the search engines type in "Triple Grande Caramel Mocha"

I'm #3 and #4 in google. I was after about 10 days after starting blog. If you want to start a blog email Eric Fransen and I'll teach you how to do it the right way.

Eric

Two Harbors, MN

2005-01-19T10:25:00.000-06:00

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the next big thing for small business owners. It doesn't matter if you have a website and nobody can find it. Premier Spot helps small business owners achieve top ranking in the search engines. Some of the things that we do to help two harbors, mn area businesses are:

One of the biggest things that website owners forget is that the SEO process is a marathon... not a sprint. It's takes working on the site every week and you'll slowly get to where you need to be. I currently manage the SEO of over 40 websites and I'm confident I can help your site.
A typical month of SEO would consist of:

1) Add inbound links to website (Average at least 2/week for all my sites, and
one week/month I concentrate on links for all my sites and try to get 10 links
/site.) It might not sound like much, but they really start to add up over
time. The great part about links is that once a bunch of links are out there
other sites pick them up more and more.

2) I read SEO websites and forums on a daily basis. When the search engines
tweak what they are looking for I can respond immediatley and make the
appropriate changes to each of my sites.

3) I usually re-optimize each of my sites at least once per month depending on
how they are ranking in the search engines.

4) Add appropriate doorway pages that are relevent to the websites location,
industry, etc. I don't add any pages that could be harmful to the websites
ranking.

5) Check search engine rankings in Google, MSN, and Yahoo once each week to make
sure the rankings are staying steady or improving.

6) Monitor stats on a weekly basis and run full reports once/month.

7) Provide SEO consultation services and advice to my clients.

If you are interested in speaking with Eric email eric@premierspot.biz

Amway and Mary Kay

2004-12-29T13:40:00.000-06:00

I am to the point in my life where I can point and call out an amway or mary kay presenter within 5 seconds of them sitting down in a coffee shop. Right now I have a Amway (quixtar...who are you trying to fool) behind me, and a Mary Kay presentation (you'll gain so much confidence!) in front of me. I'm trying to update a website - www.playingwithyarn.com - Check it out... very nice and great search engine optimization is happening and will continue to happen over the next 6 months, and all I hear is the amway guy tell the plan without telling who they are. It's Amway!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I want to scream.... but I don't. I'm going to continue playing with yarn.

The Week is Over!

2004-12-24T16:30:00.000-06:00

It's been a great week for the coffee shop website consultant. If you type in "triple grande caramel mocha" in google I come up number 4! Now, how can you beat that? I have the famous drink from starbucks beat.

Click http://www.prweb.com/releases/2004/12/prweb187423.htm to view my first press release. It's a marketing tactic that I'll be using for all of my old and new websites. The press release is picked up my websites and news organizations throughout the world and works great to add inbound links (which Google loves).

It took mine only 2 days to have it show up on the web and be found in the search engines. Not too bad. This is a free service so if you have any questions send me an email and I'll get you all the info.

Search Engine Crazyiness from Google

2004-12-20T11:44:00.000-06:00

Google searches have been crazy all weekend and into today. Many website owners have been frusterated as their first page listings have dropped below 100 pages. Although I haven't seen any big drops I do have a lot of sites that have moved quite a bit this weeked. I'm currently checking the rankings for www.blueskiesglassworks.com and they are holding pretty steady. If you type in "minnesota glassworks" in Yahoo, Google, and MSN they are number 1! Recycled Glass Earrings and Recycled Earrings also are top 10 results in both.

How's your search engine optimization? Send me an email and I'll let you know.

MSNBot - Searching For Ways To Make Redmond Rise Again

2004-12-15T17:24:00.000-06:00

Excerpts from an article written by Jim Hedger SEO Manager of StepForth Search Engine Placement Inc.

What would you do if you were tasked with designing a new search engine?

You have all the resources the world can offer and the certain knowledge that your project is so important to your employer that mountains, molehills, companies, code and really comfy office chairs will be moved, built or acquired to meet your needs, no questions asked. Your boss demands a product that is better than best and, having failed to notice how overwhelmingly essential search would become back when he came to dominate everything else, appears ready to back your project with missionary zeal and Machiavellian maneuvering. The cold hard truth is, the future of one of the largest corporations in the world, owned incidentally by the world's wealthiest man, may well rest on your shoulders. In this scenario, there are no obstacles, only the challenge of beating Google at Google's best game. Whoa....

MSN released the beta version of their long awaited proprietary search engine earlier this quarter. Beta releases are the software world's version of a dress rehearsal. Mistakes will happen, even in the best productions, and the beta stage is the place to field-test a product, finding and fixing inevitable problems before the real, commercial version of the product is introduced. MSN(beta) search has seen its share of bumps over the past few weeks including a short period when it appeared the search tool had crashed. Regardless of any minor mishaps in its first weeks, MSN(beta) Search shows very good results generated from a database of approximately 5 billion spidered websites it began compiling over a year ago. While MSN(beta) and the search tool found at MSN.Com are different search tools delivering very different sets of results, the results generated by MSN(beta) will eventually replace the Inktomi based listings shown on MSN.Com. That's when the real fun will begin. Please note, as other commentators have pointed out, this is a BETA version and likely to change in coming weeks before the undisclosed live release date.

When told to build a better mousetrap, MSN engineers set their goals fairly high and approached the problem from the most logical point possible. They seem to have looked at the best ideas everyone else has come up with and tried to incorporate them into their search tool. The results are better then expected with highly relevant site listings that have been compared to earlier versions of Google's index. That makes sense given that MSNBot the beta-search spider works very much like GoogleBot, looking for many of the same site elements including incoming links, contextual relationships between linked documents, and overall site context. MSNBot also seems to be interested in keyword-enriched titles and seems especially interested in anchor text.

This article is not going to provide a lot of details around these elements as some or even much of what is written is subject to sudden change (this is a beta version after all), and the beta version simply hasn't been around long enough to express reliable ideas in writing yet. Once you have ensured that MSN(beta)'s spider can travel from one end of your site to another, and has a way into your site from an outside reference, take a look at the following elements of your site.

MSNBot seems to really like the techniques used by SEOs at StepForth. StepForth pays a lot of attention to keyword enrichment of the basic but critical elements of a site. Assuming navigation issues have been taken care of, websites that use keyword phrases in titles, anchor text, and early in the page content are doing very well in MSN(beta)'s index. We do not know for sure what MSNBot thinks of meta tags however we recommend using the basic description and keywords meta tags along with robot exclude text when necessary. MSNBot, basically likes clean code with good, common sense SEO. In a previous article, we republished the guidelines MSN posted to the MSN(beta) search site.

MSNBot Guidelines, at a glance:

There is a keyword density rule for MSNBot however we do not think that keyword density is the same for every business sector. For instance, the optimal keyword density for Maryland real estate will be different than the optimal keyword density California real estate, even though sites found under those keywords will represent the same business sector.

Any common sense rule that applies to SPAM on other search engines applies at MSN(beta) as well.

If you have any question feel free to email Eric at info@premierpsot.biz.

Lake Superior Nautical Update

2004-12-08T08:12:00.000-06:00

Lake Superior Nautical was updated today. I did some tweaking of the home page text with a lot of good nautical words and variations. As you can see they key word density is very good at this point and Lake Superior Nautical should be moving up in the search engines pretty steadily over the next few months.

It currently as a home page page rank of 4, which is average. I'd like to get the page rank at 6 within the next 6 months. I feel that would be a success. If you don't know what page rank is feel free to email eric@premierspot.biz and I'll let you know.

Enjoy the Weekend

2004-12-03T15:03:00.000-06:00

The weekend is here and it's much needed. A lot of great search engine optimization (SEO) took place this week.

Yahoo looks for keywords throughout the site to determine search engine placement so I've been changing text to make it relevent for the reader and the search engines. For example, the name "Two Harbors" is searched almost 1000 times per month, but a lot of companies are going for that "Two Harbors" key word. So I'm in the process of mixing in the "Two Harbors" key word with other relevent Two Harbors searches... like "high school" and "gift" and "lake superior", you get the picture. Anyways that's my week in a nutshell. The scarry part is I actually enjoy it. So if you are looking to get higher in the search engines send me an email and I can help.

Busy Day

2004-12-03T10:06:00.000-06:00

It's a busy day at the coffee shop -- It'll be a quick day for me as I just need to make some changes to the e-commerce shopping cart for Lake Superior Nautical and add a couple of new wireless internet hotel locations for Wi-Fi Guys.

Almost Done

2004-12-02T15:14:00.000-06:00

I'm almost done with my days work. Some of today's highlights were setting up a couple of wireless internet login pages for one of my favorite clients, http://www.wi-figuys.com. The hotels are in Michigan and they will be providing wireless internet to their hotel guests.

I was told today that I'm the #1 customer at the 156th and Dodge Starbucks in Omaha, NE. Nobody comes more and stays longer. I'm not sure if I should be proud or apologize to my wife. I'll go for both....I'll be proud and apologize.

Some recent work was a website design job for the Voyageur Motel in Two Harbors. You can view the site at http://www.voyageur-motel.net. This site reuired website design, website consultation, and search engine optimization.

From the Cafe

2004-12-02T13:16:00.000-06:00

Welcome to by Blog. I'm Eric Fransen and I'm a small business owner and website consultant. I consult about website design, marketing, hosting solutions, e-commece and anything in regards to website creation. This blog is two-fold. It will be here so people can keep track of my new sites, relevant website news, and my own personal ramblings about working out of a coffee shop. Not just any coffee shop, but currently a Starbucks on 156th and Dodge in Omaha, NE. I occassionally do a little work at a sandwich shop with high-speed wireless, but at this time they will be nameless. I'm also creating this blog to drive my website higher in the search engines. So yes... this is some what financially motivated. You can send a check to....