Happy new year! … Wait that was like a month ago.
What’s so special about Jan 1st?
On January 1st, I was going to make a blog/vlog for my business about all the things I’ve done in the last year and all the things I wanted to do in the upcoming year. And I did not do that.
Life got busy. The world can be kind of crazy sometimes. My clients needed my help. And I just didn’t get around to it. I feel bad about that.
I think we all do that. We all set goals on January 1st, and we don’t follow through with many of them. We feel really bad. But why is that? Why is January 1st so special? Why is it more special than February 1st or April 28th? Why do we feel so bad that we didn’t do something really big and special on January 1st? Why can’t we just do something really great today even if we failed last month?
Isn’t today a good day to try our best? Isn’t today a good day to serve our customers and our family and our church and try to make a difference?
Even though I’m like a month behind, I’m going to do that year-end blog/vlog right now.
A review of some 2021 web design projects
I actually made a goal last year to only do four or five websites. But I actually ended up doing like 12 websites. I had a hard time saying “no” to clients. But they turned out really good.
Marketing for an independent insurance agent
Craig Henley is an independent insurance agent in Ozark, Missouri. He’s actually part of a larger insurance agency. But he wanted to have his own brand. You see a lot of insurance agents and real estate agents doing this these days. They want to have their own brand and their own marketing strategies.
So I interviewed Craig, and we came up with a lot of great words to describe why he’s special and why you
should work with him. We also did some blog writing as well, and I’m helping him with the social media.
Premium website design for a high-end home designer
This company does really high-end, custom home design. So I spent a lot of time trying to make this website design look as nice as the homes they design. The owner of this company really pushed me to make something special. I also spent a lot of time getting to know his business getting to know his ideal client, so I could write words for the web pages to attract the right type of clients.
I’m really happy with how this turned out. It has a really unique style. In fact, every page has a different style, which is sort of unusual for me. I usually try to make all the pages a consistent style. But he wanted something really special and really unique. So I allowed myself to sort of break my own rules. Each page has its own little special touch.
E-commerce website design with product photography
I built an e-commerce website for a local lady who invented some pet mats for your dog or cat to lay on. This website can sell those products directly to customers online.
I did a lot of product photography for this one. So I went to a furniture store (I got their permission). We brought in a dog and the pet products. Then we took pictures of the dog in various areas: a living room environment and a bedroom environment.
We wanted to show off the quality of the products, and we’re trying to convey how good they are. I’m
also doing blogging and social media with this company.
Smaller, more affordable website designs for startups
I also did a number of small websites this year. One was for an electrician in Springfield, Missouri, who had never had a website
and never been on Google or other mapping programs.
He wanted to be online really quickly. So I worked with him quickly to make an easy, simple website. In fact, this website is made with one page. It’s a one-page design.
Website SEO markovers
Here are a couple of websites that I didn’t actually design myself. These are companies that came to me and said they already had a website, but they wanted a makeover on their website.
For example, a roofing company in Joplin, Missouri, already had a website and it looked nice. But there was a little confusion about what type of roofing they do. So I interviewed the business owner. I learned as much as I could about how his business operates. Then I wrote all new words for his website, so they could attract the right type of customer, in the right cities, to get the right types of projects.
Another business owner was in a similar situation. Her company already had a website, and it looked very nice. But her company had changed quite a bit since it was founded. It was originally founded to be a real estate staging company. And now she’s doing a lot more residential interior design. She’s also doing a lot of interior design for vacation rentals, which are very popular in the Branson, Missouri, area.
So I interviewed her, I learned all about her business, and I rewrote all the words on this website. I made all the pages reflect the type of work that she does.
This customer just wrote me the other day and said that she’s seen immediate results for the search engine optimization (SEO) work that I’ve done. And she’s really happy with it.
https://www.bransonupstaging.com
Reputation management service
Through my reputation management service, I work with companies (and I work with
their clients) to try to get companies more online reviews and better online reviews.
I want my clients to have more reviews on Google, and Facebook, and the Better Business Bureau, and all these other websites that they care about. I also want them to have a better average star rating than their
competitors. I want them to have more reviews and better reviews.
I take care of this for them so they don’t have to worry about it.
Search engine optimization (2 types)
There are two types of search engine optimization.
I’ve talked a little bit about already the first type, “on-page SEO.” It’s when I go in and improve the content of a website so that it performs better on search engines and potentially attract more customers.
There’s also something called “off-page SEO” where we get businesses listed on Google Maps, and Bing, and Yelp, and all these business directories on the internet. There are dozens of really good ones. There are actually hundreds or thousands of business directories in general.
I want to make sure they’re optimized on all these directories:
- They all listed on a large number of them
- The information is listed correctly
- It’s listed in a way that attracts the most customers
Looking forward to 2022
So that’s the kind of work I’ve done in the last year. I’m really going to be focusing very heavily on reputation management and search engine optimization in this coming year. So if you know anybody who needs these kinds of services, please let me know.
If you know anybody who needs a web design, you can let me know about that too. I’m happy to take on a few more web design clients.
In general, I just want to spend this year helping my clients, helping them improve their businesses, helping them serve their clients better.
And I’m going to try to do more videos and more blogs, to try to give out more free marketing advice. So even if you’re not my client, you can follow me on social media to learn more tips about how to improve your business so you can attract more clients.
For example, you can download this free PDF “8 Steps to Increase Exposure on Google.”
Have a good day. Have a good year.