John Raymond

I’ve been so busy lately but I wanted to pass along an update. I had a pretty productive weekend and am working on building a number of web sites for myself. They are all experiments in SEO. Here’s a list of them:

• http://www.couponland.org – formerly carlscoupondiscounts.com
• http://www.athensohiohotels.net
• http://www.progressivesflo.com
• http://www.wordpresshosting1.com
• Bowling Green Ohio Hotels

They are all in production so please don’t judge them too harshly. I’m showing them not only to you but also to google (so google will start indexing them). I’ll have more for you soon. Feel free to contact me with questions.

I worked with Search Engine Optimization professional Jennifer Gaglione to redesign her business web site – GMC Internet Marketing. My role on the project consisted of consulting and design. I made sure to build out the web site in a search engine friendly format. I also integrated a content management system so that Jennifer could update the web site at any time. The site also contains a blog with an RSS feed that will help her drive traffic to the web site.

How do I get to the top of google? It’s a hard question to answer. Before I got into doing search engine optimization, I did not realize how important it was. And as I’ve learned search engine optimization, I’ve come to realize that it’s really a science. I like to refer to getting your site on the front page of google as a stew. There are a whole lot of different elements to getting to the top. Here are a few basic things you can do to start the process:

1. A great starting point is to install Google Analytics on your website. This will show you the state of your website. You can see who is coming to your site and how they are getting there.
2. Look to see if your pages contain meta-tags – title, meta-tags and meta-descriptions. Some people discount the value of these things but they are important.
3. Evaluate the structure and setup of your website. If the majority of your website is in flash , google is not able to index it properly or a well as if it were all in html.
4. Brainstorm over what words you think people are trying to find your site with or that you would want to find your site with.

These few pointers are good starting steps towards getting to the top of google. Remember that search engine optimization is about bringing more traffic (ideally targeted traffic) toward your website from google.

This is a topic I’m passionate about. If you have any questions about the process, please contact me..

I’ve been working on a new side project. It’s a little entrepreneurial venture called http://www.carlscoupondiscounts.com. It’s not complete yet but it will be yet another experiment in search engine optimization. I will be an affiliate helping people find coupon codes and discounts. I also plan to put an extra spin on things by playing the company spokesperson “Carl.” I plan to do a series of video segments pushing products and placing them on all video websites. This will help with link building and driving traffic to the website. I’m also on twitter at http://www.twitter.com/coupondiscounts. The hardest part about it will be to find time to work on it!

Designing a web site for a attorney or law office can be a challenge. David Chernosky approached me in the Winter of 2008 and challenged me to create a Web site for him. David is a Lemon Attorney in Ohio and wanted start an interactive web site to generate online case leads. After evaluating several top lemon lawyer websites, I proposed this design which included several elements geared toward generating leads. The site was launched in late January of 2008 and I continue to do periodic maintenance and SEO work on the web site.

In the fall of 2004, I joined the Cleveland OU Alumni Association. At the time, the group was targeting young alumni in the age range of 22-35. At the time, their biggest problem was getting people to come to events.

I volunteered to create a internet marketing campaign for them. I redesigned their website to include a dynamic event calendar, a local email sign-up list, and included more information about membership. I then began to send out e-vites and html emails to the people who signed up for our events. Shortly after launching the website and sending out e-blasts event attendance went from 11-12 people overall to 50-60 people. Our email list grew by 200 in the first year and we were able to raise over 1500 dollars to put toward a scholarship fund for OU students. Prior to that the group had never raised any money. The image included in this post is an old page I designed for the site around 2005. Many of the additions to the website that I made are still in place today.

Because I now reside in Columbus, Ohio, I no longer participate in the Cleveland OU Alumni Association. You can visit their current website here: http://www.clevelandbobcats.com

This website design job involved design, html coding, and search engine optimization. The site, Waterford Crystal Repair, was designed for Marc Konys. The are one of a handful of companies endorsed by Waterford. I constructed, designed and implemented this website in the fall of 2008. Marc has raved about the ability to update and add content to the site on his own.

On my advice, he purchased this highly targeted domain name and it has paid off with a high conversion rate. The site is now on the first page of google for the phrase “waterford crystal repair”

Mark Konys, the owner of Bruening Glass Works, wanted to increase traffic to his website, be able to update his website through a content management system, and improve his search engine ranking. I recently relaunched the site with several tools that will help meet his goals.

Bruening Glass Works Website Redesign will help Mark improve his SEO.

Among the things I’ve added/changed, is a “recent project” blog which will help improve SEO. By restructuring the site in this format, Mark is already getting more responses via his contact form and his traffic and page views are up.

Visit Bruening Glass Works

I can help increase your traffic by optimizing your site for search engines. Shoot me and email or give me a call to find out how.