Tom Rumish Website Development

NEW VIDEO PRODUCTION

2011-05-30T10:03:00.000-05:00

Tom Rumish recently completed a new video production for Loon Lake Lodge. Loon Lake Lodge is a Gunflint Trail resort in northern Minnesota which is just outside of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW). To learn more about Loon Lake Lodge please visit their website at http://www.visitloonlake.com/.

The video which was produced is somewhat of an instructional video whose purpose is to show guests of Loon Lake Lodge the hiking trail route to go from Loon Lake Lodge to Bridal Falls. After the routing portion of the video is complete there is a "slideshow" of photos which have been shot at Bridal Falls. Multiple audio tracks are in the video including a narrative of the hiking route, loon calls and sounds of a small waterfall. The video was placed on the Gunflint Trail Activites page of the Loon Lake Lodge website.

Video is becoming more and more popular on websites as businesses become more aware of the benefits of having video(s) on thier websites. As a result Tom Rumish has been doing an increased amount of video editing and production for his and other website clients. For more information about the benefits of having video on your website or to discuss having video added to your website visit the website of professional website designer Tom Rumish Website Development.

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OVER DUE WEBSITE DESIGN POST

2011-03-06T09:20:00.001-06:00

SMALL BUSINESS WEBSITES
I apologize for being extremely lax in keeping the Tom Rumish Website Design Blog up to date. I constantly tell my clients that it is very important to keep their blogs current and to post fairly often. I guess I should practice what I preach.

It seems that with the economy being somewhat slow I have done just a couple of NEW websites. I have however been doing a considerable amount of website remodeling, re-vamping and maintenance on existing small business websites. I never post about small business website remodeling or remodeling work except in very general terms and never mention website remodeling client names.

I have however completed two new small business websites for new clients since my last blog posting. Please read below to find out more about the new small business website designs that Tom Rumish Website Development has done for these small business owners.

RESSLER CUSTOM GUITARS

The Ressler Guitars site is a small business website for a custom guitar builder who not only builds custom guitars but also teaches classes on custom guitar building and the construction of other stringed instruments.

John Ressler, owner of Resller Guitars, also has an instructional book published which is called “Pickin’ Stick – Building a Stringed Instrument”. One of the pages of the Ressler Guitars website is an E-Commerce page on which John offers the book and a stringed instrument parts kit for sale online from his website. This E-Commerce page of the Ressler Guitars website also allows clients to make deposits on and payments for his hand built custom guitars.

Visit the Ressler Guitars website to see the custom small business website design that Tom Rumish Website Development did for John Ressler and to learn more about his custom guitar building work and the guitar building classes that John offers.

BRYAN MICHELS MASONRY LLC

Dekalb county, Illinois masonry companies include Bryan Michels Masonry, which is one of the best, if not the best masonry companies in northern IL. Bryan Michels Masonry does brick masonry residential construction, commercial masonry and masonry repairs. The fireplace designs offered by Bryan Michels are fantastic.

The website for Bryan Michels Masonry has three photo slideshows which show and highlight his high quality of work. Each page of the small business website design have different photos photos in the header of the page, which is somewhat non-typical.

NEW CUSTOM WEBSITE DESIGN

2010-07-08T16:34:00.006-05:00

The newest professionally designed custom website completed by Tom Rumish Website Development is a Vacation Homes by Owner website, for a vacation rental home in south central Wisconsin.

The owners of the Wisconsin vacation rental property were paying a fairly large sum of money each year to have their log chalet listed for rent on a vacation rentals’ website. In addition to the recurring cost to have the vacation rental home listed on the website, the owners of the vacation rental property were restricted in the amount of information and photos that they could be included in the listing.

For slightly more than what they were paying for one year’s listing, the owners were able to have their own website. There are, of course no restrictions on the amount of information or photos that they can display of their vacation home rental property now that they have a website dedicated to their own property. A rental availability calendar was incorporated into the website which can be updated by the owners from any computer with internet access. A Google map and driving directions were also placed on the vacation home rental website, making it easy for potential clients to visually see exactly where the rental log chalet is located.

VIDEO FOR YOUR WEBSITE
In January of this year I wrote a blog posting about the advantages of adding video to websites. Within the past 30 days Tom Rumish Website Development has edited, published and embedded four videos into the Gunflint Trail resort website of Hungry Jack Lodge and Campground.

All of the 4 videos for Hungry Jack Lodge were edited and then uploaded to YouTube, to take advantage of the additional exposure that YouTube can provided for the Hungry Jack Lodge website. The YouTube versions of the videos were then embedded into the Hungry Jack Lodge and Campground website for viewing on various pages of the website. Three of the videos were “presentational” in nature and one of the videos is instructional. All of the videos are in Hi Definition (HD) and include company logo overlays and embedded music or narration.

The instructional video on the Hungry Jack Lodge website was created from scratch by Tom Rumish Website Development. It was done using the same process used to create various video tutorials. The video shown below is the instruction video which was created by Tom Rumish for the Gunflint Trail resort.

Website video editing of your videos for your company website has the potential to turn someone who is just a website visitor into a new client. Custom edited website video on your website is a great way to inform your site visors about your company products and services. Generally speaking, people are lazy. Just as most people prefer watching the news on TV instead of reading a newspaper people likewise are drawn to website videos as opposed to actually reading the text on your web pages.

For more information about our digital and high definition video editing capabilities or to find out how having video on your website can help you and your company give Tom Rumish a call at (815) 786-8573 or visit our small business website designer site http://www.tomrum.com/

CUSTOM BUSINESS WEBSITE FOR KANE COUNTY LANDSCAPE MATERIALS

2010-05-27T13:21:00.006-05:00

Small business website designer Tom Rumish of Tom Rumish Website Development recently completed a new custom designed small business website for Kane County Landscape Materials and Supply, Inc.
Kane County Landscape Materials and Supply, Inc. contacted business web site designer Tom Rumish Website Development after seeing some of the custom designed websites that Tom Rumish Website Development had previously created for other small businesses.

Though Kane County Landscape Materials and Supply, Inc. had an existing website, the old website had previously been created in Flash and other methods which prevented and hindered it from being indexed by major search engines. As a result, the old Kane County Landscape Materials and Supply, Inc. website had extremely poor Search Engine Results Position (SERP) unless someone did a search for the name of the company itself. In addition, many of the pages of the old Kane County Landscape Materials and Supply, Inc. website had broken links, no navigation, etc.

In general the website was a total mess, lacked the required “eye appeal” to hold website visitors on the website and contained little, if any, of the information that website visitors were seeking. A total redesign of the Kane County Landscape Materials and Supply, Inc. was the only way to correct all of the various problems that existed on the website.

After submitting two custom designed website concepts to Kane County Landscape Materials and Supply, Inc. the final custom website design was arrived at by combining various aspects of the first two.

Statistical tracking was incorporated into the new Kane County Landscape Materials and Supply, Inc. website to help in evaluating the effectiveness of the custom designed website. Though the Kane County Landscape Materials and Supply, Inc. web site has been online for only one week the statistic gathering incorporated into the new small business website shows that it has had 248 visitors. 236 of the website visitors were first time visitors to the Kane County Landscape Materials and Supply, Inc. website and 12 of the visits were from returning visitors. Though the number of visitors is relatively small we are confident that the numbers will grow as time goes by. Visits to the Kane County Landscape Materials and Supply, Inc. website have been made by people from 16 states other than Illinois and a total of 4 countries.

IS YOUR SMALL BUSINESS WEBSITE
DOING ALL THAT IT SHOULD DO?

Just like the old Kane County Landscape Materials and Supply, Inc. website had been, there are many small company website designs that just are not producing. They’re not bringing people in the door. Learn what a professionally designed business web site can do for your company. Tom Rumish Website Development offers free, no obligation consultations. Even if the graphic look of your existing small business website is great, search engine optimization, statistical tracking of website visitors and much more can be incorporated into your business site by small business website designer Tom Rumish to help make your small company website an efficient marketing tool. Visit http://www.tomrum.com/ to learn more about all of the website services offered by Tom Rumish Website Development.

CUSTOM DESIGNED BLOGGER TEMPLATES

2010-03-08T15:28:00.002-06:00

It has been a long time coming but Tom Rumish Website Development now creates customized Blogger templates. Due to a heavy work load we just didn’t have the time to pursue implementing Customized Blogger Templates until now. However with increasing demand for customized blog pages, for company Blogs we couldn’t put it off any longer.

Custom Blog template pages for Blogger have been added to our other customized templates and themes, which included Joomla, Drupal and Wordpress. With the added capability of creating custom Blogger templates we can now make your external Blog match the look, theme and colors that are in your business website. Utilizing elements and graphics from your existing small business website, your external Blogger site will match your business website design with an almost seamless look and no longer have different design elements.

The standard Blogger templates designs and colors offered by Blogger are very limited. In most cases small businesses with a blog (on Blogger) are frustrated because they cannot get a template to come close to matching the look and feel of their custom designed small business website. That is no longer the case.

For more information on custom Blogger templates and small business website design and maintenance please visit www.tomrum.com to learn about all that Tom Rumish Website Development can do to help market your small business. Small business website designer Tom Rumish can help you and your business gain and retain customers with a custom designed small business website, Search Engine Optimization of your existing business website and much more.

SMALL BUSINESS WEBSITE DESIGNING PROJECT COMPLETED

2010-02-03T12:21:00.002-06:00

Small business website designer Tom Rumish recently completed a new website for DHC Concrete Construction.

DHC Concrete Construction is a concrete construction company that does a wide range of concrete related work in the western suburbs of Chicago, IL where the competition is fierce, especially during our current economic climate. Dave Holly Concrete Construction has risen to the top of the small concrete contractors in Chicago’s western suburbs due to its’ quality workmanship and competitive pricing.

However, because being a concrete construction contractor in the west suburban area of Chicago is so competitive, DHC Concrete Construction owner Dave Holly decided it was time for DHC to have a website so that DHC Construction could take advantage of the marketing exposure that can be gained by being on the internet.

Some of the types of concrete work that DHC Concrete Construction performs include concrete patios, concrete driveways and sidewalks in plain concrete and decorative concrete designs or stamped and colored concrete. Garage slabs, under pinning, retaining walls, room additions, including excavating and dirt removal, home foundation repair, water in the basement problem solving, overlays and refinishing old concrete to make it look new again.

HAS YOUR BUSINESS SLOWED DURING THIS ECONOMY?

During god economic times there are many companies that do not have to actively market their goods and services due to the fact that they have a good client base and get a lot of referral business. However, things have changed and many of those companies have seen that their business has slowed down considerably.

If your business has dropped off and you do not currently have a small business website perhaps it’s time for you to take advantage of the marketing advantages that having a small business website has to offer. You need to market your business now, more than ever before, to retain your existing business and to gain new business.

Have you thought of having a small business website designed for your company, but you just don’t know where to get started? Tom Rumish Website Development offers a free, no obligation website design consultation that we urge you to take advantage of. We will gladly sit down with you and answer any questions that you may have about creating a custom small business website for your company. We’ll listen to what you want and need on a website, make suggestions and give you a no obligation free written estimate.

To learn more about what small business web site design and maintenance specialist Tom Rumish Website Development can do for you and your business or to schedule a free small business website designing consultation and estimate visit http://www.tomrum.com/ or phone us at (815) 786-8573.

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DIGITAL VIDEO - CAN IT HELP YOUR WEBSITE?

2010-01-03T14:05:00.002-06:00

GOOD SMALL BUSINESS WEBSITE DESIGNING
A small business web site must be designed and have elements on its’ web pages that provide a “stickiness”. That is to say, the website must hold a persons’ attention and want them to explore the website, instead of moving on to a different website. Something has to grab their attention so that they will actually stay on your website and explore the various products and services that your small to medium sized company has to offer.

VISITORS TO YOUR COMPANY WEBSITE ARE LAZY
Generally speaking, people are lazy. People almost always tend to look for the easiest way to do or learn something. That being said, people usually would rather watch a short video about something than to read about it.

TV news broadcasts are a prime example of what I am talking about. In today’s’ world, most people watch the news on TV as opposed to reading the newspaper. There are of course many people that do both, but a higher percentage of people “watch” the news compared to those that actually read the newspaper. They feel that it’s easier and less time consuming.

ADD VIDEO TO YOUR WEBSITE
Just as motion and sound attracts the attention of animals in a forest, sound and motion also attracts and holds the attention of people. Tie that to the fact that people are generally lazy, as I noted above, and I am sure that you can see that video has the potential to make your small business website “sticky”. The fact that there is a video to watch on your small business website means they can take the “easy way” to learn about you and your products and services.

Adding video to your small business website design can perhaps eliminate your web site visitors from leaving your company website and moving on to the website of one of your competitors. Using video, especially high definition video, on your website could make the difference between just having another “visitor” to your small business website and gaining a new client for your small to medium sized business.

In addition to the advantages of adding video to your business web pages as noted above, video can help market your business in numerous other ways too.

WEBSITE VIDEO EDITING AND PRODUCTION
The small business website designing firm of Tom Rumish Website Development has added video and high definition video editing to the growing list of website design services that it offers to its’ small business website design clients.

We also offer video and Hi Def video production of short videos for use on websites, other online usage and short promotional videos for small to medium sized companies.

SMALL BUSINESS WEBSITE DESIGNING SERVICES
Small business website designer Tom Rumish can help you learn more about how high definition video can help your business website become more productive and gain new customers or the advantages of using video in your company marketing plan. Visit the site of our small business website designing firm to learn more about the various business website design services that we offer. www.tomrum.com.

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TOM RUMISH WEBSITE DEVELOPMENT ADDS NEW CLIENT

2009-11-12T12:34:00.011-06:00

Carry Safely, Inc. has been added to the growing list of our clients at Tom Rumish Website Development.

The Carry Safely, Inc. website http://www.carrysafely.com/ had previously been established by Carry Safely, Inc. but was extremely lacking in content and had little to no eye appeal for its’ visitors. Owners, Greg Powell and Patricia Snyder realized that the existing website needed a major remodel and contacted small business website designer Tom Rumish Website Development to do the re-vamping that was required.

ABOUT CARRY SAFELY, INC.
Carry Safely, Inc. provides firearms training to individuals and groups in Illinois and Wisconsin. A major part of the classes that they give are related to Utah Concealed Carry Permit Training and helping people obtain CCW permits and a concealed weapons permit.

Though Illinois & Wisconsin are the only two states in the US that do not allow CCW permits for its’ residents, the Non-Resident Utah concealed carry permit training that they teach will allow people to obtain a permit from the State of Utah which is recognized in 30 states. Both Patricia Snyder and Greg Powell are Utah Concealed Firearms Certified Instructors.

In addition to concealed weapons permit training, both Patricia and Greg are NRA Certified Pistol Instructors. They provide training and hold classes for NRA Basic Pistol, NRA First Steps pistol, NRA Personal Protection in the Home and Personal Protection outside the Home.

All of the NRA training classes which Carry Safely provides qualifies individuals for a Non-Resident Florida Concealed Carry Permit - concealed weapons permit – CCW.

DOES YOUR WEBSITE NEED REMODELING?
Small business website designer Tom Rumish has helped many clients who have existing websites that are not producing results for their businesses. As a professional website designer we work with and for you during the small business website designing process to help insure that your web site will have a “stickiness” to hold visitors on your website and produce results for you and your company.

To learn more about what small business web site design and maintenance specialist Tom Rumish Website Development can do for you and your website or to schedule a free consultation and estimate visit http://www.tomrum.com/ or phone us at (815) 786-8573.

HOADLEY'S HALLMARK STORE WEBSITE

2009-08-04T07:55:00.010-05:00

The professional website design company of Tom Rumish Website development is please to announce that they have completed a new website for Hoadley's Hallmark Gold Crown Store in Sandwich, Illinois.

Duane and Janeen Hoadley, owners of Hoadley's Hallmark have been in business for over 25 years. They had contemplated establishing a web site for their greeting card and collectable gifts store for the last few years, to take advantage of the valuable marketing power that an online presence has. Duane and Janeen realized that in today's world, almost everyone uses the Internet to look for products and services and that they were missing those people who were unfamiliar with their store and are using the Internet to find businesses like theirs.

In addition to greeting cards and gift wrap, Hoadley's Hallmark sells collectable gifts such as Department 56 lighted buildings & villages, Willow Tree angel & nativity sculptures, Jim Shore American folk art figures, Hummels and Trackster collectable die cast cars. Because such a large portion of the Hoadley's Hallmark Store's business is the sale of collectable gifts, the new website has pages devoted to many of those lines of collectable gifts that they carry in their store.

QUIT DOING BUSINESS LIKE YOUR GRANDFATHER DID
What worked in business marketing during your grandfather's day just doesn't work today. Virtually every business needs an online presence today to continue to grow and succeed. Using the Yellow Pages to advertise is very costly and in most cases too localized for today's mobile society. People think nothing of driving 25 or more miles to find a product or service that they want or need. To advertise in every Yellow Pages phone book within a 25 mile radius is way too expensive, plus people just don't use the Yellow Pages like they did back in your grandfather's day.

We urge you to schedule a free website consultation with professional website designer Tom Rumish Website Development. Learn what a low cost custom designed website can do to help market your small business. With the economy currently being sluggish it more important than ever to market your small business and market it very cost effectively. To learn more about Tom Rumish Website Development and schedule a free consultation and estimete visit www.tomrum.com or phone us at (815) 786-8573

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IS IT TIME TO EXPAND YOUR WEBSITE?

2009-05-04T09:52:00.014-05:00

YOUR SMALL BUSINESS WEBSITE & YOUR MARKETING BUDGET
Most small businesses spent a good portion of their yearly marketing budget on their business website when they first established their company web site. Hopefully that money was well spent and your website has ended up being a successful marketing tool for your small business.

If your web site is successful and is bringing in new clients, doesn’t it make sense to put more money into your small business website, to hopefully make it become even more effective? Continuing to allocate a portion of your marketing budget each year, towards something that has proven in the past to be beneficial will make your small business website an even stronger marketing tool.

IF YOUR BUSINESS WEBSITE IS WORKING WELL
If the web site that you have for your small business is doing well, and what it is supposed to do, you may be following the adage “if it’s not broke don’t fix it”. I too follow that premise regarding many things in my life. But in reality, is that the best thing to do when it comes to your business website? In my opinion, it probably is not best to leave things as they are unless your website and its’ performance as a small business marketing tool is providing you with more business than you can handle.

If you are pleased with the responses that you are getting from your business website but would like more customers from your website, ask yourself a couple of questions. “Am I showcasing all of my products and services thoroughly and effectively?” “Is there something I can do to convert a higher percentage of my website visitors into actual customers?”

After sitting down, taking a good long look at your website and really thinking about the two questions that I asked in the previous paragraph, there is a good chance that you will answer “no” to at least one of the questions.

With a little further thought, you will probably be able to zero in on something that can be added to, or modified, on your website that will help improve your small business web site as a marketing tool for your company. Perhaps it means just editing or adding some text on an existing web page. Maybe adding an additional page to your site will help showcase something that you are not currently putting enough emphasis on. Perhaps your Call to Action is not strong enough and can be improved.

If you can see where there may be a problem or something that can be improved upon but just can’t seem to come up with a solution or idea on how to make the changes needed, try looking at the websites of some of your competitors get some ideas of how to change your small business website and make it a more effective small business website.

IF YOUR WEBSITE IS DOING POORLY
If, on the other hand your website doesn’t seem to be helping your efforts to market your business; perhaps you did not initially spend enough money on your website to make it truly effective. If this is the case, maybe you need to spend some of this year’s marketing budget to expand and improve your website, so that it does end up being the most successful marketing tool in your arsenal.

Are you describing your products and services sufficiently? Is the text content on the various pages of your small business website search engine friendly? Is the information on your website current and up to date? Overall try to figure out why your business web site is not working and take the time to implement the changes necessary to make your website a profitable tool for your small business.

WE ARE HERE TO HELP YOU
We urge you to continually review your small business website and look for ways to improve it. If you want your business to prosper and grow you must use every tool at your disposal to its’ maximum potential. In almost all instances a small business website is the most productive tool in your business marketing tool box.

Don’t become complacent about your web site. Spend money each year on making your website better and the best that it can be. Existing clients of Tom Rumish Website Development that have continued to improve their small business websites each year have ended up increasing their sales each year, almost without exception.

We urge you to contact Tom Rumish Website Development for all of your small business website design and maintenance needs. We will be glad to listen to you and help you implement any changes that you desire into your existing business website. If you’re not sure what needs to be improved on your small business website we can review your site and offer suggestions. Click here to speak to us right now. If you don't have time to speak with us right now email business website designer Tom Rumish.

WEBSITE ADD-ON FEATURES

2009-04-02T14:34:00.009-05:00

SMALL ADDITIONS TO YOUR WEB SITE

CAN MAKE A BIG DIFFERENCE IN YOUR REVENUE

There are many small things that can be added to, or done to your website that can increase the amount of business and revenue that you receive from your website visitors. In almost all cases these are features that are classified as a “call to action”. Some of these little “add-on-features”, which create a Call To Action are specific to a particular type of business only, while others can be used on the websites of all businesses.

A call to action is defined as follows: "Encourages site users to act to or respond to an offer. Often incorporates an action verb, for example, “download now”.

“CALL US NOW” BUTTONS

An innovative and fairly new way to implement a “call to action” on a small business web site is to place a “Call Us Now” button or link on a web page. Call Us Now is a great small business website feature that can be used by virtually any business. An example of a “Call Us Now” button can be seen on our small business website designer site.

Basically Call Us Now buttons work when a site visitor clicks on the Call Us Now button. When this is done a small window pops up in which the web site visitor enters their phone number. Within seconds, their phone rings. When they answer their phone, a phone call to your business is initiated and your business phone will ring. When you pick up your phone you are immediately connected to your website visitor by telephone.

No special phone, equipment or software is required to implement this feature on your website.

WHAT BUSINESSES CAN BENEFIT FROM “CALL US NOW”
Almost any business can benefit from having a Call Us Now button on their website. Below are a few of the many examples in which a Call Us Now button can be used to convert website visitors into sales:

Carry-out and food delivery businesses -- People can view you menu online and place their pick-up or delivery orders by connecting to your business immediately using a Click To Place Your Order button.

Restaurants –- People who are visiting your website to find your location and view your menu can use a “Click to Make a Reservation” button.

E-Commerce sites -- Very often website visitors have questions about products or are hesitant to input the credit card information needed to process an order. A Click to Call button can be used to answer those questions or for site visitors to place an order by speaking to a live person on the telephone.

Lodging & Accommodations businesses –- Most people today prefer to make their lodging reservations online from a website. If your website does not have an online reservation system in place, a “Make Your Reservation Now” button can be used and has almost the same effect as an online reservation system.

LOW COST ALTERNATIVE TO AN “800” NUMBER
Your clients are not charged for the calls that they place using Click to Call services. This fact can and should be prominently mentioned on your web site. Generally speaking your business pays only for the minutes that someone is connected to your business through a Click To Call service.

In most cases Click to Call is a low cost alternative to having an “800” phone number. Unlike “800” phone numbers there are no taxes, line charges, and in many cases no recurring monthly fees. That being said, charges to have a Click To Call button on your site is often much less expensive than having an “800” number for your business. In many cases, depending on the call service provider used, there are no contracts to sign.

INCOMING CALL TRACKING
Almost without exception all Click To Talk providers have client call tracking and a web-based control panel from which you can view a Call Activity Log. Depending on the service provider call logs can include:

Call time & date
Caller phone number
Caller name and optional email address
Call duration and cost
URL address from where call originates

And often more information

The information in the Call Log can of course be downloaded and used for future follow-up contact with clients and potential clients.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
For more information about adding Click To Talk buttons & links, online reservations systems and other interactive features to your website, which have the potential to help you and your company gain customers and revenue Click here to speak to us right now. Or, email Tom Rumish Website Development with your questions.

Be sure to visit our small business website designer site to see an example of a Click to Call button. Small business web site designer Tom Rumish Website Development offers a multitude of web site services to small business owners. Be sure to visit our website www.tomrum.com to see all that we offer.

Home Page vs. Inner Pages of a Website

2009-03-09T14:07:00.007-05:00

Is your Home page more important than the inner pages of your website?

There is constant discussion among website designers about the importance of a website’s Home page. Some professional web site designers argue that a Home page has little to no importance compared to the inner pages of a site, while others argue that the Home page of a website is the most critical page of a website. There are valid arguments on both sides of the issue as far as I am concerned.

Here is my personal take on the whole issue of a website Home page and its’ importance and role.

YOUR HOME PAGE AS A “LANDING” PAGE
In the past, the Home page of a website was almost without exception the “landing” page for visitors to your website. Rarely did anyone arrive at your web site on one of the inner pages.

In today’s world the Home page is probably still the primary landing page for your site due in part to the fact that your site URL (www.mysite.com) is what is printed on business cards, letterheads and other forms of print advertising. But, due to the way that major search engines have evolved, the inner pages of a site have increasingly become landing pages for your sites’ visitors.

Because of the fact that the Home page has decreased to some extent as an entry point for a website, the role of a Home page has changed somewhat compared to its’ role in the past.

SO, WHAT IS THE FUNCTION OF A HOME PAGE TODAY
Think of your website as a printed book and the Home page of your website as a combination of the book cover the Table of Contents and the back cover of a book.

Just like the cover of a book, your Home page should grab people’s attention. It must attractive and represent the website favorably through the use of a pleasing layout & colors and have a feature or two that creates a “stickiness” to attract their immediate attention and cause them to want to explore your site in more depth, instead of quickly moving on to another website. In addition, if the Home page is cluttered and hard for people get oriented to they will quickly move on to another site. Remember that First Impressions Are Everything. Landing page = first impression = very important.

The textural content of a Home page can be compared to the Back Cover of a printed book and should give a very brief description of what your site and company are all about. That is to say, it should tell in condensed form what products, services and information you and your company can offer the web site visitor. If applicable the content of your Home page should also have a call-to-action.

Lastly, a very vital function of your Home page is to act somewhat like the Table of Contents of a printed book. It should provide a way for site visitors to quickly find the specific information they want or need and provide a way for them to easily get to that specific information on the inner pages of your website. This is done of course with the use of an easy to use navigation menu and/or links.

INNER PAGES OF A SITE AS A “LANDING” PAGE
As I stated earlier, the Home page is not the only page at which people arrive on your site. Search engines will link to inner pages of your site, thus causing those inner pages of your site to be the “landing” page for many, if not most individuals that arrive at your website as a result of a search engine query.

Because inner pages of your website are often landing pages for visitors, the inner pages should have the same attractiveness and “stickiness” that your home page has. Inner pages of your site should also have easy to understand navigation to all other pages of your web site, just as your Home page has. Be sure to have a consistent look to all pages of your site to avoid possible disorientation.

I always maintain that “Every page of your site should be accessible from every page of your site”.

THE FUNCTION OF INNER PAGES OF A WEB SITE
Inner pages of almost every site are the “meat and potatoes” of what you have to offer your website visitors and what they came for. They are the pages that you have hopefully generalized and briefly mentioned on the Home page of your site and are usually your sales force and money makers. The inner pages of your site is where Content Is King.

The reason that Content is King on the inner pages of your site is because it is on these inner pages of your site where you should not just outline, but go into detail with current information about the various products, services and information that you have to offer. The way that you author the textural content on the inner pages of your site can mean the difference between making money or going broke.

I won’t go into text authoring other than to say that you must accurately showcase all of the products, services and information that you offer and gracefully lead your website visitors down a path that ends with a call-to-action. You can of course implement a call-to-action at more than one point within the page content of an inner page.

HOW DOES YOUR WEBSITE RATE ?
Does the Home page of your website have eye appeal and have some sort of stickiness to grab the attention of people? Is your website navigation complete and easy to use? Can every page of your site be accessed from every page of the web site? Is the text content on all of your pages current? Do you have an effective call-to-action on your pages?

If you do not have a website – why don’t you have one? You are missing out on what is probably the least expensive way to advertise and market your business or organization.

Small business website design and maintenance specialist Tom Rumish Website Development is your answer for low cost web design. Business web site designing, website re-modeling and up-dating and SEO are among the many services offered by professional web designer Tom Rumish. Visit our website for more details about the many affordable web services available.

http://www.tomrum.com/
sales@tomrum.com

Naperville Baggo ECommerce Website

2009-01-24T08:58:00.010-06:00

Baggo - Cornhole Games Online Sales & Rentals

Small business website designer and web site maintenance specialist Tom Rumish Website Development recently designed and developed a new ECommerce website for Chris Johnson and Naperville Baggo.

Chris is an avid Baggo - Cornhole player and professional carpenter who owns Creative Touch Carpentry. He had, in the past, manufactured Baggo - Cornhole games for his friends and the church that he attends. After doing some research Chris Johnson decided that there is a viable, niche market for the games. As a result, Naperville Baggo was born.

Baggo - Cornhole tournaments and events have become really popular in the Chicago, Illinois area just as they have nationwide. So, Chris decided on not just producing the Baggo boards but also renting Baggo - Cornhole boards to taverns, church groups, civic organizations and the like for tournaments and special events in the greater Chicago area.

Chris decided that the best way he could market his new venture without taking too much time away from his primary business, Creative Touch Carpentry, was to offer his Baggo - Cornhole products for sale and rent online. He felt that by marketing online he would not have to spend a bundle of money to market his sale products & rental services. In addition to the relative low cost to market online Chris is able to reach his niche market, both for sales and rentals. As a result of marketing online, Naperville Baggo's market area for sales is nationwide and he can limit his rentals to northern Illinois.

Due to good Search Engine Optimization (SEO) during the website's design and development by Tom Rumsh, within one day of putting the website online Google showed the Naperville Baggo site as #8 on the first page of search engine results for the broad search term "baggo cornhole sales". Website Search Engine Optimization has become a major part of the design process of the custom websites designed by Tom Rumish Website Development.

For more information about Naperville Baggo, purchasing their products online with your credit card or information about renting baggo - cornhole games for an event please visit their website. www.napervillebaggo.com/

The small business web site design and maintenance firm of Tom Rumish Website Development can help you turn your small business ideas into a reality too. Small businesses are the backbone of the USA and more and more people are turning their ideas into profitable online businesses. Marketing your small business online is a extremely cost effective. By having Tom Rumish Website Development develop an E-Commerce website for you, it will allow your customers to purchase your products or services online by using their credit card.

For more information about ECommerce websites or a custom designed website to showcase your company's products and servies contact Tom Rumish Website Development. tomrum@tomrum.com

SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION

2008-12-02T13:07:00.015-06:00

There are many people that will tell you that they can get you on page one of the major search engines with their Search Engine Optimization (SEO) methods. But, is that first page SERP (Search Engine Results Position) that they are referring to for a broad search term? Almost anyone can get a #1 position for their company name, which is a very specific search term query.

As an example doing a Google search for “Tom Rumish Website Development” will yield approximately 900 results on any given day. (Results for any search term will vary from day to day.)

But, doing a Google search for the broad search term “business website development” shows 144,000,000 (One Hundred Forty Million) search engine results in Google. Tom Rumish Website Development (http://www.tomrum.com/) was #1 in the search engine results of the Google’s 144,000,000 search results for “business website development”, a very broad search term. (Results for any search term will vary from day to day.)

In addition, Tom Rumish Website Development (http://www.tomrum.com/) was #1 in the search engine results of the Google’s 23,800,000 search results for “business website designer” - another broad search term. (Results for any search term will vary from day to day.)

SEO THAT REALLY WORKS
NOT JUST MISLEADING CLAIMS

As you can see by the above search engine results screen shots our SEO works. Tom Rumish gets real results in major search engines for BROAD search terms that have a large number of competing websites.

The examples above are for the Tom Rumish Website Development site. But, it’s not just my own Business Website Design site that is doing well in major search engines. Many of my current clients are showing up in the #1 position or on the first page of Google and Yahoo broad term searches.

Client 1 of Tom Rumish - #1 in Yahoo for a search term with 6,930,000 competing sites.

Client 1 of Tom Rumish - #2 in Yahoo for a search term with 1,490,000 competing sites.

Client 2 of Tom Rumish - #8 in Google for a search term with 4,710,000 competing sites.

Client 2 of Tom Rumish - #3 in Google for a search term with 2,340,000 competing sites.

HAVE YOUR SMALL BUSINESS WEBSITE
GROW YOUR BUSINESS

Make it your 2009 business priority to have your website start to really work for you and your small business. If your small business website isn’t helping you gain customers and grow your business it’s time to get it working for you. The best way to do that is by making sure that your web site is showing up well in search engines. Our proven web site Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can help you get the results you want and need.

Though Tom Rumish is first and foremost a small business web site designer, our website SEO techniques have proven results and is one of the many low cost web page design services offered by Tom Rumish Website Development. Contact Tom Rumish Website Development for a no obligation SEO consultation. Visit our website at http://www.tomrum.com/ to learn about the many small business web page design services that are offered.

MARKETING - A Fundamental Ingredient for Profitability and Growth.

2008-11-11T14:09:00.003-06:00

Small to medium sized business owners often ask, “How much should I spend on marketing?” The answer: “It varies by industry and business size.” It is also based on how much and how fast you want to grow.

SCORE (Service Corps of Retired Executives) and USSBA (U.S. Small Business Administration) define an effective marketing budget to be between 2% and 10% of sales. Business to Consumer, retail and pharmaceuticals can exceed 20% during peak brand-building (company recognition) years.

I'm sure that you've all heard this before; “You have to spend money to make money." Most companies under spend on their budgets, thinking that not to spend is to save. This isn’t true. Keep in mind that your marketing efforts are directly proportional to your revenue, so now is not the time to be penny foolish.

The marketing budget for businesses with under $1 million of yearly sales averages 7-8%. If your company is B2B or B2C, you may need to raise your budget by 1–3% to see solid results. Retail and pharmaceuticals lead the spending, with many of these companies spending more than 20% of net sales. Overall average is reported as 6%.

Some circumstances will merit an increase or reduction in your marketing budget as a percentage of revenue. During an initial branding build (business recognition) or a re-branding phase, you should have a higher budget, which can be reduced in the future.

You can grow your company with “baby steps”. This is called organic growth, and it is how nearly every business starts off. Remember washing cars or mowing lawns for a few bucks? Next thing you know, your neighbor wants it done. That neighbor refers you to another neighbor, and so on. Many businesses grow their clientele on word of mouth alone, and are very successful. But they usually hit a brick wall.

That’s where building a solid branding (business recognition) campaign helps. To rely on organic growth alone, you risk losing revenue from business you did not get because X% of potential clients never discovered you. Why risk thousands to save hundreds?

Many small to medium sized companies fail each year because they do not allocate enough money for marketing. Successful small & medium sized companies realize that marketing, if done properly, brings back solid returns, whereas not allocating enough in your budget for marketing could spell disaster.

More people than ever use the internet to find businesses and services. That being said, one of the most important ways to market your small business is to be sure that your business has an online presence. Having a small business website is not only one of the most important things that you can do to market your business, it is also one of the most cost effective ways to market to local, regional and worldwide audiences.

Tom Rumish Website Development specializes in affordable small business website designing and maintenance. Website client testimonials from our clients attest to the fact that what they have spent to have a website custom designed for their small business has invariably paid off greatly. Business websites that work = sales growth.

If your business does not have a website or if your existing website is outdated and not helping you gain new customers I urge you to contact Tom Rumish Website Development for a free, no obligation consultation.

A TOUGH ECONOMY AND YOUR BUSINESS MARKETING PLAN

2008-10-15T16:15:00.006-05:00

When the economy gets a little rough and money gets tight most businesses find themselves in a position of having to cut the costs related to doing business. The first thing that most businesses tend to cut in the cost trimming process is their marketing budgets. This is a mistake that can often prove fatal to a company’s existence, or at the least lead to worsening their business income when they need it the most.

Marketing budgets should be the LAST thing that gets cut during a period when businesses are struggling, instead of the first thing that gets cut or eliminated. During tough economic times you need to gain new customers more than ever. Cutting your advertising and marketing budget will give your business less exposure to potential new clients at a time that you should be concentrating on increasing new clients.

Each dollar that you do not cut or eliminate from your marketing budget has more value to your business when your competitors are cutting their marketing efforts and budgets. In essence, the money that your business spends, and does not cut on marketing and advertising, becomes a higher percentage of the total dollar amount being spent to market businesses like yours, due to the fact that many other businesses mistakenly cut their marketing budgets first.

Increasing, as opposed to decreasing, your marketing budget during a period of tough economic times will multiply the percentage of critical exposure that your company needs during rough times, to gain new clients and customers. So, unless it is absolutely necessary don’t cut your marketing and advertising budget. Advertising and marketing your business is more important now than it is when things are going great with our economy.

If your business does not have a business website it is more critical than ever, during this period of economic down turn, to have a professionally designed website to help gain new customers and retain the current clients that your business has.

Listed below are a few of the many reasons that your business should have a business website:

1. Having a professionally designed website for your business will add creditability to your business.

2. A website will demonstrate that your business is not a new business. Generally speaking people prefer to deal with a company that is established and been in business for some length of time.

3. People most often prefer to deal with companies that have websites because it shows that they are “serious” about their business and that the company won’t just vanish in a short period of time, in the event that the potential client should have a problem with your products or services.

Name the top 3 competitors that your business has. Do they have websites? If they do have a business website and you don’t, how much business are you losing to your competitors? By not having a website you are allowing your competitors to have an advantage over you in marketing their business. Having a professionally designed website for your business will eliminate the marketing advantage that your competitors have, plus it will open the door to gaining new customers from the Internet.

Tom Rumish Website Development, specializes in custom designed small business websites.

As your partner, we will take the time to sit down with you and truly listen to your website needs to create the best possible solution for you. We go to great lengths to ensure that we thoroughly understand your unique website wants and needs, by genuinely listening to what you have to say about your goals, needs and budget. We treat each client like you’re our only client because we’re small enough to make truly personal service our priority.

If your business does not have a website or if your existing website is outdated and not helping you gain new customers I urge you to contact Tom Rumish Website Development for a free, no obligation consultation. Now, more than ever, you need an small business website design that will truly work for you.

We accept Visa, MasterCard, Discover, American Express and PayPal.

Tom Rumish Website Development
P.O. Box 362
Sandwich, IL 60548-0362
(815) 786-8573
http://www.tomrum.com/
tomrum@tomrum.com

Staying In Touch With Your Clients

2008-09-13T10:35:00.002-05:00

Many of you may remember a TV commercial for an airline in which a CEO hands out airline tickets to his sales force and instructs them to go and meet with the company’s clients, instead of just speaking with them over the telephone. The commercial was for an airline, but the lesson that can be learned from that commercial is that it is vital to meet with you clients occasionally.

Staying in touch with clients, with an occasional newsletter is important. A better and stronger way to stay in touch is by telephone. And, I feel that the very best way to stay in touch with your clients is a face-to-face meeting. Staying in touch with clients is the best way for you insure that your clients are happy with your products or services and will continue to be “your clients”. Due to our busy schedules it is sometimes hard to have a face-to-face casual meeting with clients, but we should all try to do so.

Tom Rumish Website Development has 6 clients in Minnesota. During the last two weeks of August I made my yearly visit to those Minnesota clients to have a “chat” with them. I didn’t try to sell them anything, I just made sure that they were happy and asked if there was anything that I could help them with or do for them and their companies.

During the August “working vacation”, not only did I accomplish having a face-to-face meeting with my Minnesota clients to insure their happiness; I also obtained a new client. This new client was aware of my existing clients in their area and was also aware of the fact that I have strong and good relationship with those existing clients. I attribute obtaining this new client to the fact that even though they are 600 miles away; I stay in touch with them on a regular basis.

Face-to-face meetings, phone calls, newsletters and surveys are all good ways to stay connected with your clients and to insure that you and your company are performing to the level of satisfaction that your customers want and expect.

Affordable small business web site design and maintenance specialist Tom Rumish can help you and your business stay in touch with your customers with the use of HTML formatted newsletters (like the “big” companies use).

Another good way to insure that you have happy clients, and to find out the weaknesses and strong points of your company, is by polling your customers. Ask them about your service, products, prices, etc. Tom Rumish can set up anonymous (and non-anonymous), professional looking online and email surveys too.

Tom Rumish Website Development is not just an affordable small business website designer, he also can help you with the online marketing of your company and website. Newsletters and email or online surveys are just a couple of the ways that we can help clients with online marketing.

Contact Tom Rumish Website Development for a free consultation.

New Page Added to Tom Rumish Website Development Site

2008-08-09T07:02:00.004-05:00

A new web page was added to the Tom Rumish Website Development site during the week of August 3rd. The new page is titled Low Cost Web Page Design Services.

The primary purpose in adding the new page to the Tom Rumish Website Development site was to outline some of the many "other services" that Tom Rumish offers to his clients and potential clients in addition to website design and remodeling. Because there are people who may be unsure of what some of the "other services" actually entail and are capable of doing, a brief description of each individual service is given on the Low Cost Web Page Design Services page.

Due to the fact that Tom Rumish Website Development is adding new services on a somewhat regular basis I suggest that everyone take a look at the Low Cost Web Page Design Services page. There very well may be a new service that was not offered in the past that you may have need of and want to implement into your website or small business marketing plan.

Tom Rumish strives to stay on top of new and emerging trends in website design and takes various classes relating to website design, programming for the web, search engine optimization and more on a continueing basis. Because of this continuing education we are able to add new services to existing clients and potential clients of Tom Rumish Website Development.

In additon to looking over our new Low Cost Web Page Design Services page I suggest that you look over the whole Tom Rumish Website Development site if you haven't done so recently. Our Website Design FAQ's page has recently been edited by adding a few more questions and answers and our Small Business Web Site How-to Articles page has had some new articles added, which pertain not just to website design but also to marketing in general.

We attempt to keep the small business web site design and maintenance site of Tom Rumish fresh and up-to-date while still maintaining its' familiar look and feel. Just because the website continues to "look the same" doesn't mean that it hasn't changed. So, when you have a little spare time go to http://www.tomrum.com/ and read the actual content of the pages if you have not done so in a while.

2008-07-15T08:05:00.005-05:00

WOULD BEING ABLE TO ACCEPT ONLINE CREDIT CARD

PAYMENTS HELP YOUR COMPANY?

Everyone is familiar with E-Commerce websites on which you can buy products. Even though your company may not sell actual products online your company can also benefit from excepting credit card payments on your website.

Almost every business mails out invoices to clients and customers. By offering your customers the ability to pay outstanding invoices from your website with their credit card you will be giving them another level of service and payment options that your competitor may not offer. Having this extra level of service and the additional payment method available to your customers could mean the difference of a potential client dealing with you or one of your competitors. By offering more services and options on the your company website than your competitors do on their website you stand a better chance of gaining and retaining customers.

Collecting payments for outstanding invoices is only one of many ways that you can incorporate online credit card use into the your website. Below are some of the many additional ways to utilize online credit card payments.

1. Bars, restaurants, tourism and hospitality businesses often have Tee Shirts, Caps, etc. available at their businesses. Though these items are not the primary source of income for most businesses, those businesses often derive a fairly substantial amount of "extra" income by selling the items. Why not offer a few of those items on your website. A little extra income by selling those items online certainly wouldn't hurt your bottom line.

2. Accept online credit card payments for "deposits" from clients for lodging reservations, travel services and professional services.

3. Does your company offer "gift certificates"? If not, why not? Sell gift certificates redeemable at your place of business from you website.

4. If your business sells big ticket items that usually are the result of people visiting your place of business, why not offer small expendable accessories and supplies that people use on a continuing basis which are related to or required by the primary items that you sell in-store.

5. If you are a non-profit organization why don't you start accepting online credit card Contributions and Donations for your non-profit organization.

6. If your organization requires a "membership", allow your members to pay their dues and subscriptions online using their credit card.

The ways that a company can utilize online credit card payments is endless, no matter what type of business you are in.

Accepting credit card payments online used to be very costly to set up, however this is no longer the case. Now all that is needed is a Merchant Account or a PayPal Business Account to process the credit card information and a Shopping Cart which is tied to your website.

If you do not already have a Merchants Account to process credit cards you can obtain one by visiting your bank. Fees to set up a Merchant Account will vary, however they are usually not too costly. Instead of having a Merchants Account through your bank an additional option is to open a PayPal Business Account for your company and have PayPal process the credit card information. Opening a PayPal Business Account is free.

Shopping Carts which are needed for online payments used to be somewhat costly. Now however there are a number of reliable Shopping Carts that utilizes SSL (Secure Socket Layer) Servers at little to no cost to you. So, the SSL cost has all but been eliminated from the amount necessary to accept online credit card payments.

If you feel that you or your company can benefit from the ability to accept online credit card payments and would like more information about accepting credit cards on your website please don't hesitate to contact Tom Rumish Website Development. We would be glad to schedule a free consultation with you to answer any questions that you may have regarding accepting credit cards on your existing website.

If you and your company do not currently have a website or if your existing website is in need of remodeling and a facelift, affordable website designer Tom Rumish will be glad to provide you with a free, no-obligation consultation and estimate of the costs to establish an affordable custom designed small business website for your company.

Free, no-obligation consultation appointments are available on weekdays and Saturdays. Evening appointments are also available.

Visit our small business web site design and maintenance site at www.tomrum.com/ for more information about the many services offered by Tom Rumish Website Development.

BACKING UP CRITICAL DATA ON YOUR COMPUTER

2008-06-21T12:04:00.007-05:00

What would happen if your business burned to the ground?

More than likely you are insured for the loss of structures and equipment (or should be). Aside from dealing with your insurance company, contractors and the like, to get your company back on its’ feet, you will still be faced with the loss of your business’ financial and customer data that was on your computer.

Have you taken any steps to secure the important business data on your computer(s) in the event that your computer gets destroyed or has a major non-repairable and fatal crash? Can you replace or reinstall the data that you will have lost due to such tragedies?

PROTECT CRITICAL DATA
I urge you to take steps to safeguard important data that is on your computer(s). The single most important thing that you can do to avert the loss of data on your computer is to religiously make back-ups of your computer hard drive on a regular basis. But, just backing up your computer data is not enough. Make multiple copies of the back-ups.

WHERE TO STORE BACKED-UP DATA
It is very important to store at least one copy of your computer back-up somewhere else besides your office. Keep at least one copy of your backed-up data in a separate location. I suggest keeping one copy of your computer back-up at your office and one copy of your back-up at home. Or, if your business is located in your home keep a copy of the back-up in a safety box at your bank or the home of a friend or relative.

WAYS TO BACK-UP YOUR DATA

EXTERNAL HARD DRIVES
During the past year or so external hard drives have dropped in price considerably. External hard drives connect to your computer by either a USB cable or Fire wire cable and are an easy addition. Many of the external hard drives that are available come with software for performing back-ups of your entire computer. If you buy an external hard drive I suggest that you buy one from a major manufacturer and check the packaging to see if it comes with back-up software.

The problem with using an external hard drive is that the new external hard drive will in all probability be connected to your computer and in your office. As a result, this type of data back-up will protect you in the event of a computer crash but will not save your data in the event of a fire or other disaster which could destroy your office unless you take the external hard drive to a location other than your office as outlined previously.

USB THUMB DRIVE (Jump Drives)
USB Thumb Drive (Jump Drives) do not have enough capacity to back up all of the files on your entire computer. However, you can use them to keep back-up copies of just your important financial data and customer information files.

Being small in size, thumb drives are an excellent affordable way to be able to store your back-up data files at your office and at a remote location. USB Thumb Drives are low cost and easily obtainable.

REMOTE ONLINE BACK-UP
There are companies that allow you to back-up your data via the Internet. Most, but not all, of these types of companies charge a monthly fee to store the backed up data on a secure server at their location.

Backing up your data in this way is a good in that it allows you to save your data at a remote location and still have it accessible from any computer that is connected to the Internet. The downside to backing up this way is that there are usually monthly charges and the fact the back-up must be transferred via the Internet. Backing up your entire computer via the Internet to a remote online back-up server can be a slow and very time consuming process. Just how slow depends of course on the speed at which you are connected to the Internet.

PURCHASING BACK-UP SOFTWARE
There are a number of software’s that you can purchased to automate the process of backing up your data. Most allow you to schedule the back-up during the middle of the night when your computer is otherwise idle.

Most of these back-up software’s have a wizard which will partition your existing hard drive and will store your back-up to the partition of your hard drive that is created to hold the back-up. I however do not suggest backing up data to a partition on your primary hard drive, because if you have a fatal computer crash you may not be able to access your hard drive and hence not be able to access your back-up.

DVD’s and CD’s
You can burn a DVD or CD that contains your critical data files or to back-up your entire hard drive. Not all, but most DVD and CD burning software offer the option of burning back up discs. Backing up your entire hard drive will, in all probability, require multiple DVD’s. So, before you use this method to back up your information and data, ensure that you have a supply of discs on hand. If you back-up just critical financial and customer data files they will probably fit on just one DVD.

DVD’s containing your back-up data can easily be stored at a remote location. The cost is of course relatively insignificant. I suggest using re-writable DVD’s or CD’s for back up purposes. Read the Help section of your DVD or CD burning program to learn how to use your particular burning software to make back-ups.

SCHEDULE BACK-UPS
I hope that this Newsletter has gotten you to think about and gets you to back up your data. Use which ever process works best for you. The important thing to remember is to back-up on a regular and continuing basis.

Though it takes time to do the back-ups it can save you money and a lot of time and headaches in the event of an emergency. Getting your business back to its’ normal productive state after a catastrophe is hard enough without having to deal with worrying about data recovery.

THANK YOU
Thanks for taking the time to read the Tom Rumish Website Development Blog. I hope that you’ve found it helpful and educational. It is because I want you, and your business to be successful and work more efficiently that I write this Blog.

Take a look at the “How-To Articles” page of the Tom Rumish Website Development website from time to time. There are articles on that page that may be helpful to you and your business. New Articles are added to the “How-To Articles” page on a relatively regular basis.

If you or someone that you know is considering having a website created I would appreciate the opportunity to give you a free consultation and estimate. Many questions about affordable small business web site design and maintenance can be answered by visiting the Tom Rumish Website Development website at www.tomrum.com/ however it is impossible for me to cover everything on my website. Being able to answer your questions is the primary reasons that I offer no obligation web site consultations.

First Page of Google for 3 Search Terms

2008-05-31T07:28:00.009-05:00

Gordon Eberhardt of Sherlock Homes Inspection LLC, an Illinois Real Estate Inspector, recently contacted me to give his Illinois Real Estate Inspection Service website a total and complete Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

The Search Engine Optimization process required extensive re-authoring and editing of the existing text that was on the website. After small business website design and maintenance specialist Tom Rumish Website Development did the in-depth Keyword and Keyword-Phrases research, the text authoring was initiated by Mr. Eberhardt. Every draft of the revised text for each page of the web site was reviewed, analyzed and often re-edited before the final draft of the text was arrived at for each individual web page.

As the text editing portion of the Search Engine Optimization was underway by Mr. Eberhardt, new page layouts were designed by Tom Rumish which would further enhance the website for better Search Engine Results Position (SERP). Two different graphic layout concepts were designed which were perceived to be optimal as far as SEO is concerned. Mr. Eberhardt made his choice of the two designs and work was then started on the actual re-construction of the website.

Some new pages were added to the new Sherlock Homes Illinois Real Estate Inspection Service website that had not existed in the older version of the website. After all of the new web site pages were finished and the SEO was complete the website was again analyzed for a final time before was it was put online to replace the old website.

After the new, optimized website was online, a search engine submission of the website was done to over 50 search engines.

The Search Engine Optimization of the Sherlock Homes Illinois Real Estate Inspection Service website was a huge success. In less than a week, http://www.sherlockhomesinspection-illinois.com/ was on page one of Google search results for three different broad search terms which had been the primary targets of the optimization process. Search results also yielded position #20 (bottom of 2nd page) for a fourth broad search term that had been a secondary target of the optimization process. I’m not talking about specific search terms that include the name, location or other things specific to the company. I’m talking about competitive, broad search terms showing amazing results.

There are other aspects of the Search Engine Optimization which are still being worked on which will further increase the Search Engine Results Position (SERP) of the Sherlock Home Inspection website and should in all probability help with some of the other search terms which had been less targeted during the SEO process.

The techniques and procedure used in the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) process used on the Sherlock Homes Inspection were recently learned in a SEO continuing education course which was taken by Tom Rumish earlier this year.

I almost continually take college level and continuing education courses to either learn new aspects of our profession or to stay abreast of changes that take place in this ever evolving business. Because the success of small business web site design and maintenance specialist Tom Rumish Website Development depends totally on the success of you, your business and your small business website we relentlessly look for and take courses which we feel will help us in our profession and ultimately help you and your business succeed.

A large portion of the business that small business web site designer Tom Rumish does is the remodeling and revamping of existing small business websites. Many people have existing website which are outdated and for one reason or another are not effective marketing tools for their businesses. If you own such a site or if your website is doing poorly in Search Engine Results Position (SERP) don’t hesitate to contact Tom Rumish Website Development for a no obligation consultation by visiting the Tom Rumish Website Development website or by calling (815) 786-8573.

Should You Use The Yellow Pages

2008-05-07T13:00:00.002-05:00

"I'm a small company and all of my cutomers are local so I don't need a website. I just use the Yellow Pages."

Does this sound like your train of thought? Are the majority of your customers from your local or immediate area? If so, you may question why your company needs a website. The answer is simple.

Your customers are more and more often searching for businesses like yours on the Internet. Studies show that these customers have a serious buying intent. As a local business you need to figure out how to cost effectively reach out to these customers and start the business relationship.

The Internet has changed the way that customers are looking for your business. The days of pulling out 10 pounds of phone books are coming to an end. People are still letting their fingers do the walking but it's on a computer keyboard. The Kelsey research group published these statistics and trends.

► over 80% of households use the Internet as an information source when shopping locally.
► Approximately 45% of local searches had a buying intent.
► The percentage of respondents who used yellow page directories decreased from 74% to under 50%. (If you have a yellow page ad, it is time to consider buying a smaller ad and shifting your marketing dollars to the Internet.)

GAIN AND RETAIN CUSTOMERS
In order to keep your existing customers, and gain new customers you need to be found where past and potential customers are searching. If your company does not have a website I strongly suggest that you allocate a portion of your marketing budget towards establishing a web site so that your’ business can be found where people are searching for local businesses like yours.

Due to the way that potential customers are searching for businesses like yours a website is a mandatory marketing tool. Having a company website is no longer just “something nice” to have. Having a website should be considered just as important as having business cards and should be included in your advertising budget.

Though the yellow pages may have worked years ago, it’s time to use what works today. Maximize the use of your marketing dollars by using marketing and advertising techniques what work today.

GET STARTED IN ESTABLISHING A COMPANY WEBSITE
Tom Rumish Website Development offers free consultations and estimates for small business web site design and maintenance.

We will be glad to meet with you and answer any questions that you may have regarding establishing a small business website. In addition to answering your questions we will help you determine what you should include in your website and give you a written estimate of the costs involved in establishing a web site for your company.

To schedule a free consultation contact us by email at sales@tomrum.com or by phone at (815) 786-8573. You can also schedule a no obligation web site design and maintenance consultation by using the online form that is on the Contact Us page of our website. You are under no obligation to get the consultation and estimate.

Please feel free to visit our website at www.tomrum.com to see the services that we offer. On our website you will also be able to read testimonials from past small business web site design clients and learn more about the process involved in establishing a website for your company.

"How-To" Articles and Free E-Books

2008-04-23T09:05:00.004-05:00

Small Business Web Site Designer Tom Rumish has added a new page to his website at www.tomrum.com/ which has numerous "How-To" articles and free E-Books which we feel will be helpful to small business owners.

The articles cover a wide range of small business web site design, on-line marketing and off-line marketing topics. Generally speaking, they explain in-depth "how-to" accomplish a given task. In order for your business to succeed you must constantly learn new marketing tactics and stay abreast of what some of the new trends are. We hope that the articles and E-Books help you do just that.

These articles and E-Books are provided free by affordable website designer Tom Rumish Website Development to help you and your small business website gain and retain customers and market your small business. Please feel free to print out the articles and save the E-Books of your choice. Use the website designer "how-to" articles and E-Books as both learning tools and references.

The articles and E-Books are grouped in three catagories and cover a wide range of knowledge from basic to more in-depth and technical matters.

The three catagories of articles and E-books are:
Website Structure, Creation & Optimization
Online Marketing of Your Business and Website
Offline Marketing of Your Business

At present there are a total of 12 Articles and E-Books available on the Tom Rumish Website Development website. Be sure to bookmark our website and return to the How To Articles often as I will be adding more Articles and E-Books as I find them and they become available to me.

The "how-to" articles and e-books page of our website (www.tomrum.com/) can be accessed from the main menu at the top of any of our website pages. Just click on the "FAQ'S & How To" button.

GROW YOUR BUSINESS WITH EMAIL MARKETING

2008-04-11T11:09:00.004-05:00

Email Marketing can help your business gain and retain customers and it is easier than ever to establish a good Email Marketing campaign.

I’m NOT talking about SPAMMING. I’m talking about an Email Marketing campaign aimed at past clients that have given you their email addresses, people that voluntarily ask for an Email Newsletters from you and people who may belong to an organization or association that you are a member of.

Retaining past clients is a crucial to your business. By sending a well written, professional looking Email Newsletter to previous clients you will be showing them that you care about their past business and you will be the first one that they think of when they again need or want services and products that you offer.

Gaining new customers is just as important as or possibly more essential than retaining your base of past clients. By placing an opt-in request form on your website, which people can use to request your Newsletter, you will be able to grow a list of new and potential clients.

USE THE RIGHT TOOLS FOR EMAIL MARKETING

It sounds like all of this will take a lot of work and time doesn’t it? If you did all of the things mentioned above manually it would be a lot of work. However, there are now tools available that can perform all of the List Management and HTML Newsletter creation tasks for you with just a few mouse clicks.

I’ll bet you’re now thinking that something that can automate a lot of your Email Marketingwork is going to be expensive and learning to use the toll will be time consuming and difficult. Sorry – you’re wrong. It’s easy to learn and very inexpensive to use.

EASY-TO-USE EMAIL CREATION TOOLS

We know you’ve got talent ‘cause you’re thinking about Email Marketing. But if you’re worried you don’t have enough online experience to subject yourself to a mass email campaign, fear no more!

Choose from a range of Email Newsletters creation methods, depending on your level of expertise. Dive in with an entry-level Email Wizard which has many predefined graphic templates to choose from. Or if you are on the geek end of the spectrum, utilize your own pre-built HTML.

LIST MANAGEMENT

You know you want to grow your list, but where do you start? The first step to generating a loyal audience for your business is to get them in your Rolodex. Ok, carefully back away from that ballpoint pen.

Make your way calmly to an opt-in form builder and start building your customer email database today. Ask anything – name, email, address, and add custom fields such as shoe size or age. It’s easy to get started using a opt-in form wizard. Then sit back and watch your lists grow!

You can also upload any separate lists that you may already have or manually create a new list from information that you have saved somewhere on your computer.

TRACKING AND REPORTING

In addition to the extra time it takes to send Email Newsletters manually, when you send your emails manually or use an ordinary email client program you don’t have any idea of how many people actually opened your Newsletter.

Wouldn’t it be great to know just how effective your email marketing campaign and Newsletter are actually working? Here are some of the various reports that you can generate:

Campaign Totals – View the number of emails Sent, Opened, Bounced and Unsubscribed.

Click-Through Performance – View your click-through rate on any links you have contained within your email.

Response Curve Reporting – Graphs inform you how your campaign did for the first 24 hours as it relates to clicks and opens.

Campaign comparison statistics – Graphs and charts enable you to compare response for up to 5 campaigns.

TRY EMAIL MARKETING FOR FREE

I initially used a “free trial” offered by VerticalResponse and was so pleased after sending out a “trial” Email Newsletter that I am continuing to use it.

There are no contracts to sign. You don’t need to input any credit card information to use the “trial”. You are able to send 25 emails when using the trial for no charge whatever. After you have used up your 25 free emails you can purchase additional “email credits” (one credit per email recipient) as you would like.

Why spend $0.015 to send the email when you can done so for free using my normal email client? The answer is simple. For a less than the cost of a can of soda I was able to create an eye catching professional looking Newsletter quickly. And most importantly (to me) I am able to track and generate reports about the email campaign.

SIGN UP FOR THE FREE EMAIL MARKETING TRIAL NOW

To try VerticalResponse Email Marketing for free go to the small business web site design and maintenance website of Tom Rumish Website Development (www.tomrum.com/) and scroll to the very bottom of any page on the website. At far right of the bottom you will see an animated graphic for VerticalResponse. Just click on the link and you will be taken to the Vertical Response Free Trial sign-up page.

Go ahead and sign up for the no risk or obligation trial. After you have signed up I suggest going to the Education & Support page of Vertical Response (http://www.verticalresponse.com/education-support/) and click on the “Demo’s” link on the right side of the page to watch videos on how to use the various features that are included at no extra charge.

I’m sure you’ll be as pleased with Vertical Response Email Marketing as I am. If you like VerticalResponse after you have used your free 25 email credits, as I am sure you will, I suggest buying $5.00 worth of email credits. That way you won’t have to dig out your credit card every time you send out an email campaign. $5.00 will buy you 333 email credits which should last you the better part of a year.

HOW SEARCH ENGINES WORK

2008-04-01T10:26:00.007-05:00

There are many people who can't understand why their small business web sites are showing up poorly (or not showing up at all) in Google and other search results.

A lot of people just dont' understand how search engines work. If they did understand how search engines work they would be able to better optimize the text content of their business websites. The text content of web pages is ONE of the many important factors in determining the Search Engine Results Position (SERP) of websites.

I have two links at the bottom of this posting for free e-books in PDF format. The first e-book (keyword-basics-lesson-one) explains how search engines actually work. The second e-book (keyword-research-guide) explains in detail the use of Keywords and how to research good Keywords to use in the text content of your web pages. I suggest that you click the links to the free e-books and save them to the desktop of your computer. Then, read the free e-books at your leasure.

The e-books which you will download by clicking the links at the bottom of this posting are published by WordTracker. WordTracker is probably the best keyword and keyword phrase tool available.

After reading the e-books I am sure that you will want to use WordTracker. Because WordTracker is such a powerful tool and because I think that it could help you greatly, I have included a link for a free trial use of WordTracker at the bottom of all of the pages on my website. Tom Rumish Website Development www.tomrum.com/ (Very bottom of the page - 2nd graphic link from the left.)

Download, save and read the free e-books. After you have read the e-books try the free trial of WordTracker. You will gain a lot of knowledge that I am sure will help you, your web site and your business.

Tom Rumish Website Development is not just a small business web site design and maintenance specialist. Though we include BASIC web site optimization in all of the websites that we design, more in-depth search engine optimization is also available. Free search engine submissions are also included with every web site that we design.

Keyword Basics Lesson One

Keyword Research Guide

FAQ's added to Tom Rumish Website Development site

2008-03-22T13:01:00.006-05:00

Small business web site design and maintenance specialist Tom Rumish has added a FAQ's page to his website at http://www.tomrum.com/.

Because of the many basic questions that I get during my free consultations with small business owners about designing and establishing websites for their small business I decided that it was time to add a FAQ's page to my website. Though the questions on the FAQ's page may seem like things that everyone should know, there are many people who have no idea of what is actually involved in getting a website online.

In an effort to help educate those small business owners I have placed just under 20 commonly asked questions with answers on the new FAQ's page. Topics covered on the FAQ's page are such things as Web Site Design Costs, Web Page Content, Domain Names, Website Hosting, Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Submission. When authoring the answers to the FAQ's I attempted to write the answers as non-technical as possible, so that everyone should understand the answers.

If you or someone you know is considering having a custom designed small business website created I suggest that you have them take a look at our FAQ's page located at http://www.tomrum.com/affordable-web-design-faqs.htm . I think the the questions and answers on the page may be helpful to you or any small business owner who is thinking of estabilishing a website for their small business.

If you have a question that is not covered on our FAQ's page please go to the Tom Rumish Website Devlopment website Contact page and fill in our Free Consultation Request form. After receiving your Consultation Request I will contact you and schedule a free website consultation during which I can answer any and all questions that you may have.

Sandwich IL Weather

2007-05-06T11:24:00.000-05:00

The Sandwich IL Weather website, which is owned and operated as a free service by Tom Rumish Website Development was switched to a dedicated computer this past week.

This new computer is for the sole purpose of gathering information from our outside weather station and uploading that information to the Sandwich IL Weather website. The new computer will not be used for any other purpose other than the Sandwich IL Weather website. This rather costly change was made to increase the reliability of the weather website. In addition, a second computer has been configured with the necessary software and connections. This second computer will be used as a back-up for the new primary computer used for the Sandwich IL Weather website.

Sandwich IL Weather provides free LOCAL weather information for Sandwich, Illinois which is updated on the web every 30 minutes. The weather data is taken right at our location in Sandwich Illinois and is not compiled from statistics from airports and other sources which are actually distant from Sandwich and are not truly local.

In addtion to the local weather data for Sandwich, Illinois the Sandwich IL Weather website has many links to regional, state and national weather information. Live radar, forecasts, snowfall, precipitation, and a countless number of other links exist.

Contract for new website

2007-04-17T08:25:00.000-05:00

Tom Rumish Website design has obtained a contract to design and deploy a new website from 108 EAST. 108 EAST is a fine dining restaurant located in Sandwich, Illinois and was formerly know as "Rick's".

Being in the southeast corner of DeKalb County, Illinois, 108 EAST customers come from many of the surrounding counties and are not from just DeKalb County. 108's clientel very often travel from Kendall County, LaSalle County, Kane County and Will County to enjoy a wide selection from both their lunch and dinner menus. A fine selection of Pasta's, Chicken, Seafood and Steaks & Chops are included in the fare offered by 108 EAST.

Though the new website is not online as yet, the URL for the website will be www.108east.com .

Tom Rumish Website Design NEW BLOG

2007-04-15T05:49:00.000-05:00

This Blog is relatd to Tom Rumish Website Development and is a new version of our old Blog site which had been de-inactived by Blogger due to my not posting often enough.