Top 3 Website Upgrades

Do you need a facelift?  If your over 40 then you probably are thinking “yes”!  Although iUpgrade does not upgrade biological material (yet), we can give you a digital facelift.

Most likely your business website could use an upgrade.

There is a large number of important features your website needs in order to obtain or maintain it’s youthful exuberance.  To get started, here is a list of the top three most valuable website upgrades for your homepage that will give you the largest, quickest return and increase in customer response.  This list is part of a check list our website design upgrade methodology filters through when evaluating a business website;

1. When a potential customer arrives at your website, do they immediately understand the core purpose of your company without having to read one single word?

If a shopper has to dig for information about you or doesn’t understand at one glance what you offer and how it will benefit them, then they are happily scooting off to your competitors website.  Don’t let that happen!  Make sure the visuals on your homepage grab their attention quickly and intuitively communicate the solution you have for them that will meet the need that drove them to your website to begin with.  The average person will take up to three seconds to determine if you meet their need of if they need to find the solution somewhere else.

2. Is your brand memorable and appropriate?

Have you invested in developing a company logo that communicates the essence of your company?  If not, this is an important investment and necessary upgrade.  Your company logo will not only benefit your website but needs to be consistently displayed everywhere your company is mentioned, promoted and displayed on and off line.  Make sure to develop a logo that is high resolution, high quality and well thought out with intentional and thoughtful design elements that represent your company. Purchasing a logo template or trying to copy another company’s logo will not provide you with the best long term solution and will communicate that your business is not a high priority.

3. Action!

It is extremely important to have a well placed, strategic action button, image or icon on your homepage.  This needs to be configured to display in a way that is not distracting but available for your customers to act upon.  It also needs to be configured so that it displays in just the right location on all platforms and device settings and sizes.  Your action buttons can be programmed to appear in just the right place at just the right time to help invoke the precise action you desire from your customers – in a way that is not annoying to them but helpful.

These three areas of focus for your website facelift upgrade are critical.  If you haven’t already implemented them we can help you and it won’t even require surgery!

Get your website upgrade today >

 

Top 3 Website Upgrades2017-09-21T21:04:14+00:00

Quarter of a Million Views

Santa Ana, CA

YouTube Video Success

Jerry’s Broken Drill and Tap Removal, an iUpgrade marketing services Client, just reached a quarter of a million views for their much appraised YouTube video featuring the right way to remove a broken tap. The video provides a detailed instructional tutorial on how to properly use a Metal Disintegration Machine (MDM) or Electric Discharge Machine (EDM).  You might think this sort of service is needed too seldom to have the need of a broken drill or tap service provider but the over 50 years that Jerry’s Broken Drill and Tap Removal have been in business would disagree with you.  They remove bolts and taps from a wide range of engines and machines.  Without this valuable service an expensive piece of equipment may be rendered useless but with this professional and save repair the equipment is restored and able to function again.  An example would be a BMW engine that has a difficult to reach and remove broken bolt.  Parts are often shipped to Jerry’s for repair and returned with a fast turn around.

If you have a broken bolt, tap or stud that needs to be removed, Jerry’s is the one to call for fast, professional results: 714-836-6824

iUpgrade provides instructional, content rich YouTube video services.  If your business has a unique, interesting, quality service or product we specialize in developing a video that clearly communicates what you have to offer.  Contact us for a free video consultation: 541-899-9908.

Quarter of a Million Views2016-08-17T19:56:08+00:00

Top 3 Business Owner Time Management Tools of All Time

Proven Business Goal Management Tool

Every business owner has the constant daily challenge of staying on task, completion and prioritizing.  Here are three practices that will improve these must have skills.

#1 Long Term Vision

This first step is critical as it impacts whether you will ever see your goals come to fruition. If you have clear long term vision all of your hard work will retain it’s value and you won’t get burned out.  If you do not have a clear vision and a clear exit strategy then every detail of what you are doing will suffer. You may ask, “exit strategy”?  Aren’t I in business for the long haul? Maybe, but regardless of how long you want to be at the helm of your business, every smart business owner has an exit strategy. Your exit strategy could be to apprentice your children into taking it over.  It may be to build it up and sell it for retirement.  It could be to structure it to place people over it. Whatever you choose as an exit strategy, the point is to choose one and plan ahead for it.  If you are aimlessly working endlessly with no clear goals in site you will find yourself becoming listless and with less growth then expected with no clear options available.

Personal Brainstorm Session

After being reminded of the incredible importance of have a clear long term vision for your business – now it’s time for some fun.  Kick back, get comfortable, cuddle up to a nice cup of Jo and dream.  Dream about how your business would look 10 years down the road if everything goes well.  Dream about elements that really spark your passion.  If you were able to mold and shape it into dreams what would it look like?

Sketch out a personal brainstorm.  Take a large notebook and draw images, words, ideas, concepts, thoughts.  Don’t worry about structure or what it looks like.  Begin to see patterns and make associations with these thoughts.  Add some details and make some relational network connections.  A big, long term picture will begin to take form before your eyes as you highlight important elements and label areas. Be sure to mix in the elements that you are truly passionate about. What accomplishments through your business would really make you satisfied? Write those down on your brainstorm sheet.

When this personal brainstorm dream session is all done you should have a much clearer idea of where you want the ship to be steered toward. There will be technical elements and details that aren’t filled in but that’s OK.  As long as the long term picture is clear, the fuzzy details will be worked out by your team.

Now you have something to work with.

#2 Goal to Grain Roadmap

After your Personal Brainstorm Dream Session is complete you need to prioritize and start to map out a technique for obtaining these high and lofty dreams of yours. First, write down three income segments; your Cash Cow, your Nice to Increase and your Investment Department. Let’s break this down;

Cash Cow – this is where your company currently makes most of it’s income.  This is critical for keeping your business running.  You can’t neglect this segment for the sake of running after your dreams.  This segment should not be neglected but improve.  Your companies Cash Cow may be a product or service that frankly bores you because you provide or perform this so much. But this segment, if conducted well, can become the financier for your long term goals.  You can leverage the income that flows in from this business segment to fuel your dreams.  Improve this segment and over time this will be the result.

Nice to Increase – this segment consists of products or services that you don’t get much business from but has potential.  You haven’t focused primary attention on this segment before but you have a hunch this could open up a second cash cow for you.  This is worth pursuing.  It could become profitable.  It’s always wise to have more then one cash cow segment in any business.  If one cash cow dies due to a market shift then you have a backup and you won’t go out of business.  In addition, this becomes more income to fuel your long term goals.

Investment Department – this is where Visions Become Reality!  As you leverage your profit from your cash cow segments you will be able to invest in your long term goals.  Every new shift in your product or service offering typically takes an initial investment of time and money to launch.  This is what this department is for.  Planning out phases for this launch plan is wise. Even if you don’t have the funds available right now, if you plan phases and next steps when the funds become available they won’t get wasted but will be invested.

The Goal to Grain Roadmap
This road map starts with the end goal.  It then moves back progressively in time until it reaches your current day.   For example, set the end date to ten years from today.  Write down the key elements of your business goals and objectives.  Then move back to only five years from today.  What elements would need to be in place at that point in time in order to achieve the ten year goals?  Write those down.  Move it back 2 years.  What goals would have to be accomplished in three years from now in order to obtain the five year goals?  Write those down.  Progressively as you get closer to your current time more details need to be filled in. Once you have this road map outlined you will be enabled to start putting the pieces closest to you together.  This is when you need to start building your team, delegating sections, seeking out vendors to fill in the blanks and find good advice on how best to accomplish your next steps.

The Goal to Grain Roadmap is how we approach all of our Clients and all of the services we offer.  If you would like help putting one together for your company contact us.

#3 Strategic Scheduling

Now we get into the details of how to accomplish the goals you have mapped out.  Every business owner struggles with balancing their schedule. Now that you have a clear target it will become easier to schedule your time.  Consider your typical work week. Plan that the majority of your time will go to running your business and keeping your Cash Cows happy. This should become about 80% of your time instead of 100%.  Now 10% should include working on increasing your secondary cash cow.  The final 10% of your time needs to allocated to your new Investment Department.  This can equate into your own labor time, R&D time, meeting time with consultants and so on. Decide on your weekly calendar what time block you are going to use for this important investment on obtaining your goals. If you work a 50 hour work week for example, then block out 5 hours during the slowest part of your week for this slot.  Make sure everyone knows your are unavailable for regular business during that time.  Each week, write out the next step that needs to be accomplished for your new Investment Department.  That can look like a meeting, time researching online, working on a business or marketing plan or actually building the new product or service.

This will shift your fogging thoughts and dreams into sizable obtainable pieces.  You will have a new comfort knowing that your business is not suffering because you are trying to take on too much. Your regular business will improve because it has a new purpose that it plays into.  And, best of all, each week you will be working toward your dreams. A fresh, energetic passion will remind you why you are an Entrepreneur!

These techniques are proven.  They really do work and we would love to help you – call us to get started!  We specialize in goal identification, long term strategy and creating realistic paths to get there.

Top 3 Business Owner Time Management Tools of All Time2017-09-21T21:04:17+00:00

How to Avoid Backlink Penalties

Backlink Building Techniques That Work

I think we have all feared the IRS at one point in our lives or the other.  Receiving a letter from the IRS is bound to raise your blood pressure unless you are expecting a refund.  If you are a business owner with employees the check in the mail from the IRS is typically not a refund check.

Google can implement the same type of fear if you suddenly see the traffic to your website drop only to find out that it is due to some backlinks to your site that have been deemed unsavory by team Google.

Because the spotlight has swung in the direction of the quality of the backlinks to your site you must be diligent to analyze how these have been managed.  How do you even begin to comb through the mess of information networking their way back to your site in the form of a link buried in an article somewhere?

Here are three tips to get you started:

#1 Pull a quality backlink report.
Ask your web person, web team or web marketing agency to perform a backlink report. This report will gather all links leading to your site, their source and will typically include a quality assessment.  This is similar to a Profit & Loss report. It will show you where the weak links are and what quality links to keep.

#2 Review your backlink strategy.
Ask your web marketing team what their strategy is for building your companies backlinks.  Are they blasting out your web address through every free link building tool they can find, not really knowing what the results will be?  Or do they have a quality content building and exchange plan in place to build quality, relevant links over time? Speed is not the best policy in the link building world. You will most likely get a ticket from the Google police.

#3 Remember, Content is King and Quality Content is Queen.
If you have a company of quality, integrity and intend to constantly improve and refine your business and market positioning, then the best link building strategy is to provide quality content.  There are many ways this quality content can be levereged to build quality links over time.  If your in business for the long haul and care more about quality then a quick fix that may blow up then this is the best link building approach.  Think of ways your company can build unique, quality content to share within your industry to help build new relationships, share your expert knowledge and you will also enjoy the rewards of traffic derived from backlinks.

How to Avoid Backlink Penalties2017-09-21T21:04:18+00:00

SEO Keyword Architecture

Architecting the perfect keyword list for your business is critical for SEO results.  Your keywords in essence are words that perfectly describe your business and it’s unique qualities and or services.

When developing your keyword list don’t think SEO, think what your business provides best.  From this starting point the art of positioning can be applied to your list.

Your website should communicate to both humans and robots eloquently.  These two sets of communications should be precise and in harmony.  It is difficult satisfying both at the same time but it can be done with the right expertise.

Now for a warning.  There are a lot of “SEO” companies out there who will tell you that they can get your business top ranked, guaranteed.  The way that they can give you this guarantee is that you will be ranked top…of a long tail keyword.  That long tail keyword may or may not be relevant to your business or the type of customers that would benefit from your business offering.  These SEO companies don’t really care if you get relevant business.  They care that you are sold on the “top rank” hook and will worry about relevant business later.

Having said all of that about long-tail keywords now I have to go into how long-tail keywords are very effective – if the relevant long tail keywords that can are positioned correctly are pursued.

Now, let’s break-down the anatomy of the long tail keyword:

Long tail keywords are 3 and 4-keyword phrases which are specific to your business offering. A prospective customer will go to a search engine and type in what they are looking for. For example, they will type in “newport beach window repair” instead of “window”.  If you happen to sell mustang’s then you would position the SEO on your website for that specific inventory instead of a general category such as “car”.

You could assume that positioning the SEO for “car” would result in more customers but you would soon discover that you would get a plethora of irrelevant, unfruitful customer traffic such as people searching for a “car” wash.  This type of SEO architecture would not give you an ROI on your marketing budget.

After formulating your general keyword list, the long tail specific keyword list you would then start to select the priority long tail keywords to implement into landing pages and integrate into your navigation in a way that is easy to use for the customer and provides keyword benefit to the search engines.

Now let’s focus back on the long tail keyword selection.  The only way to select the high yield long tail keywords is to test and correctly position them. For example, a keyword such as “door rugs” might yield results that compete with larger competitors such as Target that will bury your listing on page twenty.  In contrast, if you select a keyword such as “elegant black welcome mat” you will most likely get much better results closer to page 1.

SEO Keyword Architecture2017-09-21T21:04:18+00:00
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