We welcome any comments or feedback regarding our new support system.

Click here or call our Sales Department to learn more about the IDX Broker MLS Search functionality.

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If you haven’t heard, Facebook will convert all business pages to the new timeline format on March 30th. The exciting change will give businesses new tools to help you promote your brand to the over 845 million Facebook users. Here are some tips for building an effective Timeline:

Profile Image

The Timeline features a unique cover image (815 px wide x 315 px tall) at the top of the page to showcase your brand. The image could be a popular menu item or product, people using your products or creative artwork. Facebook encourages you to be creative and experiment with different images. Facebook does have strict rules on what you can not use here: No price or purchase information, no contact information such as web addresses, email or phone numbers. No calls to action, such as “Get it Now” or “Tell your friends”. And no references to user interface elements, such as Like or Share or any other Facebook site feature.

Milestones & Pin Posts

The Timeline gives the business the opportunity to tell your story, so you’ll want to post pictures from past events and milestones and date them appropriately to build out the company history. A pin post is a post that a business may “pin” to the top of its Timeline for 7 days at a time, this added stickiness will increase the post’s views.

Tabs Moved below the cover photo

There are four tabs viewable in the new Timeline format, you can customize three of them (the Photos tab is fixed). These are located directly under the Cover image and are more prominent that in the previous layout. Facebook allows 8 tabs but you must click the dropdown box to see the other 4.

Sound Overwhelming?

Let the experts set up your Timeline.

Cover Photo Creation
Profile Image Creation
Tab Images
About Section

Short Term Limited Offer – Call or Email us today for pricing!

Jim Schaefer
S.E.O.and Pay-Per-Click Specialist
941-870-5707 (w)
813-240-2526 (m)

Plan4WhatIf.com is a WordPress based website providing it’s owner with easy content management as well as a blog. The site content managment area allows the offering of the Mentoring services, the Life Planning Workbooks, resources and other static content and the blog area handles tips and tricks and other news.

http://www.plan4whatif.com

MikeNormanRealty.com is a WordPress based website that has Featured Property posts and easy content editing.

The RNS system allows them to manage the vacation rental side of their business and integrates seamlessly into the website.

The IDXBroker system provides up to date access to MLS information with exceptional MLS browsing options.

http://www.mikenormanrealty.com/

1. Webmail is our recommended option to access email. You would use the Gmail interface to access your email. Gmail has built a great system that can replace most of the functionality you currently use in programs like Outlook. Using the webmail functionality allows you to access your email from any computer with an internet connection.
2. IMAP can be slower and a little more complex to setup but is the best option if you use multiple devices to access your email like computers, tablets & smart phones. It allows every device to see a direct view of all the emails on the server. If you delete an email on 1 device it is gone from all of them.
3. POP is simpler to setup & faster when retrieving email but not recommended if you want to access your email multiple devices like computers, tablets & smart phones.

Here is Google’s explanation of the differences between IMAP & POP email access.

Email setup instructions:

1. Webmail – We have setup a specific URL for you to access your webmail. Just go to mail.yourdomainname.com. For example mail.rtservices.net will take you to our webmail login page. Read Gmail’s getting started guide.
2. IMAP – Select the IMAP option at the bottom of this page and follow the instructions for Google Apps users.
3. POP – Select the POP option at the bottom of this page and follow the instructions for Google Apps users.
4. Smart Phones – Some smart phones allow you to add a Google Account to them and that will automatically setup your email for you. You account name will be your full email address. Android phones allow for this easy setup method.

The more you know about a website company, the better your chances of a good return on your website investment.

1.  What kind of return on investment have you provided to previous clients? The most successful projects are the ones that are implemented over months and years, so it’s not just about the quantity of websites a company has built.  It’s about the quality and results they can deliver.

2.  What kind of programming language will you use? Make sure they are using a language that has been in widespread use more than a few months.  Some languages require proprietary software and special server specs to work correctly.

3.  Can my finished website can be moved to another server? If it can’t easily be moved to another server then you are not just committing to a website project; you are also committing to a long term hosting arrangement.  Keep in mind that many website development companies do not have support systems in place to manage ongoing hosting requirements.

4.  Does your quote include Search Engine Optimization? This is huge; it’s amazing how many sites I still see that have no meta tags, or even better the exact same meta tags on every page.  SEO is probably the single biggest factor in the overall perceived success or failure of a website project.

5.  Who will actually do the work on my project? Is it the person you are talking to or someone else in their office?  Maybe it’s someone in another country altogether.  You may not mind having your project outsourced but you should know ahead of time what you’re getting and what kind of response time you should expect.

6.  Have you used this design on any of your other projects? Not all designs have to be completely custom, but if you’re paying for a custom design you should know if it has been or will be recycled.

7.  What other projects are you working on right now? You should know whether they are at full capacity already or how many ways they will split their time until your project is complete.

8.  Where is your physical office? There is nothing wrong with a virtual office or an office in another part of the country as long as you know what you’re getting, but often times a company with physical space and full time employees might have a better system in place to ensure your satisfaction.

9.  How many of your clients from five years ago are still your clients? If the only projects on a developers portfolio are from the last few months, I’d like to know what happened to the older projects.

10.  Most importantly ask yourself – do I trust this person and company? Don’t underestimate your intuition.   There are a lot of variables in a website project but the right developer can guide you through it using the technology that is best for your unique needs.

The Landings Travel website is a great example of a combination site using static PHP programming on some pages and a WordPress blog for others.   The combination allows the primary pages to load extremely fast, while the blog section allows user control over content that is regularly updated.

www.landingstravel.com

The first step in SEO is to determine which keywords should be targeted on each page that will be optimized. When we have narrowed the keyword list to four or five phrases per page, then we’ll begin implementing those phrases within the code of each page.

Implementation starts with the meta tags. It is very important that the meta tags for keywords, page title, and page description are applicable to their specific page, so the search engines know how that page should be indexed. The meta tags should only list keywords that are related to the primary subject of the content on that page. You won’t see most of the meta tags in the usual course of web browsing, but you can see them if you click on the “view page source” option from your browsers view menu.

After the meta tags we’ll add the selected keywords into the image alternate text wherever there are images on the page. Because most search engines don’t read images very well, the alternate (or alt) text placed with an image tells the search engine about the content of the image. The alt text is visible while browsing only if you mouse over an image without clicking on it. We are seeing a big increase in traffic coming from image searches within Google and other search engines and alt tags are partially responsible for those numbers.

The next post will talk more about the text headings on each page, the content of the text itself, and the importance of anchor text links within the text linking your pages internally. Each of these plays a part in a well optimized website.

It takes time to do SEO the right way on each page, but it will make a big difference long term in your search engine rankings and resulting traffic.

Most of the SEO changes we make will not be noticeable to the average visitor; SEO is primarily seen by the search engines as they index the source code of a website. I am convinced and our tracking reports prove that SEO is one of the best long-term investments for a successful website.