June 2012 | Page 2 of 2 | Outsource Force

Tips in Choosing The Right Web Design Company

Posted on June 06, 2012 by jon

Fifteen years ago, finding a web developer was easy because there were only several professional web developers at that time. In the same time, Google was still in its initial stage as a privately held company. Today, there are millions of web design companies that can easily be found on the internet. When you type the term “web design companies” in Google, it will provide you with more than 500 million results. And when you finally choose one from the crowd, most likely you will choose one which is listed in the first page, especially the one listed in the top three results.

There is nothing wrong with choosing a web design company ranked in the first page. However, you need to know that being listed in the first page does not guarantee that the web design companies are the best ones. When choosing a web design company, there are many factors that you have to consider so you can finally find a reliable company. Here are several simple steps to help you determine whether or not the company that you find in Google is the right company to handle your website project.

Look at Their Own Website
Your first impression is very important. If their website does not make any good impact on you, then how can they create a website that can impress your visitors?

Look for the Portfolio
Do not underestimate the capability of a web design company just because they have never developed a website for any business in your industry. Take a look at their portfolio. If you find impressive websites in their portfolio, that’s a good sign.

Know if You Can Trust Them
It is normal if they will try to convince you that their services can fulfill your needs. However, regardless of their portfolio, technologies, expertise or other factors, you need to ask yourself whether you can trust them or not. It will be a waste of money and time to use services from a company that you cannot trust.

Ask the Sales Team some Technical Questions
Good sales people do not need to have excellent technical knowledge. However, good sales people must know the services offered by their company, so when you explain your problems, they can explain correctly how their services can address your problems. If you do not have a good knowledge in web design, let your IT department to meet the sales people.

Know Who’s Going to Work on Your Website and Where is it Done
The sales people in the company may be great but programmers and designers are the ones who will actually build your website. Ask them where they live and whether they are part-time or full-time. Are they working in the office or home-based? It is highly recommended that you choose companies whose employees are in-house and working full time. The main reason is that if there is something wrong with your website, it can be fixed immediately.

Ask Who Will Own the Code
If the company does not hand over the codes and all the files to you in the end of the process, you have to blacklist the company. You pay them to build your website so you must possess all files and codes related to your website. This one needs to be clarified in the beginning.

In web design industry, the old saying “you get what you pay for” is indeed true. Although there is no standard checklist to help you make the right decision, the above steps can help you to go on the right direction and finally find a reliable web design company.

6 High Impact Changes For Great SEO After Google’s Recent Penguin Update

Posted on June 05, 2012 by jon

Google’s Penguin update gives us a clear message that knowing the SEO basics is vital to survive in the future. Google seems does not care whether you are in the black, grey or white zone, the main thing that they demand is relevance. If you do not want your sites to become one of the victims of the Penguin, make sure you implement the followings changes.

1. Focus on Getting Good Links

A few moments ago, Matt Cutts has stated that Google ignores lots of low quality links. Good links are the main drivers to give more authority to your sites. Here are the criteria of good links:

– come from reputable sites, brands, organizations and people
– give value to visitors
– placed in the content of a page
– placed in pages that get lots of inbound links

The conclusion from Matt Cutts’ statement is that you cannot control how Bing or Google counts and values your inbound links. So from now on, it’s wise to focus your SEO link building campaigns to get good links because good links will not only rank your sites but they become your business assets.

2. Pay Attention to Your Link Profile
You have to make sure that your sites do not have too many low quality inbound links with matching anchor texts. There have been many evidences showing that 60% is the maximum limit for targeted anchor text. Here are several things that you should consider before running your link building campaigns:

– Domain and page authority distributions
– Targeted text distribution
– Link type distribution such as directory, comment, article, etc

3. Know all Your Pages and Low Value Pages (noindex)
Knowing every single page in your sites is very important because it does not only help you to avoid duplicate content, but it helps you to make thorough evaluation when things go wrong. Keep in mind that Google does not provide accurate numbers of indexed pages. Go beyond the first 100 results to search for duplicate or thin content.

4. Make a Good Crawl Path
Google has given enough information on how it enters a site. You have to make sure that your sites have good crawl path so Google can crawl the entire pages of your sites. Moreover, putting important pages on top of the crawl path helps you to make your sites become authority sites.

5. Avoid Changing Your URLs at All Costs
New designs, new apps, new software and new platforms are common reasons for changing URLs. Unfortunately, changing URLs can cause serious damage to your sites. If you really need to change the URLs of your pages then the 301 redirect is the best solution.

6. Implement Inbound Marketing
Inbound marketing is the next level after SEO. Relying merely on organic traffic from search results is not a good idea. You have to invest time and effort to leverage your websites using inbound marketing. Reach your visitors and provide them with things they need the most. Inbound marketing can give more impact than bombarding your sites with boring pages.

Pros & Cons of Hiring a Virtual Assistant Through an Agency & Hiring Directly

Posted on June 02, 2012 by jon

Enlisting the services of a virtual assistant can prove rather beneficial especially in the case of a business. A virtual assistant can help you out in a number of ways in the day to day operations of your business, for instance doing the internet marketing such as SEO, PPC, and web design. Typically, a virtual assistant is a much cheaper option to a full time or even part time physical employee.

You can either hire a virtual assistant via a hiring agency or directly. Both these methods have advantages and disadvantages.

* One advantage of hiring a virtual assistant directly is that you are best placed to understand what exactly you want and therefore you know exactly what to look for. This means that as you search and read the qualifications and services offered by various assistants, you are better placed to make a better decision in regards to those needs.

* If you hire the virtual assistant directly it is much easier to fire them if they fail to live up to your standards. With an agency, firing a virtual assistant may require a bit more involvement. On the other hand; the downside of hiring a virtual assistant directly is that you have to really look around before you can find the one with the qualifications you require. This means that a lot of time that could have otherwise been spent on improving your business will be wasted in this undertaking.

* The other disadvantage of hiring directly is that you stand a higher chance of getting someone who is not up to standard. You may be unlucky enough to find a person who is just out to make some quick money at your expense. Hiring incompetent virtual assistants may not directly cost you money (because you only pay for work that is done satisfactorily) but it could really waste a great deal of your time which could have been translated to profits.

* If you decide to use an agency to hire a virtual assistant, you will have a higher chance of getting the right person for the job. If for some reason you are not satisfied with the person the agency gives you, they can get you another person without having to go back to the drawing board. This will save you a considerable amount of time.

* An agency will basically make your work a lot easier. You do not have to extensively search the web or other sources for the assistant. All you have to do is link up with the agency and have them find you a good service provider. Again; this will save you time.

* On the down side however, you may not always find what you are looking for from an agency. On top of that, you may be unlucky enough to enlist the services of a not-so professional hiring agency. What this means is that the agency may only be looking to link as many assistants as possible to employers, without really looking into the issue of the quality they offer. Whichever way you choose to hire an assistant, always ensure that you only pay for satisfactory services rendered.