There are a lot of abbreviations thrown around about how to get your website noticed.  The two main things you will hear that you need are SEO and/or SEM. Sometimes these terms are used interchangeably.  But, they are not the same thing.

Here is an explanation of what they are:
 
SEO - Search Engine Optimization
Search Engine Optimization is the employment of techniques to get your website found on search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo...even Facebook) on the top of the first page of organic links.

What are organic links do you ask?  Using Google as an example, they are all the links that come up as results to a search query just under the paid Google Ads on the top of the page.
Ex: If you were a plumber in Lansing, MI and someone in your area needed to find a plumber, they would go to Google or Bing, type in "plumber Lansing, MI" or "fix broken pipe Lansing, MI" and you would want your website or business information to come up in the links that are provided by the search engine.

Not all search engines operate the same, having assistance from someone who understands the elements your website needs for each of the "heavy hitting" search engines will help your standing.

SEM - Search Engine Marketing or Online Marketing
Search Engine Marketing is paid advertising such as Google Ads, Facebook Ads, etc. OR campaigns to get attention or a buzz going about your business, which may have more to do with social networks (also search engines in their own right).

A lot of money can be thrown away on these kinds of ads.  Having someone who understands how search engines operate and determine what is a relevant result for a search, and how the average Joe tries to find information will save you money and time.  It also helps to know where to place these ads and what method of display is best for your audience.

Creating a buzz or following for your business takes creativity and knowing the current trends in the plugged in world. Social Networks are a good tool for this.

At MC Design & Services, LLC we will always recommend you pay close attention to your SEO standing.  We can help you decide whether dollars spent on SEM are necessary and how big that budget really needs to be.  From our experience we have seen clients benefit from our SEO service to the point that they no longer needed print or online ads.

Contact Us Today for a FREE Consultation! 

"Find Your Inner Goddess" by Jennifer Ettinger, Illustrated by Rebecca LeClaire

I am so honored to have been part of a long  journey with Jennifer Ettinger, my dear friend and client, illustrating and
helping to design her new book.  She has just released "Find Your Inner  Goddess" on Amazon.com today.

For those that order the book today they  get over $1500 in bonus offers from other women associated with Jennifer who  have seen first hand her message of self acceptance and transformation both inside and out!

I can tell you from working intimately with this book that it never became just the subject matter of the job, but had
an impact on me each time I opened it.

This book will tell you everything you want  and need to know about starting and maintaining a healthy lifestyle customized  for your body type!

So How Do You Spend $9.95 and Get $1500?

1. Buy a Kindle version of the book TODAY ONLY for $9.99 HERE.
2. Go HERE and view all the bonus offers you can take advantage of while you enter your Amazon Order #
   to get access to your bonuses.

Or, if you prefer you can buy a hard copy of the book in workbook style that you can write in for $24.95 HERE, still a great deal!

This Bonus Offer Expires at Midnight Tonight.

I really enjoyed illustrating this book, you will find illustrations of famous goddesses throughout time, outfits that fit your style and how-to demonstrations.

Don't have a big budget like the large corporations in your community, but still want to give this Holiday season?
Here are a couple of suggestions:

1.  Call your local elementary school and ask for coat sizes of children who need coats.
You can purchase a child's coat for just 20.00 at Target this year!  Click here for an example.
Maybe even tell the school you will match up to 5 coat donations, or whatever fits in your budget.  Get the giving rolling!

2.  Donate what you can to small business owners in third world countries.
Micro loan organizations help give people dignity, funds, and in Opportunity International's case, skills to start and sustain a small business.  I was privileged to visit with Opportunity International in Columbia this summer.  While there I met people who are now able to dream of things bigger then their day to day needs, something they had never experienced before!
See what it is all about and read micro loan recipient bio's here - http://www.opportunity.org/give.

*MC Design & Services, LLC does NOT recieve any money for suggesting the organizations or links in this post.

Do you want to connect your business connections to your facebook business page, but don't want to import your whole email contact list which includes personal contacts or organizations you may not want to contact on facebook?  Here is how you can do it from a spreadsheet.

1. Determine which emails you want to use, put in an excel document in one column.

• Name the column Email
  
• Name and save the document as a .csv file
  

2. Login to facebook

• Go to your Friends Icon on the top of the page, click on the Find Friends link
  
• Scroll down and click on Other Tools, Upload Contact File
  
• Click on the browse button and upload the .csv file you just saved
  
• Facebook will process your list and let you know how many on your list are on facebook
  
• You can then check which contacts you want to invite or choose to invite all of them by check the box invite all.
  
• Click on Invite Friends button
  

3. Invite Friends And Family To Facebook will come up with a list of contacts NOT on facebook - you can decide if you want to send a facebook invite to them or not. You will want to determine if these contacts would want that kind of email from you related to business.

4. If you don't want to send invites to the contacts NOT on facebook, click SKIP.

You are done!  Get ready for your facebook business page to be liked and recommended!

Join Our Mailing List! for more tips like this.

Here is a study on the effectiveness of Email Marketing.  MC Design & Services, LLC can support your use of email marketing and help brand your emails to match your website or logo.

Do you know what Google means?

If you don't I'm sure you will "google" that to find out.  Send me the answer in an email before July 10th and I will send the first 10 respondents $100.00 in FREE advertising with Google Adwords!  You can not already have an AdWords account to recieve the voucher.  This is a great way to test whether search engine marketing is right for your small business and worth the cost.  

Already have an AdWords account?  Send this offer to a friend and tell them to say you sent them and I will take $10.00 off your next invoice or service with MC Design & Services, LLC!

*$10.00 OFF good until 12/2011

** As always if you need help with setting up the google adwords account and creating a campaign, we can help and you can afford it! This offer is NOT subject to any paid service.

Search Engine Optimization is the employment of techniques to get your website found on search engines (google, bing, yahoo).
So how do you know if you need it?
Have you ever googled your business?
Do you come up on the first page by typing in your name and location?
If you do, congratulations, you have achieved the first and very easiest step.  Now how will someone find you if they do not know your name?  Try googling your services or products you offer and the area you serve (the towns that you do business in).
Does your website come up at all or even close to the first page?  If not, you want to consider getting help.

With our SEO service we consider all avenues that people search, not just search engines, but whatever is generating the most searches at the time.  We analyze your website to make sure there is nothing about your website that is hindering the search engines from reading it, or visitors from staying once they get there.
Our team uses many techniques to get your website's message and links out on the world wide web.  We will consult you on what you can do to improve the situation, you can choose to do it yourself or have us do it for you.
The best part is that we are extremely affordable and know how to get results on the budget that you choose.


*Ask how to get some of your money back from advertising vouchers.

I write this as a warning, as I have been plagued by viruses (well that is what they are called but they are really fake anti-virus trojans, otherwise known as scams!) in the last year.  And yes, I use a PC.  Every time I have been infected by looking at images on a search engine.
I have been in a continual battle of protection versus speed as I work at home on a less then new PC, which I have upgraded as much as I can.  Last week I was infected twice.  The only thing that brought my computer back to life was VIPRE RESCUE's deep scan.  Sunbelt Software offers a free deep scan of your computer as many times as you need it, and it will clean your computer of them more completely then any other application I have tried.  You can access it here.

Now that this has happened so many times, and Microsoft's own Security Essentials seems to fail miserably to catch them, I decided it was time to purchase Sunbelt's anti-virus tool-VIPRE AntiVirus.  They allow you to use it with full functionality for 30 days for FREE.  So far in my trial, it has caught and cleaned a few for me.  In my opinion, this one seems to be the best of all I have tried.

So how do you know if you have been infected by one of these highly-illegal, fake anti-viruses, or any virus for that matter.  If you are surfing along the world-wide web and your computer suddenly slows down for no reason you can see, you have probably just been infected.  The slow down may happen gradually, and that should be looked into also.
Fake anti-viruses will tell you, you have a severe infection and that the only thing that will clean it is itself, they will even make pop-up windows that look like windows of your security program.  I am willing to bet that the security system you bought is not going to recommend you buy another.  No one is that generous!  If you click on one of those po-up windows, forget it, you will not be able to go anywhere until you purchase what they are offering, or as I have found you can access an anit-virus program that works!

For more information check out ScamBusters.org:
www.scambusters.org/fakeantivirus.html

Take this quiz and watch this video to see what you know!
www.GetSeizureSmart.org