The term “blogging” often conjures up images of nerds or giggling little girls. It surely doesn’t seem like something YOU want to do. The truth, though, is that blogging is a great way to bring more popularity to your website and brand.  

Just because your blog is for your business does not mean you should use it specifically for marketing. Blog readers are smart. They can spot a marketing ploy instantly. Instead, focus on helping your customer. Blog about information that is educational, informative and entertaining. It should encourage the reader to interact with you and make your company feel “real” and down to earth. It is ok to mention a product when relevant, but do not focus on product promotion.

Websites are like employees. They work for you, making sales and answering any questions your customers may have. If you allow your site to be hosted by a poor customer, it’s like having a lazy employee, one that’s always taking breaks and sick days. Getting a good host is like having an outstanding employee that literally works all day every day.

Some people may not understand the point of paying someone for hosting. Sure, you could host your own site, but it would be very inconvenient and expensive. In order to host a site, you need a server, which is a high performance computer.

It may seem that a mobile website is just your regular site opened on a mobile device, but this isn’t the case. A mobile site is specially created to be used on a phone, iPad or tablet.  Following are some reasons why you should make sure you have a mobile site.

Most mobile devices don’t play Flash-We’ve already discussed some of the drawbacks of Flash, and here is another: iPad users can’t access Flash sites. No matter how breathtaking your site might be, if an iPad or iPhone users tries to visit, it will not work. This could result in a lost sale. Perhaps that person wanted to check out your site while they were out and about the city. If they liked the site, they might have come in to take a look around, but because they couldn’t even get the page to load, they went somewhere else. Customer lost.

When it comes to page rank, the most important factor is the quality of the website. Everything else is secondary. Consider the following tips when building and a maintaining your site.

Stay away from Flash-Flash can be tempting. The effects are dazzling and the transitions are smooth. It looks nice, that’s for sure. However, it isn’t SEO friendly. When the search engine robots crawl your site looking for keywords to see if you’re a good match, it completely ignores the flash components.

A common myth among business owners is that just having a website is enough. Unfortunately, it isn’t.  Just having it is the beginning, but you have to constantly update it to see a positive ROI for your site. Otherwise, potential customers will not find you or get a real feel for your business.

A website is an investment and should be treated as such. Would you neglect your other company investments, like cash registers and security systems? Of course not, and you shouldn’t neglect your site either.

Business owners should not be deterred by the many costs of running a website. Some companies lure customers in with promises of one-time payments. As good as this sounds, beware. Websites have maintenance fees (usually paid monthly or yearly) that can’t be escaped. Any company that claims otherwise is being dishonest.

The first thing you will have to buy is the domain. The domain is the web address that your customers will type in to get to your site. The best domains are simple and related to your business name, like www.yourbusinessname.com. You can never fully own a domain outright. Yearly fees must be paid in order to maintain the rights. Expect to pay between $9-20 per year.

Sometimes you go straight to the pros. You don’t even bother trying to take the DIY route. Building houses, getting root canals and getting court representation are all examples of those times.

Website design and development may seem like it’s easy enough to be done in DIY fashion, but there are tricky aspects that an untrained person simply isn’t aware of. Following are five questions to consider if you are interested in building your own website.

When you need something, you search on Google, don’t you? Well, other people are searching on Google for the exact things you sell. It is imperative that you know how to get your items listed. Google offers many services, most of which are free, to help you get your advertising message to your potential customers.  Use the following free tools to improve the site’s performance.

Google Webmaster Tools- This is a great starting place. There are many free tools to help you with your site. Submitting a sitemap helps to make sure your site gets “crawled” quickly. Other helpful Webmaster tools include Site Errors, Search Queries, and Links to Your Site. All these tools give you vital information about your site and help you to improve any errors that may be present.

Any time we have a sit-down with potential clients, we make one thing clear: our passion.

If you look at our work, our client testimonials, our activities, you’ll see the passion. It’s blindingly clear. You won’t have to look hard.

It’s a type of passion that can’t be created. It just is. There are no classes or online courses to teach true passion. It naturally exists within us all. All you have to do is tap into it.

A key factor in today's websites is the ability to manage your META Tags. Whenever Farin Innovations builds a website, they include this ability to help separate you from your competition. It's very important you take the time to go through your new (or existing website) and optimize your META tags on each page.

For those of you who don't know which tags should be what, let me break it down and make it real simple: