Richmond Media - Marketing - Advertising - Web Website Design, Content Management and e-commerce
Offices in Richmond and Williamsburg, VA
Call 757-532-7176
Backup Your New Computer
Apple Time Machine
So you got a brand new computer for Christmas! So how to you protect that computer’s data, once you’ve installed apps, added videos and pictures, and everything else you put on your computer? Continue reading
A Client That Did Things Right
Every web design company has clients that insist on doing things wrong. They decide to go with a design they like that looks like something from 1998. They can’t seem to understand that other people use different monitor resolutions. They “don’t want to be bothered” with receiving contact forms. But here I will talk about a Richmond Media client that did almost everything right. Continue reading
Do You Need Content Management?
So you own a small business. Your website is five years old, and it looks every day of it. You find web design companies online telling you they can build you a great website for $299. Or $499. Or $599. But you’ve had a few friends, and maybe a web design company or two tell you about content management websites. Continue reading
Ten Websites That I Love
I do a LOT of research when I’m putting a new site together. I look at the top sites in the industry (it’s amazing how often an industry doesn’t HAVE a “top site”…) so I can design the new site for Richmond Media that fits in well with the standards of that industry. I usually study the design against modern design trends, look at the analytics and other boring stuff. So I decided to create a list of sites that I like that has nothing at all to do with SEO, modern design practice, or anything like that. These are websites that I think look cool, nothing more. And now, in no particular order… Continue reading
The Rise of WordPress
(and the Fall of Everybody Else)
It’s been a long, strange trip since 1997, starting out with Front Page for Mac (ugh…), several versions of Adobe Go Live, then Dreamweaver once Go Live was relegated to the trash pile. Then a few years ago, Richmond Media got the opportunity to do some corporate work. Someone recommended the Joomla content management system. Since I was developing a website for an original music webcast I bought a Rocket Theme and was able to cobble something together for it (although it’s been inactive for a few years, it’s still live, here. You can tell how old it is by the MySpace links). It was a decent experience, so I got into Joomla, and with a LOT of learning, we were able to start selling CMS sites. Continue reading
The End of Web Design
It’s been a crazy decade for web design! Ten years ago we were on dialup and I was the King of Adobe Go Live. I always try to keep up with design trends, often to the detriment of personal relationships. In 2005 I was on a vacation in the Outer Banks with my girlfriend and some other people. They’d go to the beach and I would stay in the condo with my ragged laptop plugged into the phone jack until late afternoon. Then I’d hit the beach for a few beers and a book. Admittedly not the most romantic way to spend a vacation, thank God my girlfriend is pretty understanding.
I couldn’t do any real web design there, so I looked at other sites for inspiration. I was amazed to see that every new website I saw had the logo in the upper left hand of the page. And a lot of them didn’t really have header images, the header was almost tiny! It was the beginning of that period where blogs began to influence web design. Being the keen researcher I thought I was, the next ten websites I created with Richmond Media had… logo at the top left and no header graphics… And the beginning of the end of real web design. Continue reading
How to improve your Google ranking
If you could spend an hour or two and improve traffic to your website, would that be worthwhile?· We want all of our clients to have more success in getting traffic to their websites. This document will let you know what YOU can do to bring more people to your website.Get more links to your website
Links back to your website are probably the most important thing Google uses to determine that you have a relevant site. This is something that you can do yourself. Here’s how:· Continue reading
Local SEO in the Real World
We are what you would probably call on the upper end of budget small business web design companies in our area. Most of our sites are under $10,000, and although we have a few national websites and several regional sites, most of our business is local, in the eastern/central Virginia area. We’ve been around for eight years, are on Google’s first page in two markets, have well over 100 websites and 80 active clients, and generally know what we’re doing.
Lately some clients have been forwarding SEO solicitations they have received to us, promising untold riches of hits, Google stardom and other inducements, all at the cost of between $29 and $49 per month. So I thought I should look into this, and see what a local business (that doesn’t sell products online) needs from Google and search engines in general. Here is what I have found: Continue reading
Google Yourself!
We charge up to thousands of dollars to give websites the tools they need to get good rankings, but many of those things can be accomplished by a business owner with a little time to work on it. Since business websites are more important as time goes on, if you don’t want to pay for your hits, here are some things you can do yourself to improve your Google rankings.
Googling yourself is the easiest and probably the best way for a “layman” to make a difference in his web stats. I’ll use Besnier Financial as an example. They are an existing, real client of ours that has not had the time to do this, so you will see how it can be done. The company President, Dick Besnier, was a wrestling coach at William & Mary, so he has a bit of a head start as far as the internet goes, but you will see that without some work, that head start is wasted as far as his company is concerned. Continue reading
Why Is SEO Important?
SEO is important because there is no use having a business website if no on goes there. Web companies that sell template or Flash websites are usually lacking in SEO implementation. Most competitors in our price range do not have the expertise to get good Google ranking for their websites.
WHAT HELPS GOOGLE “SEE” A WEBSITE?
There are several things that Google loves to see, and a few things that will help get a good Google listing regardless of a website’s flaws. Continue reading