CGR Creative Offering Innovative Marketing Solutions As A Leading Charlotte Marketing Company

Nestled in the historic South End, CGR Creative is quickly becoming the preferred Charlotte marketing company for SEO, graphic design, and web development.  Led by President and COO, Julio Colemenares, and CCO, Jason Ramsey, CGR Creative has been in business for over a decade, bringing lasting marketing concepts to the city’s most elite organizations.  The company consists of a core team of marketing professionals with a variety of specialties, which allows their strategies to cross all visibility spectrums, from Branding to PR.

The Charlotte marketing company takes great pride in not only their concepts, but also their culture.  The diverse group of individuals, handpicked from a variety of industries, provides a dynamic powerhouse of innovative, and above all, applicable ideas.  Sure, many companies can come up with off-the-wall marketing techniques, applying the spaghetti technique for implementation (throw it to the wall and pray that it sticks), but CGR believes that the true value of an idea lies in the creative implementation.  

Utilizing both “old-school” and “new-school” techniques, CGR Creative has formed the perfect mix of innovation, and implementation the grasp any modern audience.  Accepting any challenge, and rejecting all impossibility, the Charlotte marketing company has tackled an array of extraordinary concepts, bringing their clients to the forefront of the consumer mindset.  From successful rebranding, to strategic media buys and online optimization techniques, CGR Creative has been a valuable partner for all of the organizations it represents.

For more information regarding CGR Creative, contact the Charlotte marketing company today, by visiting their website, or calling one of their business development representatives today at (704) 334-3322. 

Tech Dependence

Last week I tried to bring up an important email on my phone only to find that I couldn’t log into my email. My G-mail account had been hacked recently, forcing me to change my password quickly and without putting much thought into it. I had been using my old password for almost nine years now, a terrible habit, but I had grown comfortable with its familiarity. Now I stood outside my meeting, unable to access this important email, because I was unable to remember my new password.

Sure, I had written it down, but the sticky note on the bottom of my desk was no good to me, as I stood outside the conference, furiously typing in possible combinations of numbers and letters in a desperate attempt to break into my own account. I ended up going into the meeting without the numbers I wanted off my phone, and surprisingly enough the world didn’t end. The situation did get me thinking, however, about how dependent I had become on my computer and phone remembering things for me. I can’t even imagine the kind of wreck I would be if I were to lose my phone or computer and the data on them for good.

As the conveniences of modern technology have grown, my powers as a mental storage machine have begun to regress. Back in middle school, I had many phone numbers of friends and family memorized. Now I sometimes stumble when reciting my own phone number. Why waste brainpower remembering anything these days? Our cellphones save hundreds of contacts and our computers can automatically fill out our log-ins and passwords for us. This system of entering all my information at once and then forgetting about it has been very convenient up until now.

Last week's email debacle opened my eyes to just how easy it would be for me to lose years of collected data. With all the advancements in collecting, storing, and sharing information, how much of this data is going into our long-term memory and not just a bookmark folder on our desktop?

For me, it appears that most of what I think I know is reliant on a fully functioning phone or computer. Often, I find myself saving online news articles to read at a later date, only to delete them the next time I clean out my bookmark folder, the articles still unread. Technology has made it so easy to find and store information that I fear we spend more time searching than we do absorbing what we find.

Everyday we are bombarded with emails, text messages, conversations, commercials, television shows, new acquaintances, and news stories. All this information is coming at us in a constant torrent throughout the day, and we are expected to take it all, process it, store what we find important, and quickly move on to the next item of business. We have become so greedy by the stimulation of new information that we now even create and horde daily happenings on sites like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest. It is no wonder I can’t remember a password I made up with only a day ago; it is buried under a pile of never ending information. I have grown too accustomed to having all this information and technology saved for me, data that I can lose with a simple hard drive crash or stolen phone. How easy it would be for me to lose all my music, emails, contacts, bookmarks, and passwords in an instant. Yes, I have everything saved on a back up drive, and cloud sharing systems are making this less of an issue, but just the thought of all the reliance I have put into technology is a little frightening. My inability to access my email, it seems, has shaken me awake from this digital dream, opened my eyes to just how much I could lose if something happened to my computer or phone.

Our ability to find and share information will only continue to improve in the years to come. Unfortunately, the unaltered human system cannot hope to contain all the data that we are able to access. It's important for us to develop ways to filter the constant stream of garbage that is thrown at us each and every day, storing it not only in our electronic devices, but also in our memory. I am not saying down with the machines, throw down your web-enabled devices, and go back to living in the woods; I just think it is a good idea for us all to slow down once in a while from our constant hording of information and actually absorb some knowledge.

By: Embra King

Creative Marketing is Effective Marketing

I recall reading an article about word-of-mouth marketing used in California. Movie studios were hiring attractive people and models to stand in public areas and crowds and discuss movies and how much they liked them. This marketing strategy works on many levels. For the point of this article it is both creative and effective because it is a fresh approach to breaking down the barriers of immunity to marketing that customers inherently have.

This form of marketing uses attractive people, as others will better value their opinion by wanting to associate with them as successful looking people. It is just a fact that the messages of good-looking people or people with power are more appealing and likely to take root. This was just a small aspect of the approach but worth mentioning.

The true power of this approach is what I am writing about here and the most effective part of this approach. By using this creative undercover marketing approach and having the message seem unintentional, the message takes deeper root. When you think the idea to listen to their conversation was yours, you better value the message. You may even find yourself repeating the message. You may later say to a friend, “I heard that movie was cool”, or “I heard the ending was amazing”. There is a good chance you don’t even mention or recall where you heard this fact, but you did. If this had been a radio ad or web ad, you would never repeat it. You just made this viral because you trusted the source. You trusted the source because you thought it to be a candid and honest conversation.

Would you have thought of this type of approach or calculated how its effect could go viral, due to the source being trusted over traditional advertising methods? All this leads back to why you need a creative and inventive approach to marketing. Working for CGR Creative, I have been exposed to many professionals with diverse backgrounds and real hands-on experience in trying what works and learning what doesn’t on our own time. You can be sure that you will be presented with ideas and approaches you would never have thought of. The marketing ideas you are handed will be tested and have a plan as to why they will outperform the traditional methods your competition is using.

My personal background is in SEO and online marketing. I didn’t attend a seminar or a 2 day course, I spent 9 years building websites for affiliate programs, ranking sites that depended on ranking to make an income stream. I spent 9 years needing to be successful to eat and pay the bills. I was constantly under fire to produce creative approaches to selling traditional products.

Now working with the staff at CGR with award winning graphic designers and community leaders in social and business circles, I am part of a team of like-minded, outside-the-box producers. CGR is a design team focusing on many fields and many different cultural target consumers. CGR's experience with their customers has led to one-of-a-kind creative marketing approaches for each and every project we undertake. A client needs a new approach to their marketing to accompany the traditional methods they expect. Use our graphic, print, media, and online approaches but, at the same time, let us bring your social and online PR presence up to modern standards with ideas your competition has never thought of.

Exact Match Domain is King?

So any SEO worth their paycheck knows that exact match domains are a big part of the SEO game and the top search results, but what exactly is the science behind that?

If Google has the advertised 200 factors being considered when coming up with 100% of the final figure that determines the order in the SERPS, how much of that is exact matching a domain?

An exact match domain is basically the domain name for your exact search.

If you are a customer searching for the finest Charlotte web design company, you may type in “Charlotte web design”. This is a high volume, high competition and high skill level search result. You will find here companies making a living putting good, usable content. But, as in most searches, you will also find the guy who used the incredible skill of “buying the name first”.

Why would this be such a heavily weighted factor in Google’s quest for the most relevant and fresh quality content?

Google beats us over the head with their message of “content is king” and telling us to “write good usable content for you customers not for search engines". Google then goes out spidering sites and gives perhaps 10%? 20% consideration to the guy with the domain name purchased fastest?

Remember 20 years ago when anyone that was selling car insurance could easily be found by customers under their OTHER name “AAAAAInsurance”?

SEO of 20 years ago consisted of putting a lot of AAAA’s before you company name to appear first in the phone book. The phone book had an algorithm of exactly one factor, Alphabetical.

Now 2 decades later we have the world’s most advanced search technology yet it still seems to decide contextual relevance by the name you put on it. If I write “War and Peace” on the front of a phone book does that make it an award winning novel?
Todd Kron

Online PR Company Approach

So what do you mean when you say online PR?

Had the pleasure of meeting one of new clients last night at the 2012 Vision Award in Charlotte put on by the Center City Partners, and the title above is a question I got.

What exactly is online public relations and what do you do for me?

If you know me you know I absolutely love SEO, Marketing, selling online and watching SERPS and the trends online. I am very analytical and would really do this for free or on my day off.

I answered this with a lot of overlap from Defensive SEO and strong dash of social media.

“Public relations” is defined as the professional maintenance of a favorable public image by an organization or a famous person. PR is the state of the relationship between the public and a company or other organization or a famous person.

Online we must often be reactive in a practice sort of way. We do not always get to “wag the dog” when dealing with the world of searchable content. Very often a customer will search for what they want when they want to. In other forms of PR and marketing people like me take pride in telling people what they want and doing it in a way where they don’t know why they wanted it.

Does anyone really remember what was so great about Cabbage Patch kids or Teddy Ruxpin?

Now we can track customers and searchers to within a micrometer of what they are thinking and this is almost as good as telling them what they want. With Google analytics and other social media tracking tools like Pagelever allow us to know what works and doesn’t work in real time.

Still in this situation we don’t know when the trend will change until it does. The solution to this is often preparing ahead of time with defensive SEO, a tsunami of online press and covering every page a person may find in conjunction with a clients name.

We want to do all of the basic things like create a great Facebook, Twitter, Pintrest, Linkedin presence of course. We want to make all of those pages tempting to join with motivational calls to action for any visitor. Our thinking here is that when we do all this work to get a searcher to your page we don’t want them leaving empty handed.

I want your social media presence to be like the candy in the checkout aisle. Who can say no to “free newsletter, EBooks and updates only takes one click on my LIKE BUTTON?”

Not really PR, but the residual PR you get from having an active relationship with thousands of fans and followers is he most effective part. When someone sees you r message on your wall it means only so much, but when they se your message on their best friends wall who is your follower….means much more.

Searchers are not on Facebook searching though; they are on Google, Bing or Yahoo. And when they enter you name what do they see? The searchers can often end a search for your service on just the snippets Google provides. If I search for CGR Creative where I work as Online Marketing Director I see nothing but the great things we do for our community. I see Press releases covering our activity in the community and I see rave reviews from valued clients past.

In a past article I point out how over 80% of searchers do not go past page one in their searches, but that doesn’t apply to reputation defense when I do it.

If I am searching for a web design firm in Charlotte I likely won’t go past page one if I am a casual searcher. But now I have picked CGR for example and am considering the phone call tomorrow to them. My next step is to search them specifically and in this scenario most searchers will go 2,3 or 4 pages deep. Searchers curious about your business reputation are not looking for top 10 or the Google chosen “best”, they are looking for the bad news. Searchers looking for bad news tend to go much deeper into the results.

When’s the last time you search some old friend or enemy just for fun? How many pages deep did you go? Enough said.

Now go search CGR Creative Charlotte and go back to page 4, this is what I can do for clients.

We make sure you have a good reputation online which gets you a much higher conversion rate on raw leads who are kicking tires online. You have spent so much time building your name up with positive public relations; one single bad piece of news that is accessible to the world on Google 24/7 will lose all that faith in your next perspective client.

We build content and press for you through 40+ Press websites, cover all review websites including industry specific ones and local search results, respond to anything negative and work to minimize or remove it. We will make sure you perspective clients hear nothing but positive things and build faith in your business that they will turn around and pass on to their friend with confidence. Word of mouth and what people see what their own eyes is very effective in selling your brand long term.

Todd Kron
Online Marketing Director
CGR Creative Design - Charlotte, NC

Types of SEO Agencies and Approaches

Had an interesting discussion today with Jason Ramsey of CGR over lunch. We were discussing a long list of experienced Charlotte SEO ’s we have come into contact, with a few varying philosophies of how SEO for your website gets done. I am the Online Marketing Director for CGR Creative in Charlotte with a decade of experience in SEO, affiliate marketing, and Adwords PPC management and have met many SEO's and their company's models as well.

We were not coming to any conclusion about what is right or wrong for everyone. Clearly every project has different demands and ratios of on-page and off-page needs, depending on where it is in the SEO life-cycle, so no right or wrong fits all. We did agree the situation of being a complete marketing firm and design agency with it's own SEO and PR team provides unmatched flexibility to the clients of CGR.

For those starting at square one on this article, SEO or Search Engine Optimization is the art or skill of designing, structuring, and interlinking a website on the web so that it best represents the keywords you covet in the eyes of search engines. An easier way to say this same thing is that SEO is everything that goes behind making your company show up first in Google searches (no offense Y and B).

Basically, Google has about 200 factors they observe when judging which sites to rank first and establishing the order of results. This is beyond important to businesses that exist from web traffic because it decides who grows and excels and who goes out of business.

So, with the 101 stuff out of the way, the discussion was about the best way for a company to approach this need in business. If you are at the point of knowing what it is, why it is important, and choosing how to go forward, here are a few observations from two experienced experts in Search Marketing and Web design respectively.

An In-House SEO Position refers to a company hiring a skilled internet marketer to work from their office with the single goal of working on their behalf. This type of SEO position is considered by many to be the “holy grail” of SEO jobs from the search marketer’s position. This type is very appealing to experienced, independent SEOs like me. My experience being from many affiliate programs and generating traffic for income or referral income means a lot of changing markets. This is a great way to learn every niche and all things that work but the comfort of a single focus and single project is appealing to many SEO’s. The in-house jobs are often the best pay and benefits as well since the company covets your skills as the only person tasked with a lot of jobs related to the website.

When I say Agency SEO, I mean an SEO who is also you web designer. This sounds like a bad idea to those who know SEO, but there are more coming. 

Any SEO’s worth their weight know that a person who does web design then sells you SEO as a way to get residual income and an afterthought may not be the best choice, but that’s not the person I refer to here. In agency, I mean the design agency that has an in-house SEO staff. This is what I would see as an ideal situation for both the SEO who is job-seeking and ideal for the clients and web designers as well. Here you get the smaller number of clients, which the SEO likes; you also get the chance for more complete SEO.

An in-house SEO has the advantage of working directly with designers which makes it possible to be part of the site, structure, and construction process. A large part of the battle later on will be the way you decide to map out a site, the folder structure, and the URL structure. An in-house with the agency SEO works alongside the designers. This situation makes on-site changes, pre-design brainstorming, and creative updates or changes much easier to implement.

The last type of SEO is what I have heard referred to as “the grinder”. The pure SEO agency is often the lowest paying and highest volume workplace for the SEO looking for work. This situation generally has about 6-8 project managers perhaps, based off the Charlotte SEO grinder agency I am thinking of. Each of these account managers may have 8-10 accounts they are responsible for and doing SEO is all they do. This will encompass PPC, social, and both on and off page work. Now, let’s look at the problems with working with a pure SEO agency as opposed to a design firm that has its own SEO department, like CGR Creative. 

#1 problem with SEO only companies : Competing clients

Bet you didn’t know there are SEO agencies that only do a single field of SEO? Check out Surgeons Adviser. This is a Miami area SEO firm that does SEO only for surgeons and plastic surgeons. Now if you read through their client list, you will see overlapping areas of coverage. Also, a Charlotte Plastic surgeon of worth, like Dr. Hunsted, draws in clients from 2000 miles around. If your SEO agency has clients in the same field as you (which they do), then how can they be doing the absolute best on both of your behalf? This also happens a lot with Real Estate specialists in SEO. Real estate does require a skilled SEO with real estate experience, as it means a lot of smart IDX Integration. Perhaps David Kyle in Charlotte for that kind of specific background. But if you choose an industry specific SEO agency, ask to see their client list and decide for yourself if you are comfortable with the amount or lack of overlapping markets.

#2 problem with SEO only companies : No access to the original design of the site

I covered this above when pointing out the strengths of choosing a firm like CGR Creative that has a department for SEO and is a web design agency first. If you bring a site that is complete to a SEO only agency there will be limitations to what on page SEO they can perform.

Now there are people who will deny this and say they have plenty of design experience to implement any changes they may need. This assertion is generally true, but they also work on hours per month schedules and the changes they make will come out of your time. Also, no matter what kind of remodeling you do there are always limitations to what can be change after the fact.

#3 problem with SEO only companies: Lack of desire to build more

Now here is another up for opinion. An SEO only may also be thinking SEO only. Part of SEO is growing the presence and not just streamlining the presence you already have. A firm that has a design relationship with you has the ability to pitch new site ideas and new websites you may want to build to compliment what you have.

If you have an informative website that isn’t designed with clear call to actions or to convert leads well, you may need a separate one with that separate goal in mind.

A design agency that has daily conferences with the SEO department like we do at CGR has a place where one person can dream up what is best in theory and one department that can put that plan in action from scratch.

All your eggs in one basket is finally good advice when you need to make sure the eggs are done correctly from start to finish. Changing who is handling the development of your online strategy midstream is not worth the risk. CGR has attacked this problem by offering a full service web design and marketing agency with it’s own in house department dedicated solely to SEO and internet marketing like social media management and PPC.

Todd Kron

Online Marketing Director

CGR Creative, LLC

Site Structure Must Be Step One

I have seen many sites lately that lack direction. Websites that are not built with proper on-page SEO generally are the king of mediocre. In this I mean the sites have a lot of information and content but lack a format that breaks it into topical pages and sections.

These sites generally are established businesses with sites that possess a good amount of link juice and natural reputation in Google’s eyes, but at the same time haven’t given Google what it needs on each page to rank top 10. You can count on good content and good links to your site to get you to the top, or you can make the changes to maximize that chance. It’s just common sense that if you have a person search “What’s new in blue widgets?”, even the #1 blue widget site online may be at page 3 if 20 other sites have addressed this topic specifically.

So you are selling Blue Widgets in Atlanta.

·Are you writing about them on every page? (Too many?)

·Did you take your top 10 keyword list and make sure each one has a page specifically addressing it?

·Did you do the obvious, like make sure your heading and title tags line up with each page’s intended keyword?

·Did you pick a target page to represent each variation of  keyword specifically?

·Does your homepage identify your target regions?

·Did you include other commonly searched usages, like “How much are blue widgets"?

·Did you include comparison phrasings, like “Why Blue Widgets are better than Red Widgets”?

·Did you include pages to target your competitions customer base, (Blue Widgets Jacksonville?) without diluting your own website’s region?

·Did you build a social following and social footprint for your website with RSS feeds and account?

·Did you make sure to section your site off by region you serve so you can build links to each section with the proper city name keywords?

·Did you make sure to move your best converting keywords to the homepage where they have the most juice?

·Did you eliminate links that have useless terms in the ALT tags or anchor text, like “click here” and “learn more”?

·Did you eliminate repetitive sidebar content, like feeds and welcome messages that appear on every page and reduce the originality of every page?

·Did you utilize a Q/A section so you can rank on page one for people typing product questions?

If you don’t have all of these thoughts in mind when you first lay your site out, you may be playing from behind for the next 10 years to the guys who did.

This list is about half complete of the checklist a site designed by CGR Creative will keep in mind for your project. If a single sale pays our cost as Charlotte SEO’s for your business, and you are confident you can convert the leads you receive from being on page one. This is a no-brainer to pursue for your business.

Todd Kron
Online Marketing Director
CGR Creative

Charlotte Defensive Search Marketing

What is Defensive Search marketing?

Defensive SEO is the process of filling the top 20 spots for your name with positive items about your business and you mission towards your clients. This process includes:

·       Producing public pages highlighting a professionals skill set, contributions, what their philosophy is and anything else we can create that presents and highlights positive things.

·       We continue to flood their name with these items to occupy as many top 10-20 spots as possible.

·       We create pages, blogs, Blogspot, Wordpress Free blogs, Tumblr accounts, guest books and anything online to create as many results with positive references as possible. This keeps anything negative from getting an easy ride to page 1 and becoming damaging.

·       We also monitor and add review sites and local search reviews if there is any reason to. By maintaining high reviews on all review sites we protect the star rating of your business as it shows in the form of bright yellow stars next to your name in searches every day.

What happens when someone gets bad press to land on page 1 of google?

·       We would provide or repost the good reviews to drive it down the page and always keep ALL you review sites at 4+ stars.

·       We would seek out other review sites, large Q/A sites like Yahoo Answers or use public forums like craigslist or city-data to write about your company and get your name above them to drive them off page #1. With about 86% of users choosing to click on page one of Google and this negative publicity will not damage you livelihood.

·       Contact the website to get it removed.

·       Comment beneath it in response to show good customer service and explain the view of the company.

What makes this so valuable to a local business?

You are currently working hard to build your rank. Search positioning gets all of the publicity and is the goal of any business that is online. You need to also pay attention to what to do when they do find you. Any established business or business that has long-term plans and goals needs to understand that a lot of their business will not see their website first.

With the growing numbers of review sites, public forums, and rising blog ownership the chances that you won’t get to state your case to clients is going up as well. We all know the sayings about first impressions, and this is how you control all sources of those first impressions. A good plan means accounting for all sources of clientele to your business. You need to control the top 10 spots for your name and your business reputation at all times. **86% of all searches end on page one of Google, so to control those spots for your name and livelihood is imperative. 

Being proactive is the only way to be sure that you get to decide how you are seen by online searchers and shoppers; it is as important where you are located in searches to decide what they read when they do find you.

And what they don’t read when you are busy doing your job.

** http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2049695/Top-Google-Result-Gets-36.4-of-Clicks-Study

by: Todd Kron

Spring Cleaning

In case you didn't realize, Mother Nature has decided to skip winter this year and jump right into spring. While I begin to put my sweaters up and take out my shorts from where I buried them months ago, it is time to start thinking about some spring-cleaning. Sure you can clean out the house, garage, or your closet, but it might also be time for your website to have a good cleaning as well.  Out with the old, in with the new, and all that jazz. Below is a quick list of some things you can do this spring to give your website a boost. 

Simple is Usually Better

The days of slamming as much content, images, and gifs onto one page as possible are dead (and should never have occurred). When a webpage is too cluttered with small text and moving images you burden your viewers with an information overload. This won’t lead to a better spread of information but will increase the likelihood that viewers of your site will miss what it is you are actually trying to get across. So go check out your website. If you are still using gifs, huge blocks of small text, or if you are still using a black background and white text, it might be time to give your website a good cleaning.

Embrace Social Media

The best way to reach potential clients or customers now lies in the ability to spread your message via social media outlets. Yes, your site might currently take advantage of Facebook and Twitter (and if not I highly recommend you change this), but there are now so many more options that you can use to draw people to your website.  Flikr, Tumblr, Google+, Pinterest, Yelp, Foursquare, and LinkedIn all have advantages in drawing attention to both your website and product you are offering. If you do not take advantage of social media, you are going to be left behind, if you haven’t been already.

Content is Important

No matter how pretty your site is, or how important the information is that you are offering, if no one can find your site, all of that information is just sitting there, collecting theoretical internet dust.  Making sure your copy is Search Engine Optimized is a must if you want people to be able to find you on Google. The trick is to start local. You are not going to be able to capture the Google search “Pizza”, not after a couple months, not after a couple years. It is better to first try to capture searches such as “Denver Pizza” or “Asian Style Deep Dish Pizza”. Once you start to build up rank on more specific key words, then you can start to go bold and go for more targeted keywords.

So it is time to freshen up your website for the long spring ahead of us, and if you need help, give us a call, we would love to help. (Sorry, CGR Creative only does website and advertising work; we won't come clean up your garage).  

Why Your Link Requests Are Failing

by Kristi Hines, July 26, 2011

Picture this: You walk up to a local business, walk through the door, up to the first person you see, and say "Hi, I'd like you to put this sticker on your window because I sell products that people who come to your establishment might like, too." (Said sticker is an address to your business.)

Think it will be successful? Probably not.

Now let's try this scenario: Instead of asking for them to put a sticker on their window, you pick up one of their mailers to customers and ask them to put your address in the middle of one of their articles, again because readers of the mailer might be interested in your products.

Again, this probably won't be successful. Your only chance in either scenario is going to be if said local business accepts advertising, in which case you're going to have to pay them to get your business advertised on their window or in their mailer.

Now let's think about quality. Sure the Joe Schmo business next door might take you up on your offer. But what if you tried to walk up to the biggest retail chain in your area and asked them to do the same thing? Would your request be granted? Doubtful.

This is, essentially, what clients want link builders to do for them. They don't want to offer anything of value content-wise, but they want people who have probably never heard of them before to just magically place their name and website address on their website. And it's just about as absurd as the above described scenarios.

So the next time clients are complaining about the fact that the links they get are only paid or only high quality, it's time to turn the tables on them.

It's not you, the link builder, who is to blame because I'm sure you've been successful with clients who have good content on their site, or at least a good reputation.

It's the client that needs work. You need to stop link building and start content development. And not just one piece of content that might not appeal to everyone, but several pieces. Think about developing the kind of content that Wikipedia would find as a suitable resource for one of their pages.

How-to guides, tutorials, detailed histories, facts about the industry, current trends, videos, and so forth. These are the types of content that people will want to link to. No one wants to just link to sales pages and product pages unless the page you're targeting specifically says, "Here are some great resources to buy __."

What if your client refuses to add any link-worthy content to their site? Then tell them that, realistically, the only opportunities you'll be able to get for them are directories, paid advertising links, or other lower hanging fruit.

Why? Because authority sites link to valuable resources - not just products or sales pages, especially if it's you competing against thousands of other stores that offer the same items or services.

In short, your client needs to ensure that their site offers value. If it does, then it will gain links. If not, then they will have to settle for whatever they can get, and that may not be what they optimally are looking for.

When is the Best Time to Start a PPC Campaign?

Pay-Per-Click, or PPC Search Engine Marekting, is quite lucrative for Google and the other tier one search engines. The online market dictates competition which yields higher Cost-Per-Clicks. Some keywords could cost anywhere from $2.00 to an upwards of $82.00 per keyword phrase. It's pretty insane.  It does work to increase new acquisitions though.

What are the benefits to PPC? You can get your ad rotated right on page one of Google, Bing or Yahoo/MSN. If you run through your budget, your ad will find its way off the Search Engine Results page as quickly as it got there. If you are strategic in your efforts to market your NEW product or service, even remarket it, then you might find PPC is well worth the money. If you are a highly competitive business, you may want to consider running a small PPC campaign. The great thing about Adwords is you can target any geo location to rotate your advertisements. You will also see where every dollar is going as long as your tracking is set up correctly. Then you can decide if the Return on your Investment is there or not. If you don't have a decent budget to invest in PPC, then don't waste your time.  Try another marketing strategy that benefits your budget.


Once you set up your Adwords campaign, be sure to link it to Google Analytics for more robust metrics. You will be able to measure page views, unique visitors, bounce rate, and more. It gives you a great gauge for your performance and helps you optimize accordingly. If you are not too savvy with managing and optimizing online campaigns, definitely hire an agency to do it for you.  You will find it's worth a few extra bucks to pay an expert in the grand scheme of things.


After you get your name out on the web via PPC, it's best to work on a simultaneous SEO and social media/PR campaign to continue the legacy.

SEO -Too Fast or Too Slow?

It's always a challenge getting top placement on Google.  Many like to think their sites magically make it to page one without any hard work.  There is a secret sauce we like to use for our clients in order to get them page 1 ranked.  Typically we provide a competitive keyword analysis to get you started, and let you know which keywords you should be targeting for your business.  Then we do our thing and Voila! Your site will start to make its way up the ranks.  Part of the success is attributed to the hundreds of SEO tools offered online.  It's definitely finding the right combination of tools and implementation to make things happen.

Let's be real, how long should you expect until you start to see results and moving up the ranks? Depending on how competitive your keywords are will determine how much work needs to go into the back-end.  Sometimes you can go from page 2 to page 1 in Google in a few short weeks; sometimes it's days.  If you are targeting a bunch of highly competitive keywords, it might take a few months before strategy lends itself to Rockstar placement.

Also pay attention to your sitemap; as you make updates to your site, your sitemap will change, and it's important to update it with Google.  There are a plethora of Google webmaster tools to aid in getting things done when it comes to sitemaps, blogs, tracking, and more. When designing a new website, you must implement SEO tactics from the get-go. Don't wait because it's that much harder when you have to implement after you launch.  The web design is everything as long as it's SEO friendly.

If you are employing all possible SEO efforts and you don't see any viable results, it might be time to contact a professional.  SEO is more than fixing some onsite metadata.  Keep that in mind and know that the value of good placement means everything as new visitors to your site equate to conversions.

Top Ten SEO Tips From Charlotte's Web Design Experts CGR Creative

Top Ten SEO Tips From Charlotte's Web Design Experts CGR Creative

Today Julio Colmenares of Charlotte based CGR Creative addressed a luncheon crowd on the topic of new media and web design. One of the questions from the audience was, "What are the top 10 things you can do do get your site ranked higher on Google?" Julio explained how each of these ideas work and how to gain maximum benefit from them. We think that question was worth addressing again here on our blog, so here is your Top 10 list of Search Engine Optimization Tips:

10. Titles - Each page within your site should have a unique title that is relevant to your business and the content on that particular page.

9. Keyword Rich Content - Every page should have at least 250 words of plain text that contains the relevant keywords from your page title. It is best if those keywords are mentioned in the first few lines.

8. Don't Use Frames - Frames prevent search engines from searching the content on your site. If you view the source of your web page, and you don't see the content of your page, your site is hiding that content from search engines.

7. Don't Use Graphics in Place of Text - Search engines can't search the content of pictures yet, so they can't read your cool graphic that explains what your business is about. Use plain HTML text throughout your site.

6. Avoid Flash Heavy Content - Just like pictures, search engines can't read the content of Flash files, but, worse, many browsers, and even more mobile phones, can't see Flash files at all.

5. Tag All Your Media Files - For the pictures and graphics you do have on your site, make sure you fill out their alt tags and meta tags as completely as possible. Be sure to repeat your keywords here as well.

4. Don't Create Outgoing Links - Outgoing links send search engines the message that your content is not as valuable as that of the pages to which you are linking. You never want to have more outgoing links than you have incoming.

3. Create Incoming Links - Incoming links make your content look more valuable. Search engines will begin to treat your site more like an expert on your subject with every additional incoming link. Social media can really help here.

2. Keep Page Viewers Occupied - Search engines actually monitor how long viewers stay on your site. So, make sure all your pages have visually pleasing, fast-loading, interesting content.

1. Update Your Content Regularly - The best way to keep moving up the search engine ladder is to continually update your content. This keeps your site looking valuable to search engines, and it promotes new visits from existing viewers which also increases your rankings.

Charlotte based CGR Creative is a full service advertising agency offering cutting edge Web Design and more. CGR Creative prides itself on supporting their customers in a way that larger agencies can’t, often times committing all their resources to ensure the success of their client’s projects. CGR Creative’s fundamental belief is that the client’s success is their success. The agency, with an office in Charlotte, North Carolina, is fully bi-lingual, with a Latino marketing division that offers a variety of marketing channels that are specifically targeted to reach the Hispanic market.