Google and other search engines like to provide quality content and sites for their users, and the best way to get Google to be your buddy is to make a helpful, well-designed website. Certain web design firms can definitely help you with that, but there are a handful of items to focus on to be sure you’re making the most of your website.

Headlines and Titles: If you quickly glance over a website, your eye will probably pull out the largest, boldest bits of information first. More than likely, that information is going to be in the page’s large headlines and titles. To help visitors and Google figure out what your website is all about, place your most important site keywords in the page headlines and title tags. If you’re a carpet cleaner in Pierceton, IN, for instance, be sure that “Carpet Cleaning” and “Pierceton, IN” appear in your page’s main headlines.

It’s All About Your Image: Images can make your site infinitely more visually appealing, but sadly search engines can’t do much with them. Images can’t be “read” like text can, and therefore Google doesn’t know what it’s looking at when it visits your site. However, with the use of “alt” tags in each image, you can verbally describe to search engines what the image is all about. Check with a web developer or your designer for a bit of help with alt tags.

Links, Links, Links: Beyond having a great website, one way Google determines how to “trust” your website (and therefore send more visitors to it) is based on the number of links back to your site elsewhere on the internet. If people have found your site valuable, maybe they’ll link to it on their own site or blog. Search engines use these links to determine how valuable your site is — the more links (generally), the more people have found your site to be useful. Ask friends and business partners to create links to your site, or ask for a link to your page on the site of a trade organization or network that you belong to.

Quality SEO requires time and maintenance. If some of these tips might be over your head (or a bit more time-consuming than you’d like), we’re here to help out. Contact us today!

SEO aims your site's focus to capture new business

It’s a problem that we encounter time and time again when chatting with small businesses: They’ve created a bargain website through another service provider, and were promised the world. But after the dust settles, there’s one nagging problem — No one can actually find their website.

The problem with many “build-it-yourself” web services or cheap and quick sites created by other service providers is one of SEO, or Search Engine Optimization. A poorly structured site is not properly optimized for search engines such as Google, and may not show up when a potential customer is looking for you.

Nothing is more frustrating for a small business owner than spending capital to create a new website, but it doesn’t capture new business or convert browsers into buyers. Search Engine Optimization can help on both fronts, as folks searching for your services will be able to find you and they will more likely be exactly the type of customers you’re looking for.

SEO isn’t just a local matter either — if your business serves customers regionally or even nationally, SEO is exponentially more important. Your site will be competing on Google for the attention of millions of searchers. Getting found should be the number one focus of your online business.

RipFish Interactive understands all of this — We know what makes Google tick, and how to develop Google’s trust in your site. Higher “trust” leads to higher placement in search engine result pages, and that leads to more business for you.

What’s more, RipFish primarily develops in the WordPress platform, which is inherently optimized for search engine traffic. With some more advanced SEO techniques, RipFish can turn your site into a traffic-generating superstar — whether we design it, or someone else did.

Would you like to know more about how SEO can help your business? Drop us a line today!

Warsaw, Indiana's Courthouse

Nothing excites me more than making that initial contact with a new client — Hearing about their business, learning about their goals for a new site, and developing a plan on how we can help achieve those goals.

While we’ve worked with clients across the country, working with folks right here in Warsaw, Indiana is really a treat. It’s fantastic to make connections with neighbors and friends, and really help their business or organization take shape right here in our hometown.

One thing I’ve heard a handful of times in these initial client meetings is a bit of shock in discovering there is a progressive, cutting-edge web design company here in small town Warsaw, Indiana. Well, we’re happy to prove them wrong, of course! The small town atmosphere sometimes fools folks into thinking that they have to look elsewhere for quality web and graphic design.

However, I’ve had the pleasure of working with some of the best and brightest designers and programmers that Warsaw has to offer, and our talent rivals anything found in a bigger city or at an expensive agency. With the draw of the local orthopedic industry, Warsaw can attract a number of highly skilled and motivated folks — and I’ve been fortunate enough to work with many of them here at RipFish Interactive.

So, the next time you write off Warsaw as a tech laggard, why not give us a shout?

That’s where Content Management Systems come in — Rather than tell someone else to make the changes (at a hefty hourly rate, usually), you can make them yourself without knowing the first thing about programming or web sites. Got weekly specials and coupons to update? Want to keep your customers updated with regular blog posts and links? Want to highlight new or featured products on your homepage? It’s as easy as editing a Word document when your website is built using a CMS.

As Spiderman taught us, great power comes with great responsibility, and sometimes all the flexibility and options involved in modern-day CMS can be a bit overwhelming. What good is the simplicity of updating your website with a CMS if the CMS is just as hard to learn as the programming?

That’s where WordPress comes in. WordPress is an highly powerful and expandable CMS that has one major benefit over it’s competitors: It’s actually easy to use. 90% of the websites RipFish creates are built on the WordPress CMS, and our clients are thrilled with it. No extraneous options or buttons, and a very short learning curve make WordPress our choice for website development.

Want more information on how a WordPress-based website could help out your business? Just drop us a line!