The first thought that comes to mind when you hear the term “Search Engine Optimization” (SEO) or “Search Engine Marketing” (SEM), is improving your website page ranking on search engines such as Google or Yahoo. Actually, page rank is just the tip of the iceberg, SEO encompasses a wide variety of tasks that improve a website’s search engine presence.

Unfortunately, the famous line from the popular 90s baseball film, Field of Dreams, “If you build it, they will come” does not work when it comes to building a website. You need to define your website goals, which coincide with your business goals, and define how you are going to convert those goals on your website.

After the goals are defined, you need a website that is designed and programmed to be “SEO-friendly.” SEO-friendly sites are W3C web standard complaint, use proper document markup, and separate structure from presentation and behavior (we will go into this in more detail in my next blog entry). Brand Iron’s web development team designs and develops SEO-friendly websites on a daily basis.

After your goals are defined and your site is designed and developed, you need to ask the question, “who is your target market?” The answer to this question is easier than you may think…the individual you want to find your website most frequently is the individual who is searching for you! This sounds obvious, but trust me, more often than not, when people implement SEO they are solely focused on a higher page rank and are neglecting the most important target market, someone who is already looking for their company.

A 2007 survey by the internet data firm, comScore, found that 60% of consumers use the web as their first tool of reference to search for local businesses and 60% of those searchers make a purchase from the business’ website. A study by AOL and Henley Centre, a UK market research firm, states that 73% of survey respondents use a search engine as an important source of information when considering a product or service. This is a higher percentage than personal recommendations, TV and print media.

In order to have a successful online presence, you need a successful SEO/SEM campaign. Brand Iron’s “Web-O-Nanza” program is the perfect solution for your website. We map out your website’s primary and secondary goals, and come up with a solution to convert these goals into revenue via your website. We build SEO-friendly websites that target individuals who want to see your website.

Brand Iron is known for forging brands and driving revenue, now with our “Web-O-Nanza” program, we drive web traffic that also drives revenue. Contact Brand Iron today and we will “build a website that will make them come.”

Written By Andrew Hoffman, Design Bandit

It’s true, for a relatively cheap investment anyone can “design” with the same tools as a professional designer. However, there are countless reasons why you should work with a professional designer, such as; quality, dependability, and experience. Designers seem to be a dime a dozen, but there are a few qualities that set good designers apart from the herd.

1. Passion – This is the real weapon of a good designer, it cannot be imitated. A real designer is passionate about his/her craft; it is not just a job or a career but a lifestyle. Regardless of what you might say, first and foremost a graphic designer is an artist. Artistic intuition cannot be taught, passion cannot be taught; you either have it or you don’t and that is why not everyone can be a designer. Brand Iron is proud to have a passionate design staff that creates passionate work day-in and day-out for our clients.
2. Don’t just re-design, but re-align – You may have heard this in the past, “it’s outdated, your website needs to be re-designed.” There is more to it. Not only does it need to be redesigned, but realigned with the brand. Good design transcends technology, trends and must be aligned with your brand; something that I’m sure you’re neighbor’s 9th grader probably is not capable of.
3. Evolve – A lot of designers think that they get a degree and they’re set for the rest of their lives. Sorry to break it to you but it doesn’t work like that; the design industry is constantly evolving, the technology is constantly changing and in order to create successful design a designer must be constantly evolve with the industry. A degree is a good start, but it takes continuous research and learning, determination, attention to detail and hard work to be a successful designer.

As a business owner you should not expect anything less than what was mentioned above, and if you are, you are literally gambling with your livelihood. Perception is everything, and your brand needs to be perceived as the best. Quality branding is what Brand Iron does best; we forge brands and drive revenue.

Written by Andrew Hoffman

Brand Iron’s new website is featured on CSSloaf.com. CSSloaf.com is a UK-based, all in one CSS gallery, an online showcase that displays the top websites from 35 of the best online CSS galleries in the world.

Brandiron.net also adheres to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) CSS standards. W3C is an international consortium where member organizations, a full-time staff, and the public work together to develop web standards. W3C’s mission is: “To lead the World Wide Web to its full potential by developing protocols and guidelines that ensure long-term growth for the Web.” The WC3 director is Tim Berners-Lee, who also happens to be the inventor of the World Wide Web.

Does your website pass the W3C CSS? Click here to test your website now.

You may be wondering what the heck is CSS? CSS is an acronym for Cascading Style Sheets, which is a web programming language that defines the layout and presentation of your website. CSS was a revolution in web design, which replaced table-based websites as the standard. There is a possibility that your site is a table-based design and needs to be updated to CSS. The concrete benefits of CSS include:

• Allows for better Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• More precise control of layout
• Can apply to different media-types, such as mobile phones
• Has numerous advanced and sophisticated techniques

Does your website meet the standards? Contact us to learn more about how we can help you achieve great web design and results.

-Andrew Hoffman, Brand Iron’s Design Bandit