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Affordable Web Design is a rare commodity these days.  Many companies will claim to be affordable, even quote you an affordable rate, but you must be wary.  Hidden charges, development delays and endless headaches await if you choose the wrong company.

Starting five years ago many Web Design Firms began to make a killing all across the United States by offering cheap web design and development.  They accomplished this by outsourcing all of their development and design work to places like India and more recently China and Russia.  Sometimes the websites created were exactly what the Clients had hoped for and more.  More often then not though, the Client paid the price not in dollars, but in wasted time, lost leads, and empty aspirin bottles.

More recently these same web design companies have begun claiming that they don’t outsource their Project Management and Web Development.  This is true in some cases.  They do in fact have a Project Manager in-house, that talk with the clients and manage the project.  However they are still sending the projects to designers and developers overseas.  While some of the headaches may be gone, the development slags and hidden project costs remain.  The fundamental problems with outsourcing are not going away.  Time differences, language barriers and communication problems coupled with unrealistically low initial quotes are nothing more than a recipe for disaster.

Pick a company that does all of its Web Design, Web Development and Project Management in-house.  In this day and age do you really want to gamble on something that looks and sounds like it’s to good too be true, or would you prefer the comfort of knowing your project is in capable hands and that your developers are just a phone call way?

The choice is of course yours.

Search Engine Optimization, commonly referred to as SEO, is a vastly important part of growing your business.  Having a high page rank on Search Engines like Google  for keywords relating to your business does more than just drive sales to your website.  It gives you credibility.   It has a psychological effect on potential clients, immediately bolstering trust in your product or service.

If you are marketing a unique product or service then ranking high for your search terms is not all that hard.  After all, you don’t have much competition.  However, for the rest of the businesses out there that actually compete either locally or on the global market, SEO is the bread and butter of your business online.  If your website doesn’t rank in the top 25 on Google or Yahoo for your search keywords, chances are potential leads are going to your competition.  Not only does this hurt your business as a lost sale, but it bolsters your competition.

Think Local.  If you don’t already have an established name online, the best thing you can do is pick an area and tailor your website and search terms so that you rise to the top of the search results for that area.

Get Specific.  Don’t choose search terms and keywords that are vague.  The more specific the better.  Don’t try to get to the top of Google for ‘Home Renovations’.  That’s nearly impossible.  Think of all tens of thousands of companies all across the world who do home renovations.   Does your website really stand out enough and can it ever be optimized enough to get you to that coveted #1 spot on Google?  Probably not.  No matter how good the optimization of your site is, you would still be competing with the huge corporations that have hundreds of back-links to their sites.  Those back-links are what drive them to the top of the charts.

While ‘Home Renovations’ might be out of your reach, ‘Boston Home Renovations’ is surely not.  Web page optimization alone could get you into the top 10 results.  Weekly management of your site and its content could get you into the top 3, and keep you there.

When you think about it, do you really need to market your company on a Global scale if you don’t offer your product globally?  Do sales leads from London for your Real Estate Brokerage located in Boston really do anything more then waste your valuable time?

Think Local.  Get Specific.  Those are the fundamentals of SEO for a small business.  We offer a variety of SEO solutions for businesses of every size.  From one time Web Page Optimization to Long Term SEO Management.  All our solutions are guaranteed to grow your business.