1. Do not Spam websites with meaningless keywords in the content.
2. If your website is displaying Ads on the top of the page, make sure they are accompanied with useful content.
3. Improve your social presence.
4. Work to increase time spent by users on the website and reduce bounce rate.
5. Incorporate a blog on the website and update it weekly. It would be beneficial if you have your latest posts linked on the home page.
6. Enrich your content with videos and pictures.
7. Submit your website to Webmaster Central and notice if there are any issues being reported by Google. If any, eliminate them.

There are no suggestions we haven’t been focused on already, but proved some clarification and definitely substantiate our strategy.

Company:

Description:

Ragin Cajun, a great Houston area cajun restuarant chain owned and operated by the Mandola family, approached Nelson & Co. (N&C) to construct a new website using the WordPress CMS system. This site required many standard features seen in other restaurant sites, but also needed to be two websites in one. Their catering business has taken off over the past few years and they chose to use a landing page that would feed visitors into one of two websites, the Ragin Cajun Restaurant or the Ragin Cajun Catering site. They have new properties coming online as well, including a very nice bar located next to the “Original” Ragin Cajun location, so this platform would allow them to expand as needed. Some of the site features include:

• Image transitions on the home page
• Logo and link presentation for their various properties and products
• Connections to their Craw Club and Online Ordering
• Ability to present special promotions, events and news on the home page
• Search engine optimization tools
• News & blogging features such as search, archive and rss feed
• Connections to Facebook and Twitter
• Breakdown of each store location with individualized expanding menus

N&C is proud to present this beautifully designed site with superb functionality, all in a complete CMS managed maintenance capabilities. Please view the new site at http://www.ragin-cajun.com!

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Nelson & Co. is a Sugar Land, Texas based graphic design firm serving the Greater Houston area with turn-key print and web design projects coupled with smart web marketing practices since 2002 and is proud to be listed in the Houston Business Journal’s Book of Lists as a Top 25 Graphic Design Firm serving corporate, mid-sized and even start-up businesses alike with powerful branding and marketing tools. For more information on Nelson & Co. visit www.nelsonandco.net or contact us at (832) 532-7220

Company:

Description:

Griffin Communications, an aerospace industry focused advertising firm and long-time partner to Nelson & Co. (N&C), recently approached us with a challenge to build their new site within the WordPress CMS system and do so in record time. Their site would require:

• Image transitions on the home page
• Some slight Parallax design functionality
• Search engine optimization tools
• News & blogging features such as search, archive and rss feed
• Connections to Facebook and Twitter
• Three custom forms
• Various other custom enhancements

N&C was able to accomplish all of the above with a beautifully design site, superb functionality and complete CMS managed maintenance capabilities. Please view the new site at http://www.griffincommgroup.com!

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Nelson & Co. is a Sugar Land, Texas based graphic design firm serving the Greater Houston area with turn-key print and web design projects coupled with smart web marketing practices since 2002 and is proud to be listed in the Houston Business Journal’s Book of Lists as a Top 25 Graphic Design Firm serving corporate, mid-sized and even start-up businesses alike with powerful branding and marketing tools. For more information on Nelson & Co. visit www.nelsonandco.net or contact us at (832) 532-7220

We’ve heard complaints from users that if they click on a result and it’s difficult to find the actual content, they aren’t happy with the experience. Rather than scrolling down the page past a slew of ads, users want to see content right away. So sites that don’t have much content “above-the-fold” can be affected by this change. If you click on a website and the part of the website you see first either doesn’t have a lot of visible content above-the-fold or dedicates a large fraction of the site’s initial screen real estate to ads, that’s not a very good user experience. Such sites may not rank as highly going forward.

One thing we have been working with clients on this past year is breaking large pages down into relevant chunks of information so that the user doesn’t have to scroll down to find it. I believe you will see more sites migrating in this direction as a result of this Google initiative.

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Nelson & Co. is a Sugar Land, Texas based graphic design firm serving the Greater Houston area with turn-key print and web design projects coupled with smart web marketing practices since 2002 and is proud to be listed in the Houston Business Journal’s Book of Lists as a Top 25 Graphic Design Firm serving corporate, mid-sized and even start-up businesses alike with powerful branding and marketing tools. For more information on Nelson & Co. visit www.nelsonandco.net or contact us at (713) 960-1511.

Nelson & Co. • 2277 Plaza Dr. #250 • Sugar Land, Texas 77479 • 713.960.1511

The Shell Houston Open is a PGA tournament put on by the Houston Golf Association and held every spring on the north side of Houston. It brings attention to Houston each year with the influx of media, PGA pros like Phil Mickelson, Fred Couples, VJay Singh, and tens of thousands of fans. Some people do not realize this, but the Shel Houston Open (SHO) is actually a non-profit with numerous Houston area children’s charities.

Nelson & Co. (N&C) has been involved with this event for about seven years now providing a host of services such as web design, content management, web development consulting, event photography, POS material design and distribution (with Rhino Marketing), and brochure/marketing material design and production. This year was a big year for us in that we had the opportunity to help the event with a majority of their print design work. It all started with their desire to have a new look this year. N&C did not conceptualize the first piece that dictated the new branding, however we have been instrumental in carrying the new look-and-feel forward into all of the print pieces.

Pieces included the 2011 HGA Year in Review, a 24-page recap of 2011, slide graphics for use in commercial video, Venue flyers promoting the rent properties available to corporate sponsors, a 16-page Pricing Guide for advertising, sponsorship and client entertainment opportunities, and a new look-and-feel for their website which included a new Mega-Menu system.

The shellhoustonopen.com website is very content rich and there has always been a challenge when trying to manage that content in a way that allows visitors to navigate through the site and find the information they are seeking. In addition to tying in with the new look, the home page now has a news-oriented feel, less vertical scrolling and the Mega-Menu provides additional real estate for promotional banners and content related to the sections being navigated. The site also received a “social” update with YouTube, Facebook and Twitter links as well as RSS fed content for subscribing to news feeds and pushing the content out to various pages in the site, and news agencies.

Nelson & Co. offices in Sugar Land, TX and the town is buzzing about the beautiful new baseball stadium being built nearby. Sugar Land was fortunate enough to land a new minor league baseball team, The Sugar Land Skeeters. Nelson & Co. was equally fortunate in landing print design work for the team including magazine ads and a folding pocket schedule. It was a great project we enjoyed thoroughly. The largest challenge was packing an entire season’s schedule into various magazine ad dimensions along with promotional event and ticket information. If you live in the area, buy some tickets and come out to the ballpark. Its going to be exciting! For more information on th Sugar Land Skeeters, visit their website, http://www.sugarlandskeeters.com/index.cfm.

- Mark Wallis, Principle – Wallis Family Foundation

- Dominic Mandola, Owner – Ragin Cajun Restaurants

- Chris Nelson, President – Los Guys Riding Club

The site was built on a WordPress platform and modified so plugins remained consistent with design parameters. Features include the back-end management system, participation links, upcoming events, news feeds, epilepsy facts, photos, a contact form and social links . Check out the site and let us know what you think of it!

http://www.wallisfamilyfoundation.org

The problem occurs, when both sides of the story aren’t presented. How does one respond to such claims in a public forum like the internet? One can’t make an article go away or leave the search engines, and it remains there for everyone to see whenever a search is made. Even the U.S. court system is such that everyone is allowed an attorney and a fair trial, right? But, this kind of negative information doesn’t happen In a court where both sides present their case fairly. They happen in a public forum.

This exact situation happened to  one of my clients. Someone had written a slanderous review, and did so in a very public way; on a website that claimed to be working for public benefit and full disclosure. In reality, the client claims that this company, when approached to remove it, was offered a solution that would cost in the neighborhood of $10,000! This seemed more like blackmail to me.

Upon research, I came to the conclusion that the solution was to fight fire with fire. The publicity spread throughout the internet so easily because the websites carrying the information were well optimized for the search engines that crawled them.

Outside of possible legal actions, the solution for such a situation is to enact a comprehensive search engine optimization, web marketing and PR campaign.

Basically, companies, and individuals at times, will find that if they don’t proactively publicize the good things they do and their business successes, they may find themselves looking at search engine results that have negative publicity. Let’s face it; we’re all human and things are going to go awry. People aren’t always going to be satisfied with the actions of individuals, companies, products and services.

Not long after this client’s incident, another client approached me with a request to help them enact a plan to be proactive about negative press. Today, I still think very highly of this organization for having the foresight to seek council and prepare for such unknowns.

My third encounter with the phrase “online reputation management” came just recently and was related to an individual this time. The increasing frequency of such inquires encouraged me to write this piece and recommend to my readers that they consider this factor as an additional benefit to the many they receive through search engine optimization and web marketing. Be proactive about your company in both Marketing and PR. Participate in blogs and forums that relate to you, your business and its products or services. If you don’t have the time or desire to do so, hire a professional webmarketing and PR company to do it for you. It takes time to establish your credibility in these public forums. If you don’t speak up, someone else just might and the damage will be done. Just consider that a reactive response is never as good as a proactive one.