Spencer Rose

It's cliche', but no where is the phrase "you never get a second chance to make a first impression" truer than on the web. People's first impression of your website will often be a decision making factor as to whether they want to do business with you or not.

Proper website design is much more than just finding a graphic designer who can make your logo sing. A properly designed website helps users navigate through your site thus keeping them on your site longer, and increasing return traffic. I understand the importance of that first impression, and it means more than pretty pictures. Following today's web standards development techniques helps me to ensure both people and search engines (google, yahoo, ..) can find your site, and like what they see once they get there.

There are three absolutes with web development — every website must be fast, functioning and intuitive. The web is not just about providing information anymore. To deliver the tools that users look for in today's Rich Internet Applications a developer has got to have a sound understanding of web standards development, an efficient server side technology, and user side technologies that make it easy to use the application.

As an open source developer, I enjoy the largest community of developer support in the world. PHP (the server side technology I use) is now the number one most used technology for web applications in the world. Using tools such as the Zend Framework (developed by the authors of PHP), Wordpress, and the Drupal CMS the websites I develop are fast, they always work properly, and when I add in the javascript user tools, they are easy to navigate and use.

Internet marketing is a whole different ball game than standard marketing. Most marketing people who have ventured into the realm of internet marketing have found that if they must obtain some technical understanding if they are to succeed. Unlike normal marketing which tends to focus on catchy sayings and what makes people buy, internet marketing depends in large part on where the search engines rank you. If you are not ranked, and no one sees you, it will not matter how compelling your pitch is.

Search engine marketing is a combination of two factors. First, web sites must be built in a standards compliant fashion, where code is search engine friendly. A website built completely in flash or some other multi-media technology is completely invisible to search engines such as Google. Large, bulky sites with poorly written code are also ranked low and even penalized by search engines. Building a standards compliant site that is easily searched and for which a site map has been submitted to Google properly is essential.

The second part of search engine marketing (SEM) involves internal and external marketing factors. The keywords and copywrite that make up your site are essentially the flags to get Google and Yahoo to take notice. Whether or not other sites link to your site is also essential. It tells Google about your standing in the community.

Social marketing is the art of the buzz. A buzz basically entails a group of like minded or similarly situated small business owners and marketers sharing information at a large and fast rate. As social sites have developed, people can reach across states, nations and contents to find others similarly situated to themselves with aligned interests. The incredible power of this comes when the individuals begin to organize (virtually of course) with more efficiency and more effectively share more information.

Like a colony of bees, groups share information at an incredible rate. The groups chew and filter, and research and write about the information. Predicting which bit of information will have the greatest interest or longevity is an art that is picked up only as you share, and track how your information is buzzed about. If your information becomes the center of a serious buzz, the eventual result is a massive amount of exposure.

Designing, developing, and marketing are all interrelated disciplines to eventually position yourself to benefit from that buzz. Unlike most marketers, I understand the process from the ground up and can help businesses meet incredible goals. Let me help make your small or medium sized business, a well buzzed about business.