News & Events at Bizzistance

SEOblog.com Ranks Bizzistance Among Best Boston SEO Companies in the United States in 2022

cameo@bizzistance.com (Cameo Moy) — Mon, 18 Jul 2022 04:22:24 GMT

Bizzistance is a top-rated digital marketing agency committed to providing 360-degree digital marketing solutions to businesses of all types and sizes. We take a “wholistic” approach to search engine optimization (SEO) and web design to provide personalized brand experiences that differentiate Bizzistance from the competition.

Our team’s ability to implement the best digital marketing strategy for businesses was recently acknowledged by SEOblog.com, whose digital marketing analysts named our firm among the Best Boston SEO Companies in the United States in 2022.

With more than 25 years of experience managing custom SEO and web marketing services for various companies, we have the expertise and skills to help brands succeed in this highly competitive industry.

“Cameo Moy, the owner of Bizzistance, did an incredible job recreating our website. We have been in business for over 28 years and needed some assistance. Cameo put together a complete review along with recommendations. We took her up on all her suggestions and Wow!! What a difference.

Cameo understands what is important to display on a website while making it easy to navigate. Cameo is such a pleasure to deal with, she is so helpful, happy and positive. I give Bizzistance the triple thumbs up!! I will be referring her to all my business friends.”

– Richard Gallery | Client

SEOblog.com, a leading thought-leadership site and directory for the best SEO companies , announced the “2022 Best Boston SEO Companies in the United States” in mid-July. Each SEO agency on the list was ranked based on dozens of key qualitative and quantitative factors in its ranking system, including market presence, website quality, client list and portfolio.

We are extremely delighted to be recognized among the best Boston SEO companies by SEOblog.com. We are grateful to our clients, partners, and our Bizzistance team for their unwavering support for our firm throughout the years.

Need custom digital marketing solutions? Please contact us today to learn more about our SEO and digital marketing packages. You can also write a review on Google about your experience with us by clicking here .

Why your website needs to be ADA compliant

cameo@bizzistance.com (Cameo Moy) — Tue, 05 Apr 2022 04:08:17 GMT

I recently invested in an ADA-compliance tool thinking that it would help my website become WCAG-compliant, because I thought WCAG compliance was the law (when in fact it was the opposite). This common misunderstanding is perpetuated by a media that consistently conflates the two compliance standards. This blog is to demystify what these website standards are and to provide you with some suggestions on what to do about website accessibility compliance.

DISCLAIMER: Before you read further, please note that this blog post is my understanding of the two website accessibility compliance standards. This is my opinion and common-sense (well, some might call it genius ) interpretation. But however genius this post may be, it is not meant to be legal advice of any kind. Please consult a lawyer if you need legal advice.

That said, you should read what I have to say, because no one has said it in such an understandable way before…

Think of ADA compliance as the "How" part of Website Accessibility

ADA is the acronym for the Americans with Disabilities Act that became law in 1990 with which most Americans are familiar. ADA accessibility in the physical world means making sure that someone with a disability has equal opportunity access to (can "enjoy") a physical public space like a store or an office building. This means wheelchair ramps, wheelchair-accessible bathroom stalls, Braille on elevator buttons, and so on.

ADA accessibility in the digital world means making sure that someone with a disability has equal opportunity to access (can "enjoy") using your online public place (website). This means making sure a blind person can "see" your website and a person who can't hold a mouse can "navigate" your website, and so on.

Think of WCAG compliance as the "What" aspect of Website Accessibility

WCAG is an acronym for Website Content Accessibility Guidelines. These guidelines were written to ensure a common standard for making website content (the pictures, the words, the forms, the videos, etc.) accessible to assistive technologies . In simplified terms, in WCAG compliance, "accessible" means "understandable" for those with disabilities. So, how do you make pictures or actions in videos understandable to those who have visual impairments? How do you make videos with sound understandable to those who are hard of hearing? The WCAG standards were written to address these issues.

Does your website have to be ADA compliant?

Yes. Because it's the law. The American with Disabilities Act now extends to websites . The courts interpret your website as a public place that people with disabilities have a right to enjoy and, therefore, you are obligated to provide reasonable accommodations to ensure their ability to enjoy said public place.

How do you make a website ADA compliant?

Think of ADA website compliance as requiring your online public place (website) to be accessible to folks who can't easily see it or hear it. Just as the ADA requires a physical public place to be accessible to those who can't walk (ramps) or can't see (braille).

The only difference is what is meant by "accessible." There are several companies out there that market tools that state that they make your website "WCAG compliant." But they're either mistaken or misleading since WCAG compliance requires human intervention. In actuality, the tools they market make your website ADA compliant, not WCAG compliant.

Does your website have to be WCAG compliant?

The short answer is no. Since WCAG are only guidelines and not a law, following them is not required.

At your discretion you can remain non-compliant with WCAG standards. This is perfectly fine. However, you should consider that while making your website WCAG-compliant can be expensive when you look only at the bottom-line, following WCAG standards is actually a sound investment in your website—because it is good for SEO (helps your site rank higher in search results) and can engage a wider audience (more potential customers if your content can engage the the ADA population).

How do you make a website WCAG compliant?

A human. You need an actual human being to make actual changes to your actual website. The ADA-compliance tools marketed by companies as "WCAG-compliance" tools can't make changes to your website, therefore, these tools can't make your website WCAG compliant. If the cost of the tool includes the cost of a human making your website WCAG compliant, then that's an option worth exploring. Be aware that there are AI (artificial intelligence) tools available, but they are NOT a human being, albeit some AI are smarter than some people. lol Buyer beware is what we're advocating :)

A human being has the imagination and creativity to add strong descriptive alt-text to your non-decorative images. Images such as charts and graphs or any image essential to conveying understanding of a topic (e.g., infographics) need to link out to detailed descriptions. And while you can use an automated service to generate closed captioning for videos, you still need a human being to synchronize the captioning with the video and check that there are no misspellings or transcription errors. If you provide video transcriptions of your videos, you need to include descriptions of substantive actions in the video as part of your transcription.

What do we suggest?

Required: Install an ADA compliance tool on your website to comply with the law

Since ADA compliance is a law, we strongly suggest that you comply. The good news it that you can comply fairly quickly by having an ADA compliance tool installed on your website. However, be aware that services that charge you based on number of website pages may be gouging you if they don't offer something MORE than the tool itself. At Bizzistance, we offer a flat-fee ADA compliance tool regardless of the size of your website. (Check out the little guy in the dusty pink circle at the bottom left of this screen. We customize that little guy to your branding and add the requisite accessibility statement for your website. Contact us today to learn more!)

Optional: Hire a web designer to make your website WCAG compliant

WCAG are guidelines at the moment, so while you are not required to comply, you should understand them and plan and budget for NEW content you add to your website from today onwards, so that your website can start to become WCAG compliant. That way, if the guidelines become law, you will be ahead of the game and will only need to retrofit old content. Whenever you update a page on your website, try to ensure that the updated page is WCAG-compliant.

Again, WCAG compliance is not a bad thing. Ensuring accessible content on your website strengthens the SEO of your website to help your website rank better. And, more importantly, also helps your business tap into the underserved disabled population (650 billion globally).

Bottom-line

If your business is in the business-to-consumer (B2C) category, your website should be fully accessible as soon as possible to mitigate litigation risk. We all know that there are sue-happy people in the world looking for a quick buck. If your business is business-to-business (B2B), then being ADA-compliant should be sufficient, unless your business does business with companies that serve the ADA population. In which case, being fully accessible may be the better decision.

What is your takeaway?

Your takeaway is that to have full website accessibility, your website needs to be both ADA-compliant (the "how" part of website accessibility) and WCAG-compliant (the "what" part of website accessibility).

However, currently you are only required to be ADA compliant. WCAG compliance is optional .

If you have any questions about the content in this article, don't hesitate to contact me at info@bizzistance.com! If you found this article helpful, you may find other articles in my Small Business Tips Series helpful. Check out the Series here!

Trends You Should Understand When Marketing to Young Consumers

Fri, 16 Jul 2021 21:14:41 GMT

Marketing is always complicated no matter what audience you’re trying to reach. However, young consumers can be especially difficult to market to because there’s less information available about their spending habits and marketing preferences. Young consumers are also an incredibly important market because they are likely to remain loyal customers from this point forward.

They Trust Influencers

Influencers are becoming a more essential part of modern marketing, especially when you’re looking to market to younger audiences. Figuring out how to use influencer marketing effectively is an essential part of really reaching your younger audience. A big part of your marketing is choosing the right influencers for the right products. You also want to compensate your influencers appropriately so that they respond positively to your products and their followers are interested in what you have to offer. Taking the time to get to know influencers and learn about their values can help you to choose the right ones for each job.

They Avoid Phone Calls

While phone calls might work for reaching older generations of audiences, it is much less likely to help you contact younger consumers. Emails and texts will be much better methods of communication for these younger audiences. This also means making your website more user-friendly so that your audiences will be able to get the information they need online. You should include important information on your website , so customers don’t need to call. This will make your business more convenient for younger audiences which will make them more likely to frequent it.

Build Your Social Media Presence

Younger consumers will often rely on social media to learn about new products and services. That means that it’s essential to build up your social media presence. Make sure that you’re posting regularly and that your content is relevant to your audience. Being present on social media will also be a good way for you to get in touch with influencers and build relationships with them. This will make it easier for you to use influencer marketing effectively and to really connect with your audience.

Younger consumers can be the key to your future success as a business. Now is the best possible time to start working on growing your consumer base among younger audiences. When you are able to reach them effectively you will be able to grow your business and continue building towards a strong future.

Read this next: 11 things to consider when starting a small business

3 Strategies that Help Improve Your SEO

Thu, 24 Jun 2021 19:29:24 GMT

Blog Content

In the online business community, content is everything. This is particularly true when it comes to improving your SEO because the more content you have on your company’s website, the more your SEO will grow. Your blog content can be about topics related to your business, customer experiences, or employee stories. The idea is to include more keywords related to your business because the use of those words will funnel into your search engine rankings. With your blog, potential customers can find your website because of your posts or because of a direct search. Either way, you are benefiting from blog content.

Obtain Reviews

Most often, if there is one piece of information potential customers look at before they take their money to your business, it is your online reviews. In fact, 97 percent of people read reviews for local businesses. The more positive your reviews are, the more likely you are to have better SEO. This is because search engines naturally want to promote good and well-liked companies over bad ones. As mentioned above, keywords act as catalysts to improve your SEO, and that includes keywords picked up from your reviews. You can even take it a step further and benefit even more from reviews by responding to them, which will also improve your SEO.

Utilize Other Mediums

Aside from traditional written posts, you can increase your SEO with multimedia content like pictures or videos. Again, this provides more credibility to your website and gives potential customers another way to be directed to your site, even if they were only looking up images or videos . Additionally, in this digital age, people have become more accustomed to watching online content rather than reading it. With pictures and videos, your website visitors will find your page that much more enjoyable.

Once you create a plan and start to improve your SEO, you will be able to see an almost immediate rise in your online rankings. When it comes to the online business world, a little effort can go a long way, but a lot of effort can go even further. So get on your computer and begin improving your SEO!

Read this next: What Business Owners Need to Know About Logos

What business owners need to know about logos

cameo@bizzistance.com (Cameo Moy) — Wed, 19 May 2021 23:01:46 GMT

Vector files are king!

One of the issues I come across almost weekly is that a business owner cannot provide me an EPS, SVG, or AI file (aka "vector" files) of their logo. They can only send me a JPG or PNG ("raster" files). The reason that vector files are important is that they allow your logo to be enlarged…infinitely…without loss of resolution and are on transparent backgrounds. Vector images are composed by mathematics. Raster files, on the other hand, are composed of dots, also known as "pixels." You've probably heard someone say, "that picture is very pixelated," meaning that the image is very blurry.

Cliff Notes of Resolution

Most designers talk about resolution (clarity) of an image using a dots-per-inch (dpi) or pixels-per-inch (ppi) measurement. DPI is used to talk about the resolution related to printed media (e.g., brochures) and PPI is used with digital media (websites, television). However, DPI is often used to refer to digital media as well. "PPI" never really caught on.

Image blurriness happens when raster files are enlarged. This is because the dot/pixel itself is enlarged to cover the same area. For example, if you have a 72 dpi (dots per inch) resolution file, it means that you have 72 dots in a square-inch of space. When the 72 dpi raster file is enlarged (stretched) to 2 inches, you now have 72 dots covering 2 inches of space, resulting in a resolution of 36 dpi (72 divided by 2). The lower the dpi, the lower the resolution, resulting in blurriness. OTOH, if you compress (shrink) a one-inch, 72-dpi image to half-an-inch, you increase the image's resolution because you're putting more dots into a smaller area (72 divided by 0.5 inches = 144 dpi). So, the higher the dpi, the higher the resolution of the image.

Vector files are enlarged through mathematics and will therefore retain their resolution no matter how large you stretch the file. This is why vector files are king!

You need more than a PNG or JPG from your graphics designer

Therefore, if you're a business owner and you had a logo professionally designed, it is not enough that your graphic designer sent you a PNG or a JPG file. You need to make sure that they also send you an SVG, EPS, or PDF file. You should also ask for the original source file. Hopefully, the source file was created in Adobe Illustrator. Why SVG, EPS, and PDF files are important are explained in the "Takeaway" column in the table below.

You also need a logo that looks good on a dark background

In addition, you should have your designer create a version of your logo for use on dark backgrounds. Website footers are usually dark to "ground" the website. So, if you plan on having a terrific-looking website footer, you need a logo that looks good on a dark background. And if you foresee yourself putting your logo on merchandise, you don't want to limit yourself to putting your logo only on white items. Don't we all love black t-shirts more than white ones?

The table below gives you a breakdown of different logo formats and their pros and cons. I hope this demystifies logo image formats for you!

Logo File Formats - Cliff Notes version

We coin great taglines

cameo@bizzistance.com (Cameo Moy) — Mon, 03 May 2021 19:20:08 GMT

Bizzistance' creativity is not limited to web design. We are also great at coining words and taglines.

Web designs that search engines find™

For: Bizzistance LLC

Bizzistance

For: Bizzistance LLC

Inspiration:

mashup of a common shortened term for business ("biz") and "assistance" —> Biz Assistance —> Bizzistance

We go for blood™

For: Global ProLab Inc (a mobile phlebotomy company)

Speed without Compromise

For Haemonetics Corporation (by yours truly when I was a FT employee for them)

Inspiration:

a new software update to their PCS2 plasmapheresis device that allowed it to collect plasma faster without compromising safety

Imaginution™ / Imaginutions™

For: Bizzistance LLC

Inspiration

mashup of "imaginative" or "imagination" and "solutions" = Imaginutions

We have a few more in the works, but we won't disclose them until they've been put into commercial use by their companies.

Want to hire us to devise a memorable or catchy word or slogan for your company? Reach out and let's talk!

How SEO can affect what your prospective customers think of your business

Mon, 19 Apr 2021 00:52:12 GMT

Search Engine Optimization (or SEO) is a scary concept for many individuals seeking to grow their business without an extensive marketing background. To be fair, SEO has only been around since the late 90s and the analytics that go into determining the searching of webpages and catering to an audience is changing every day. As a business owner, it might be easier to overlook the importance of elevating your SEO for the sake of simplicity. When you invest in your SEO you not only increase your visibility, but you sway hesitant customers and develop a loyal following.

how seo can affect what your prospective customers think of your website how seo can affect what your prospective customers think of your website

Increase Visibility

Creating a unique and shareable environment for your audience is a major factor in helping distinguish yourself from the thousands of other sites competing for your prospect's attention. Allowing your content to be liked, shared, and accessed from a variety of platforms dramatically increases the amount of traffic that flows into your business. The more visitors you accumulate, the more your business populates in search results and social media followings. Increased visibility is the fastest way to increase your SEO and chances for business success.

how seo can affect what your prospective customers think of your website how seo can affect what your prospective customers think of your website

Sway Hesitant Customers

how seo can affect what your prospective customers think of your website how seo can affect what your prospective customers think of your website how seo can affect what your prospective customers think of your website how seo can affect what your prospective customers think of your website how seo can affect what your prospective customers think of your website how seo can affect what your prospective customers think of your website how seo can affect what your prospective customers think of your website how seo can affect what your prospective customers think of your website how seo can affect what your prospective customers think of your website

Your website is like an online job application for a prospective customer to view and decide whether or not they are going to hire you. Standard with any job application, references carry major weight in the hiring manager’s perception and likelihood that they will hire you.

When it comes to your business, you can include references by way of reviews. Reviews give your customers confidence in your product. Everyone feels more confident investing in something when they feel others have tested, tried, and approve of the final product. Gaining new reviews will improve your SEO and help you generate more leads.

Develop a Loyal Following

An important thing to remember is that the business world is full of competition. You are not the only one vying for your prospective customer’s attention. When you decide to invest in your SEO , you increase the probability a visitor will be drawn to your business over other competitors.

Once a customer has chosen you and been satisfied with the results, they consciously come to rely and depend on your services. If you continue to satisfy customers’ expectations, they become your most dependable asset in coming back for more interactions and bringing in new customers.

how seo can affect what your prospective customers think of your website how seo can affect what your prospective customers think of your website

SEO doesn’t have to be complicated. Increasing your website visibility requires new visitors. Reviews are like the references that help sway hesitant hiring managers. Consistency is the most reliable way to develop loyal customers and advertise your business. When implementing these three concepts, you will find the relationships you create well worth the effort.

BickfordExteriors.com relaunched!

Mon, 30 Nov 2020 14:08:57 GMT

Bickford Exteriors is a full-service residential exteriors contractor. "From the top of your roof to to the top of your foundation," they've got you covered. From asphalt roofs to cedar siding to skylight installations, Bickford Exteriors does it all.

Check them out: www.bickfordexteriors.com

A little about the project:

Mike Bickford, owner of Bickford Exteriors located in Hanover, MA, contacted Bizzistance in mid-October. Their website went live on November 30 and was appearing on Page 3 of Google search engine results by December 12th.

Mike's original website, which he had designed himself over 10 years ago, was not only non-mobile-friendly, it was practically non-functional as all the pictures on his site were replaced by the little, ugly, no-image icon because his site pictures had been deleted by the host. As he knew his website wasn't mobile-friendly anyways, he decided to get it professionally redone.

Being meticulous in his craft translated to being meticulous in his research of suitable web designers. After visiting the websites of other design companies, he decided to contact with Bizzistance, for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was that we articulated our process and our goals for our clients, and wasn't in the business of building a website and then walking away. This philosophy matched his and he was happy to contract with Bizzistance after a brief discovery call.

A detailed project summary will be forthcoming in the new year. Stay tuned!

Don't fall for the "Google Business Partner" scam

cameo@bizzistance.com (Cameo Moy) — Sat, 07 Nov 2020 20:39:08 GMT

Google employees do not call anyone out of the blue

When you create or claim your Google My Business listing, you'll start getting calls from "Google Business Partners." Hang up! Here's why:

One of the things that Google doesn't do is call out of the blue. I've only talked to Google twice, when they had to contact me to resolve a client's Google My Business listing issue. My client had inadvertently triggered a fraud alert when they forgot which email they used to claim their listing and then used the wrong one to try to start an AdWords campaign. You would think since they were trying to give Google business, Google would bend over backwards to help them. Nope. Instead their business was flagged as fraudulent and they got blacklisted from appearing in the Google My Business panel.

Anyway, it took three months of emailing back and forth with Google before they deigned to contact me by phone. So, I repeat: Google does NOT call people out of the blue.

Who's calling me if it's not Google?

Scammers looking to make a quick buck off your lack of technical knowledge. Anyone can say they're a "Google Business Partner." If they've done anything on any Google platform for a fee, they will say they are a Google Business Partner. I could say that. And I wouldn't be lying. I'd be deceiving you by implying a formal relationship with Google where none exists. But I'm technically not lying, so Google can't prevent scammers from calling you and saying this. They can only help you after you've been scammed.

What you need to know

1) Google My Business listings are FREE to set up.

This means there is no charge for you to set up and manage a Google My Business listing if you know how to do it.

While you, yourself, may not know how to set up a Google My Business listing, any of your tech-savvy friends who owns a business most likely will. I am that tech savvy friend for my friend who got scammed. In fact, I claimed the listing for her and TOLD HER TO CALL ME when she was back in town (she was going out of town the day after I claimed her listing for her). But she got a call from a "Google Business Partner" when she was out of town and decided to have that "Google Business Partner" set up her listing instead.

Because she's not tech savvy, she didn't know anyone could do this. She thought you had to be affiliated with Google in order to configure the listing.

This is a crying shame, as she's living off a tight budget and I was going to do it for her for free since she's a friend. Instead, the deceitful "Google Business Partner" scammed her out of $300 for something she could have gotten done for free.

2) What should you do if you get a call from a "Google Business Partner" out of the blue?

HANG UP. Google employees do not call you unless you have reported an issue to them by email first.

3) How do I set up a Google My Business listing myself?

That's like me asking someone to explain to me how to hang drywall. It would be really hard for that someone to explain it to me since I've never even used a power tool and can't cut a straight line to save my life. That said, I do have some tips for you.

You can search "setting up a Google My Business listing" on Google or YouTube
You can ask a tech savvy, business owner friend to help you (best option)
You can proactively contact a company to help with setting up a Google My Business listing, preferably a local company. But do your due diligence. Read their reviews and call them to talk with them. Companies will charge a fee to do the set up. A reputable company will tell you that you can set it up yourself for free before they tell you they will charge for the service.

4) Never give up ownership of your Google My Business listing

This one is a little harder to explain. If you created or claimed a Google My Business listing yourself, anyone else who wants to manage the listing must be granted access to the listing.

The safest way to grant access to the listing is to make them a user of your Google My Business listing. If the person or company you hire asks for your user name and password to help you, ask them to request access to the listing instead.

When you receive the request, make sure the access request is to be a Manager, not an Owner. If they request Owner status, change it to Manager before granting them access. As a manager, they should be able to do everything you can do, EXCEPT transfer primary ownership of the listing to someone else (e.g., themselves).

Whatever you do, don't share with them your user name and password that you use with other accounts.

Sharing your username and password with a stranger, or even with a friend, puts you at risk of identity fraud. Why? Because you probably use the same password for logins to other accounts. And if you're not tech savvy, you probably use the same don t fall for the google business partner scam password for your bank accounts. Do I really need to go into this? So, I repeat, don't share your login credentials with A STRANGER. And use care when sharing with friends.

If you really need to share your username and password because you don't want to be bothered with tech stuff, don t fall for the google business partner scam don t fall for the google business partner scam don t fall for the google business partner scam don t fall for the google business partner scam don t fall for the google business partner scam don t fall for the google business partner scam don t fall for the google business partner scam don t fall for the google business partner scam don t fall for the google business partner scam don t fall for the google business partner scam don t fall for the google business partner scam don t fall for the google business partner scam don t fall for the google business partner scam don t fall for the google business partner scam don t fall for the google business partner scam don t fall for the google business partner scam don t fall for the google business partner scam don t fall for the google business partner scam don t fall for the google business partner scam don t fall for the google business partner scam don t fall for the google business partner scam don t fall for the google business partner scam don t fall for the google business partner scam don t fall for the google business partner scam don t fall for the google business partner scam don t fall for the google business partner scam don t fall for the google business partner scam don t fall for the google business partner scam don t fall for the google business partner scam don t fall for the google business partner scam don t fall for the google business partner scam don t fall for the google business partner scam don t fall for the google business partner scam don t fall for the google business partner scam don t fall for the google business partner scam don t fall for the google business partner scam don t fall for the google business partner scam don t fall for the google business partner scam don t fall for the google business partner scam don t fall for the google business partner scam don t fall for the google business partner scam don t fall for the google business partner scam don t fall for the google business partner scam don t fall for the google business partner scam don t fall for the google business partner scam don t fall for the google business partner scam don t fall for the google business partner scam AT LEAST change your PASSWORD to a UNIQUE password that you've never used before. Do NOT share with them a password that you reuse with other accounts. And please, please, please remember to write down this unique password somewhere and remember where it is!!

5) You need to be an "owner" of your Google My Business listing

If a reputable company configured your Google My Business listing, they will freely make you an owner of your Google My Business listing when you ask them.

If they won't or they want to charge you, you have problem. Fill out this form to notify Google that you need help to reclaim your Google My Business listing due a violation of their 3rd-party policies.

Or you can hire a company like Bizzistance to help you get your listing back under your control. I'll likely be doing this for my friend.

AtlanticQuotes.com relaunched!

Sat, 31 Oct 2020 18:37:11 GMT

Atlantic Insurance' new—and truly—search engine optimized, mobile-friendly website was relaunched on October 31, 2020. Their new eye-candy website was a terrific Halloween treat for both companies!

Background

Atlantic Insurance Group Agency Inc's previous website was not truly optimized as the website did not have useful meta-titles and meta-page-descriptions for search engines or users. The website also lacked useful insurance content that would help visitors (and search engines!) understand Atlantic's value as an independent insurance agency. And while the previous website was mobile-friendly, it didn't contain special features that make it easy for visitors to contact the company from their mobile phones.

Check it out: www.atlanticquotes.com

A little about the project:

In the redesign we retained the home page hero image because Atlantic Insurance was very attached to it and felt it was an integral part of their website identity. The home page image became our inspiration for the sunrise/sunset pictures used throughout the site. We primarily used the same blue and yellow in the new website design, but introduced a few additional accent colors to give a livelier feel to some of the pages. We heavily copyedited the content of the site for flow and to help visitors understand how exceptionally customer-service oriented Atlantic Insurance is.

Below is a before-and-after of the home page. Slide the pink arrows in the middle of the image to the left or right to view the full before or after picture. A detailed project summary with more before/after images will be provided in the upcoming weeks.

Another Bizzistance-designed website is on Page 1 in Organic SERPs

cameo@bizzistance.com (Cameo Moy) — Fri, 23 Oct 2020 23:15:12 GMT

SeanKeefeElectrician.com was on page 1 in organic Google results for “electrician easton ma” on October 23, 2020.

Bizzistance hadn’t been checking our clients’ Search Engine Results Page (“SERP”) results regularly. Mea culpa.

We were making some updates on Sean’s website and decided to do a search. Lo and behold, SeanKeefeElectrician.com was on page 1 in organic search results in Google. We never spent a dime on AdWords.

And not only that, Sean's profile was also appearing in position #3 in the Google My Business panel. Bizzistance had claimed and set up Sean's GMB listing for him when we were contracted to design his website.

Bizzistance receives 2020 Best of Randolph award

Thu, 22 Oct 2020 00:21:47 GMT

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Bizzistance Receives 2020 Best of Randolph Award

Randolph Award Program Honors the Achievement

RANDOLPH October 21, 2020 -- Bizzistance has been selected for the 2020 Best of Randolph Award in the Website Designer category by the Randolph Award Program. This is the second year in a row that Bizzistance has been selected for this award.

Each year, the Randolph Award Program identifies companies that we believe have achieved exceptional marketing success in their local community and business category. These are local companies that enhance the positive image of small business through service to their customers and our community. These exceptional companies help make the Randolph area a great place to live, work and play.

Various sources of information were gathered and analyzed to choose the winners in each category. The 2020 Randolph Award Program focuses on quality, not quantity. Winners are determined based on the information gathered both internally by the Randolph Award Program and data provided by third parties.

About Randolph Award Program

The Randolph Award Program is an annual awards program honoring the achievements and accomplishments of local businesses throughout the Randolph area. Recognition is given to those companies that have shown the ability to use their best practices and implemented programs to generate competitive advantages and long-term value.

The Randolph Award Program was established to recognize the best of local businesses in our community. Our organization works exclusively with local business owners, trade groups, professional associations and other business advertising and marketing groups. Our mission is to recognize the small business community's contributions to the U.S. economy.

SOURCE: Randolph Award Program

CONTACT:

Randolph Award Program

Email: PublicRelations@community-bestof-announcement-2020.org

URL: http://www.community-bestof-announcement-2020.org

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Should you get an inkjet or a laser printer for your home office?

Tue, 13 Oct 2020 16:10:51 GMT

Laser wins if you're not printing glossy photo prints for your business

If you do a lot of printing, there is NO question that you should get get a laser printer over an inkjet. The only time an inkjet wins is if you print glossy photo prints for your business. Inkjet photo vividness can't be beat. But for the typical entrepreneur who works from home and needs a printer? A laser printer is the best choice, imho. In my business, I need to have a color printer. It can't be avoided. However, if you're not in the graphics business, you can save money by buying a black and white only laser printer.

Do the Math

While the initial purchase of a laser printer can be 3 to 10 times more expensive than an inkjet, and the toner replacement costs can also be 3 to 8 times more expensive than for an inkjet replacement cartridge, you have to weigh that you can usually print over 2000 copies (give or take depending on the average density of color in your printouts) before you need to change a laser toner cartridge. Inkjets can't match that volume of output. If you do the math for page yield , a standard 3rd-party black inkjet cartridge yields 300 pages and costs $22/cartridge, which prorates to $0.07 per page. Compare that to my HP Laserjet, which can print 2100 pages on a $27 3rd-party, black cartridge. (I rarely buy brand-name anything, with the exception being Thomas' English Muffins. Their nooks and crannies make the muffins super yummy!) This equates to $0.01 per page. In other words, printing from an inkjet cartridge is 7 times more expensive than printing from a laser printer.

Replacement toner costs can be more expensive, but you can save money if you're not afraid to buy 3rd-party replacements

My color laser printer came with "starter" toner, meaning the cartridges weren't filled 100%. The salesman said the toners were probably 50% full. I'd say I was able to print about 800 sheets before the first cartridge had to be replaced. HP-branded replacement cartridges are over $100 each (and you need 4 for a color printer). But I did some research and found a non-OEM replacement toner package of 4 cartridges (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black) for only $125 for all four cartridges (on Amazon). They work fine and I saved a TON of money. The only caveat is that the HP printer recognizes that a 3rd-party cartridge was installed and there is a disclaimer that "Any printer repair required as a result of using non-HP cartridges is not covered under warranty." My interpretation is that if the repair is NOT toner-related, then it IS covered. I was willing to take the risk. After about 9 months of use, I replaced all the cartridges once. And my laser printer is still working just fine.

You may lose some vividness of color between HP-branded and aftermarket toners. But I don't feel it is that noticeable. However vivid OEM toners may be, I don't personally feel that the vividness is worth 4 times more. YMMV

Your time is money

Laser printers can print 10 to 20 times faster than an inkjet. So if you need to print a lot, and print quickly, you should have a laser printer.

You don't have to worry about colors smearing

If you're printing something with a lot of color (and "vividness" is not a concern), the ink is already dry when the printout comes out of a laser printer. You don't have to wait or worry about colors smearing as you would an inkjet print with high coverage. Additionally, if you need to print something that needs to be mailed, sending inkjet prints can be risky. If your mail gets caught in the rain, it will run. And the recipient won't be able to read it. My boyfriend recently received an invoice, from a HOSPITAL, that was printed on an inkjet. It got rained on. Everything was smeared. He couldn't read it, much less pay it. I don't understand why a hospital would print a bill via inkjet. That is not smart.

Conserving color printing on inkjets can waste money

When I owned inkjets, to "conserve" the color inks, I would turn on the "b&w" printing option and only printed with color occasionally. But the problem is that when you don't print color copies regularly on an inkjet (at least once a week), your inkjet color cartridges can dry out. So that when you DO want to print in color, all you get is a crappy, unusable, unreadable print. And then you have to replace a barely used color inkjet cartridge to print in color. (This is not a savings.) Or forego printing in color. (Then why even have a color printer in the first place?)

Conclusion

So, when I decided to go into business for myself I knew I needed a printer which would allow me to print in black-and-white 90% of the time without having the color cartridges dry out before I finally printed in color. I also wanted to be able print short-run, color brochures (5 each, for example) at home instead of sending out to Staples or Vistaprint. And I wanted to be able to print without worrying about colors smearing if I have a heavy coverage printout or having the printout become unreadable after getting wet. For all these reasons, the laser printer was the clear choice for me.

So I bought an HP Color Laser Jet Pro MFP M477fnw. I bought it at Staples for about $307 (before taxes), after instant savings and 110% price match in February 2018.

Basically, if you do a lot of printing, a laser printer is the way to go. And if you do infrequent printing, a laser printer is also the way to go. Laser printer toner does not "dry out" like wet inkjet cartridges will. And quite frankly, you'll find your life more convenient when you can print whenever you want to, instead of agonizing over whether you "really" need to print this or that out in color or not.

You may waste more paper because now you can print willy-nilly. lol Just make sure you recycle your used printouts. I usually use the back side of printouts for note taking and scribbling before I put into the recycle bin. (And for safety, I shred anything with personal info.)

Original article was published in 2018. Costs referenced in the article reflect 2018 pricing.

Updated on 10/13/2020 to fix typos and reorganized topics under new headings for better flow and easier scanning for the busy entrepreneur.

How to improve your website to help your business compete with big box retailers

Fri, 25 Sep 2020 01:58:59 GMT

It can be tough for small businesses to compete with big box retailers. They have a lot more resources they can throw around compared to smaller businesses. If you want to compete with big retailers, there are some things you need to do. One of them is to improve your company's website. Here are a few things you can do to make your business’ website stand above your big box competitors.

Implement an Online Store

If your website doesn't have an online store yet, add one. Stepping up your ecommerce strategy is critical if you want to successfully compete with big box retailers. Having an online store to bring in additional business is an important move to make when attempting to compete with large retailers, especially since many of them have an online store as well. Begin marketing your store as well. You don't have to wait for it to be set up before you start marketing it. In fact, letting your customers know you're adding one and when it will go live can be a great way to get your online store off to a good start.

Make It Look Professional

Your business website should have a professional appearance to it. This means avoiding overly fancy or whimsical fonts and carefully selecting your color scheme. Use high quality images and videos where appropriate. Optimize your content for readability to decrease the number of people who navigate away from your site in search of content that's easier to get through. Having content is important, but if you overload a page with content and don't space it out, it will be more difficult to read. Correctly using white space makes your content look more professional and makes it easier on the eyes.

Optimize Your Website

Speaking of optimizing your content, you need to optimize other aspects of your website as well. Optimizing your website to increase your loading speed can help reduce your bounce rate . You should also make sure your website is optimized for smartphone users. Most consumers access websites through their phones, so if yours isn't optimized for mobile use, they are likely to leave and not come back. You should also optimize your website to improve your SEO rankings. This is what makes you more visible online by placing you higher on search engine results pages. All of these things will help you compete more successfully with big box retailers.

Improving your website can do great things for helping a small business compete with big box retailers. If you haven't already, add an online store to your website. Make your site look professional and be sure to optimize it. These suggestions, though not exhaustive, can help you get your business to a place where it can more reasonably compete with larger retailers.

Could your website use a facelift? We can help! Contact us so we can help give your website the overhaul it needs to help you be competitive in today’s digital marketplace.

GlobalProLab.com launched!

Wed, 23 Sep 2020 03:09:51 GMT

Global ProLab, Inc., is a mobile phlebotomy company that travels to your location to draw your blood. They serve the Greater Boston area. We launched their website on September 22, 2020.

And, by the way, Bizzistance coined their catchy tagline!

Check it out: www.globalprolab.com

Harvard-Env.com launched!

Tue, 15 Sep 2020 02:59:12 GMT

Harvard Environmental Services' mobile-friendly, eCommerce website was launched on September 14, 2020. They are using the eCommerce functionality for online registrations for their training classes.

Check it out: www.harvard-env.com

ConstantCompanionCare.com relaunched!

Fri, 21 Aug 2020 01:40:32 GMT

Constant Companion Care is a home care agency for the elderly. Their new search-engine optimized, user-friendly website was relaunched on August 20, 2020.

Check it out: www.constantcompanioncare.com

11 things to consider when starting a small business

Thu, 16 Jul 2020 03:02:39 GMT

Administrating a Small Business

Through trial and error I found that there were things I should have considered when starting my business. I decided to document my learnings in this blog post to help others who may be in the same boat I was in. I included the 10 things I though are the most important for new business owners to consider when starting their business. In 2020 when I updated the post I added an additional item. Hence the 11 items instead of the 10 as noted in the URL.

1. Consider choosing a business name that has flexibility

To save money, or because you already have brand recognition of your name, and possibly because of the inborn narcissist in each of us, you may want to have a company name with YOUR name in it, like "Jane's Services." Not a bad thing, but you do need to aware that you need to have your LAST name AND the specific service in your business name in order for you to avoid filing a DBA. So Jane's Services would need a DBA, but Jane Doe's Painting Services or even Doe's Painting Services , would not. At least that is the current law in Massachusetts. You should research the requirements for your specific state when opening your business (including in MA, since laws may change).

However, if your business is not straight forward or your name has no brand value, then you might want to consider naming it something evocative or catchy, like Apptopia or Bizzistance. Evocative business names allow you to expand your service or product offerings in the future, without changing your marketing collateral (business cards, pamphlets, etc). For example, if you opened Jane Doe's Painting Services , and then later decided to add cleaning services, then you'd have to have another set of business cards made for Jane Doe's Cleaning Services . Or change your business name to Jane Doe's Cleaning and Painting Services . And what if you decided to add on another service? You'll either have multiple business cards or one very long name for your business or just a business card without any company name on it. (That would be bad for name recognition, so I wouldn't recommend it.)

So, if you want maximum flexibility, choose an evocative business name, particularly if your products or services are diverse.

UPDATE: 5/26/2020

With COVID-19 and the government loan programs available to small businesses, you will need a DBA to prove that you own a legitimate business. Hopefully, nothing like this will ever happen again. But, if it does, you will find it extraordinarily helpful to have your DBA business certificate up-to-date and on hand to help you apply for the government programs you qualify for. So file a DBA, regardless of whether or not your last name is in your business name. It will save you headaches down the road.

2. You may need to change your business name based on available domains

If you're a business providing online services, your domain name is an integral part of your brand. I went through a brainstorming session in my kitchen back in July of 2017. I knew I wanted to provide assistance to small businesses and came up with a list of about 20 evocative names and then searched their availability in GoDaddy. None on my list were available as dot com. But then I thought…hey…maybe BizAssistant.com ? Nope taken. Ahh, but Bizisstance.com was available! (Yes, that was my original business name, with one Z and two S. Which is another story. Read here .) To make a long story short. I started with Bizisstance and ended with Bizzistance as my official business name.

You don't have to build a website right away, or even at all. But you should reserve the domain name after you complete #3, so that if or when you're ready for a website, you'll have the domain that matches or correlates to your business name.

Additionally, even if you never build a website for your business, you can at least treat yourself to a custom business email address. Learn more here .

3. Test market your business name (and product names)

If you coin a name for your business, make sure that it is pronounceable. If your clients can't pronounce it, they'll be reluctant to refer people to you. I didn't test market "Bizisstance" before I printed up business cards or file my DBA and I paid a price for that. Luckily, actual out-of-pocket expenses were small. But the legwork and other administrative hassle to change it were time consuming. Read here to learn from my mistake.

Test marketing and getting feedback on your business name or product name doesn't have to cost anything. Run your names by your friends and relatives. Make sure you print the name on something and have them read it out loud.

4. Make a conscious decision to become an LLC, or not

This one could be #4 or number #10 on your list depending on whether or not you want to invest $500 up front or get a little traction with your business before filing. I'm going to put it as number 4 as I believe that if you're handling money or work with products or services that integrate with your clients' finances (e.g., bookkeeping, ecommerce), then it is a no-brainer to file for an LLC from the get-go. I didn't do this when I started my business, and, once again, had do extra legwork and redo some steps once I decided to make Bizzistance an LLC.

There are two types of corporations, becoming an LLC (Limited Liability Company) or Incorporated. I'm not a lawyer, so below are my simplified reasons for choosing to become an "LLC" instead of an "Inc." Consult with a lawyer or do your own Googling to make an educated decision for your company.

The primary benefit of becoming an LLC (imo) is that becoming an LLC legally separates your personal assets from your company assets. Which means that if a business creditor sues you, they can only go after your company assets, not your personal assets, e.g., your house, your personal savings, etc. (Bonus Tip: If you're a homeowner you should have already filed a homestead exemption for your primary residence with your first mortgage. If you haven't, before you open your own business would be an ideal time to do so).

Other benefits of becoming an LLC instead of incorporating, are that (1) you don't have to file an annual report and (2) for tax purposes, you can file your company taxes through your personal income tax return.

As I understand it, tax filings are more complicated if you Incorporate versus becoming an LLC. The main benefit of incorporating is that you can sell stock to investors. And I'm sure there are other benefits, but as my goal was to have my own business and work for myself, LLC was the better route for me. That said, your company can still be an LLC if you become a multi-million dollar business. You just can't sell stock to raise capital as an LLC. I'm oversimplifying, but if you only want to work enough to make ends meet and have enough for leisure activities, becoming an LLC may be all you need. But if you want to become the next Google or Amazon, then incorporating may be the better route.

You can always start as an LLC and then become an INC. But, once again, you'll have to redo government, town, and banking paperwork, along with some marketing materials.

5. Obtain an EIN (Employer ID Number)

Ok. So you've decided to have an evocative name for your business and maybe decided to become an LLC. And you've purchased (or at least checked on the availability of) a correlating domain. Now you have to obtain an EIN before you file the DBA. Why? Because DBA filings require a social security number or an EIN. DBAs are public records, which means that anyone can request access. Do you really want your social security number out there for the asking? I thought not.

The good news is you can apply for EINs for free. Click here to apply.

6. File a DBA (Doing Business As) Certificate (aka Business Certificate)

Finally, now you're ready to file a DBA. A DBA certificate or "business certificate" filing is only $30 in my town. From a quick Google Search, with the exception of a few outliers, most DBA certificate filings are of similar nominal cost.

You should do this even if you become an LLC (#4 above). For example, I have a DBA for Bizzistance LLC dba Bizzistance. That way, my company is a legitimate entity whether there is an LLC or not. And this gives you the option of omitting the LLC in your business stationery if you so choose.

7. Decide on a bookkeeping software

If you're a service provider, you will likely need to provide estimates and invoices. And every business needs to keep books. And most software out there now integrate all three: bookkeeping, estimates, and invoices. But most of those software are NOT free. Here's a list of bookkeeping apps.

Bizzistance chose Wave ( Waveapps.com ) as our bookkeeping software. Not only does it do what paid software can do, but it is also FREE! It's absolutely amazing for free software.

There are only two cons:

The current dashboard is not mobile friendly. You need a laptop or tablet to create bookkeeping, estimates, and invoice records.
Does not integrate with Eastern Bank (a popular bank in Massachusetts)

Of note, even though CREATING estimates or invoices in Waveapps cannot be done on a mobile phone, the INVOICES that are created ARE mobile-friendly, with integrated payment processing, so that your customer can pay the invoice by simply clicking the credit card or ACH tab or button in the invoice. This feature definitely expedites payments for you.

8. Choose a small-business friendly bank that is truly small-biz friendly

After filing your DBA, you can now open a bank account for your business to deposit monies. You can certainly wait, as I did, to get your first check to deposit before you open the account. My suggestion is to open the account after you secure your first paying customer, but before they pay you, so that you can deposit their payment as soon as you receive it.

Visit your local banks and credit unions and compare their service offerings. To minimize your fees and your need to drive to the bank, my suggestion is to find a bank that:

Does NOT charge you a monthly maintenance fee
Does NOT have a monthly minimum requirement
Gives you a generous transaction allowance before charging fees
Offers mobile deposit
Gives you an associated debit card at no charge
Is compatible with your accounting software

Bizzistance visited HarborOne, Eastern Bank, a local credit union, Bank of America, and Citizens Bank.

Bizzistance chose Citizens Bank, as it satisfied ALL the criteria above and had the most generous transaction allowance before they applied fees (200 transactions).

Ranking of the other banks against criteria:

Eastern Bank was a close second (100 transactions before fees applied)
HarborOne has a great marketing package for small businesses, but their offering was NOT small business friendly as they charged for both maintenance and transactions from the get-go
Bank of America was the least small-business friendly, with maintenance and transaction charges on top of a minimum balance
Local credit union - They're at the bottom of my list because they didn't offer any online banking services, which are very important for me

Update 7/15/2020

Earlier this year, Waveapps changed banking integration partners. Rockland Trust is now compatible with Waveapps! Rockland Trust offers the same benefits as Citizens Bank PLUS they offer a set of free checks with every new checking account you open with them. At Citizens Bank, you don't get free checks. Rockland has a reputation for great customer service and civic-mindedness. They run summer and winter drives to help local kids. I opened accounts at Rockland and am in the middle of transferring my Citizens accounts over. Difficult because I can't write checks to quickly execute the transfer. What a PITA.

9. Get a second number that rings your cell and/or home phone

If you have only one or two people working for your company for the foreseeable future, then consider getting a Google Voice number to serve as your "business" number. Google Voice ("GV") is a free product. You do need to do a little bit of configuration to maximize the usefulness of this product. And GV can be configured to ring your home phone (if you still have one of those) as well as your cell phone or as many phones as you want!

I configured GV so that when someone calls me using the GV #, the GV # is the number that shows on my phone (not the caller's), so that I know it's a business call. You have to set up the GV# as a contact in your phone and assign it a specific ringtone for this to work like a second line. I use Google Voice because it's free and I know how to configure it. However, if you're not technically inclined, you can always subscribe for a second line from Godaddy or Sideline so your website or business card contains a public number and you can keep your private cell phone number private. Or you can hire Bizzistance to help you set it up for a small fee.

Of note, even though GoDaddy and Sideline costs money ($4.99 and $9.99 per month, respectively), since the phone number will be a dedicated WORK number, you can deduct 100% of the cost of the second line from your taxes. I went the Sideline route for about 8 months and then changed GV to save money. When you're a startup, every little bit out of your pocket is noticeable.

10. Set up a "dedicated" home office for tax deduction

If you're operating your business from your home and you have an extra room or extra space in your house that you can "dedicate" as office space, you should do it. The IRS allows deduction for up to a 300 square foot space for a dedicated home office. The key word is "dedicated." This means that if you have a 30' x 10' kitchen with a desk in it, you can't deduct the entire 30' x 10' kitchen as your office. You can, however, deduct for your desk space. So if your desk with chair is 4' x 5', you can deduct 20 sq ft. Therefore, if you have a spare room where no one sleeps in, you can deduct the square footage of the entire room (up to 300 sq ft). But once you have a bed in the room, you can only deduct the desk space and say, your the square footage for your office book shelf and filing cabinet, and any square footage taken up by your sales inventory. Therefore, if you can, treat yourself to as large a dedicated home office as you can to maximize your home office tax deduction. You're worth it!

11. Buy the necessary business insurance for your type of business

You've heard of general liability insurance. General liability insurance can cover expenses related to non-employee injuries that happen at your property, damage you cause to someone else’s property, libel, and slander. In other words, it can cover some of the most common lawsuits that arise from everyday business activities. [ Source ]

However, you've probably never heard of Errors & Omissions (E&O) insurance. If you're a company that deals with money or data, you need E&O insurance. Errors and omissions insurance is a type of professional liability insurance that protects companies, their workers, and other professionals against claims of inadequate work or negligent actions. [ Source ]

As a 1-person business working out of your home, you'll usually need only one or the other insurance, not both. My rule of thumb is that if your business deals with tangible property, you need general liability insurance. If your business is to provide services where the deliverable is something that is read (like websites or tax filings), then you need E&O insurance. If you own a brick and mortar business that provides deliverables that are read, then you may need both insurances.

Of course, you'll need business cards. But that is not a "consideration" but an "essential" if you're starting your own business.

Good luck with your new business! I hope this demystified some things for you and gave you insight into things you may never have considered.

DesigningImagesFlorist.com relaunched!

Wed, 24 Jun 2020 02:45:27 GMT

The Designing Images Florist & Event Planning's mobile-friendly, eCommerce website was launched on June 23, 2020. Their previous website was neither.

Check it out: www.diflorist.com

MarlysCleaning.com

Wed, 20 May 2020 21:06:20 GMT

Summary of Services

New Website
HTTPS security
Responsive, mobile-friendly web design
SEO Implementation
Content written by Bizzistance
Web hosting
GMB Concierge™ Service
Custom portal for statistics and editing

Background

Mylena Duarte of Duarte Landscaping, Bizzistance' long-time landscaper and one of Bizzistance' first clients, referred her good friend Marly to Bizzistance to build her website. Marly had been cleaning houses for more than 20 years. Mylena convinced her that she needed to professionalize her business by incorporating it and having a website built to help her get new customers and to reach people in towns where she would love to work but didn't as yet have customers.

To help her in this effort, Bizzistance not only designed her website, but also added dynamic pages to the website to extend her business into the cities and towns in the North Shore in which she wished to work. Visit this page to check out her dynamic service area listings. Each city and town listed in her service area page takes you to a page that has customized content for that town as well as customized SEO. The customized content and SEO for each city/town helps her website appear organically in those areas even though she does not have a brick and mortar presence in them.

seo web design for cleaning services peabody ma seo web design for cleaning services peabody ma

seo web design for cleaning services peabody ma seo web design for cleaning services peabody ma seo web design for cleaning services peabody ma Bizzistance built MarlysCleaning.com from scratch. We wrote the content, researched images, collated images together for a unique look, and used vector graphics throughout the site to give it a lively, happy, colorful look, to reflect Marly's personality and positive attitude. We also claimed and configured Marly's Cleaning Services, Inc, on Google My Business. We added a few images to her listing as well as used Google's Services listing to showcase some of Marly's cleaning services. Additionally, Bizzistance designed Marly's Cleaning Services' checklist that she uses to collect information from her clients about what they want done, the frequency, and any special services they require. seo web design for cleaning services peabody ma

About Marly

Marly is a treasure and she will personally clean your house. She cares about you as a person, and it shows in the work she does in your home. That's why you have to call Marly.

Visit MarlysCleaning.com to learn more about her services and one of the most fun projects I have completed to date.

BillingBehavioralHealthcare.com launched!

Wed, 22 Apr 2020 02:37:34 GMT

The Behavioral Health Billing Collaborative is a mental health billing company that serves all of Massachusttes. We launched their website on April 21, 2020.

Check it out: www.billingbhc.com

ArleenSmithMarketing.com

Sat, 08 Feb 2020 23:21:06 GMT

Out with the old desktop-only website and in with the new mobile-friendly website

Summary of Services

Website reimagined
HTTPS security
Responsive, mobile-friendly web design
SEO Implementation
Web hosting
GMB Concierge™ Service
Custom portal for statistics and editing

Background

Arleen Smith Marketing ("ASM") was established in 1991. As a forward-thinking company they had a website designed as well. They are a very successful company that doesn't have a lot of spare time. Bizzistance really wanted the opportunity to redesign their website and, as a sales tool, mocked up a home page with a very catchy tagline. Arleen Smith Marketing loved the tagline so much they decided it was finally time to redesign their site to be mobile-friendly and search-engine optimized.

About the Project

Bizzistance is very partial to pink (as you may have noticed), and the original image pitched to ASM was a pink puzzle piece on the green background. However, ASM was more partial to blue. So the pink puzzle piece was transformed into a blue one through the magic of Photoshop.

ASM's original website, created in the 90's, was neither mobile-friendly nor secure as neither were required for websites back then. At this first pass of updating the ASM website, Bizzistance' goal was to give the ASM site more color, more organization, HTTPS security, and most importantly, mobile-friendliness and search engine optimization, since ASM spends a fair amount on AdWords. It is too soon to tell if their new website, through Bizzistance' optimization, can eliminate ASM's need for AdWords through higher organic traffic. Time will tell, so stay tuned!

The Arleen Smith Marketing team are exceptional people: exceptionally kind, exceptionally smart, and exceptionally customer-focused. It was a privilege and learning experience to work with Rick, Jim, Arleen, and Zack. I look forward to working with them again in the future.

ArleenSmithMarketing.com went live on February 2, 2020. However, the SEO was implemented and the site submitted to search engines a week later because the ASM team wanted to review the SEO report one more time before the site was submitted to Google and Bing.

ArleenSmithMarketing.com relaunched!

Tue, 04 Feb 2020 22:01:37 GMT

Arleen Smith Marketing Inc is a commercial printer and direct mail services company. Their new search-engine optimized, mobile-friendly website was relaunched on February 4, 2020.

Check it out: www.arleensmithmarketing.com

Read the project summary here.

CSRQualityHomecare.com

Tue, 04 Feb 2020 21:43:26 GMT

Bizzistance redesigns a home care agency's website to enhance SEO

Summary of Services

Responsive web design
SEO Implementation
Web hosting
Custom portal for statistics and editing

Background

CS & R Quality Home Care's website was not SEO friendly. In the two years they after they originally launched their website, they never got any leads from it. They also wanted to change their domain from .org to .com as they did not want to be confused with non-profit agencies. During the design process, Bizzistance advised them to drop the "and" in their domain name so that the email addresses for their staff would be shorter.

One of the egregious issues we found was that CS&R's services were listed in a accordion. This was terrible for CS&R as they are a services company. Accordions are for "asides" — information that a visitor can choose to ignore. The services of a services company are not "asides." They are essential for visitors to see. I was aghast.

Needless to say, Bizzistance' top priority was to expand their services from an accordion on only one page to seven (7) pages, to showcase each of their services and to enhance their website's SEO. Other UI (user experience) changes made were to move the phone number from the left to the right and adding a Testimonials page.

Before - Services were in an accordion. A big no-no for a services company.

After - Services in drop down and on their own page. Services are also shown pictorially on the home page with Learn More buttons that link to the page with the full description of the service.

About the Project

The home care industry is extremely competitive. Many home care agencies buy AdWords advertising. There are other hurdles to the SEO that we're trying to overcome such as:

The original csandrqualityhomecare.org site was never submitted to, nor indexed, by Google, so the site had no SEO value to pass along to the new site.
CS & R relocated their headquarters from Marlborough to Canton, which necessitated changes to service listings they were on
We had used "loved one" instead of "elderly" or "seniors" throughout the site, which may have confused Google's crawlers. Bizzistance has since re-edited the site and resubmitted to Google.

The owners of CS & R Quality Home Care LLC are wonderful, caring, and responsive people. It is a privilege to work for such kind and giving individuals.

Salon4Inc.com

Tue, 04 Feb 2020 16:02:19 GMT

Bizzistance modernizes a Natick salon's website

Summary of Services

Responsive web design
SEO Implementation
Web hosting
Custom portal for statistics and editing

Background

Salon 4 Inc was established in Natick, MA, in 1994. They are a child-friendly hair salon that cuts, colors, styles, and treats hair of people of all ages. They also do manicures. Their website had a unique southwestern theme, but alas, the site was not mobile-friendly as it was designed before cell phones were even invented! The co-owners of the salon, Kay and Fred, depended on Kay's husband, Jeff, to manage and maintain the website. Jeff has a demanding full-time job and found it increasingly difficult to maintain the website and had no time (or knowledge) to recode the website to be mobile-friendly or search-engine optimized. So, to save his sanity and to make sure that his wife's website met modern-day standards, Jeff referred me to Fred (who manages the administrative aspects of the salon as well as being a hair stylist) and the rest is history.

Below are some before and after pictures and videos of the site.

Drag the green arrows in the middle of the image to the left or right to view the full before and after transformations.

Before - Salon 4 Home page

After - Salon 4 Home page (video preview)

Before - Salon 4 Services page

After - Salon 4 Services page (video preview)

About the Project

Salon 4's, responsive, mobile-friendly site was launched on November 20, 2019. The site was redesigned to look modern, include SEO, mobile-friendliness, and submitted to search engines.

Fred was a pleasure to work with. I met Kay on the last day when I was at the salon to finalize some administrative details. Jeff was very relieved that he no longer has to maintain the website.

Visit Salon4Inc.com if you live or work in the Natick area. They are fabulous and offer competitive rates for their services.

CateringByTerrie.com relaunched!

Mon, 27 Jan 2020 02:20:53 GMT

Catering by Terrie's search engine optimized, mobile-friendly website was relaunched on January 26, 2020. Their previous was not mobile- friendly and didn't properly showcase her scrumptious foods.

Check it out: www.cateringbyterrie.com

Which technology is the most Important for a growing business?

Wed, 08 Jan 2020 09:41:56 GMT

MilliganSafe.com

Fri, 03 Jan 2020 00:00:00 GMT

An eCommerce Web Design and SEO Implementation and Management Project

Summary of Services

Responsive eCommerce web design
Content writing
eCommerce Web hosting
Customer portal for store management, editing, and design
SEO implementation

For MSV, we designed an eCommerce website to feature their services and sell their safes and safe accessories. Bizzistance designed their logo and wrote about 80% of the website content. The MSV store was populated with negligible direct input from MSV as Bizzistance was able to cull store product information from MSV's Facebook posts and Facebook Marketplace presence.

About the Client

Milligan Safe and Vault is a full-service safe and vault company located in Whitman, MA

Project History

January 29, 2018 > Website launch announcement
May 20, 2018 > Update 1

RichsRemoval.com

Sat, 02 Nov 2019 00:00:00 GMT

Summary of Services

RichsRemoval.com was relaunched on March 5, 2018, as a responsive, mobile-friendly website. It has since gone through one facelift, where we redesigned their Removal Services page. (We're working on the facelift project summary. Stay tuned!)

Responsive web design
SEO implementation
Web hosting
GMB Concierge™ Service

According to this Hubspot article , as a business-to-consumer website for a 1–5 employee company, Rich's Removal should have been averaging about 149 unique visitors per week (Hubspot's data was from 2009, so 149 is on the low side). Yet, after 3 years with his previous website vendor, RichsRemoval.com had only 1,680 unique website visitors, which is an average of only 10.5 unique visitors per week. The is not the performance of a search engine optimized site. Although I thought the vendor did a great job with SEO, I suspect there were a few webmastering activities that the previous vendor failed to do, which negatively affected RichsRemoval.com's visibility to search engines.

With the current proliferation of Adwords, which is big business for Google and Bing, many web design companies are marketing their websites and web design as "search engine optimized" when they are no such thing. A truly optimized website does NOT rely on Adwords to get to the top of the search engine results. When you pay for Adwords, you are paying for advertising. Your website may be terrible (in terms of SEO), but you would never know it, because your vendor is buying your website's placement at the top of search results, NOT because they optimized your website.

At Bizzistance, we believe that each website should be organically optimized, meaning that the content in the website and within the meta-title and meta-page descriptions are properly optimized. Our websites are designed so that our customers do NOT need expensive Google Adwords. Organic optimization, while free, takes time. If you have the money, but not the time to nurture your website into an organic juggernaut, then yes go with Adwords. But if you have patience, and are sick of Google and Bing essentially auctioning web results off to the highest bidder, then Bizzistance is your best choice for web design and search engine optimization (SEO) implementation.

Each website designed by Bizzistance is connected to Google Analytics ("GA"). We do the necessary webmastering activities to ensure your sites are crawled by Google and Bing (and by extension, Yahoo). We periodically monitor our clients' website visitor statistics and other performance indicators. The "art" of web design is more than just getting the click to your website (which can be bought), it is also ensuring that visitors are ENGAGED with your website, and that your website delivers the information that your customer or prospect is looking for, which CANNOT be bought—you have to work hard for this. Bizzistance will partner with you to help you increase organic traffic to your website. We're not afraid of hard work to make a website "all that it can be."

About the Client

Rich's Removal is a residential and commercial property cleanout and junk removal business servicing Greater Boston, South Shore, Metro-West, Norfolk County, and Cape Cod.

You can have a custom business email address for only $69

Sat, 02 Nov 2019 00:00:00 GMT

Making a good impression with email starts with a custom business email address

What do you mean by "custom business email address"?

A custom business email address is the unique email address associated with your company. For example, anyname@YourCompany.com is a custom business address. Even though you may have YourCompany@gmail.com as your business address, "gmail" is not YOUR company. But don't you wish it was? I would be in Tahiti.

Here's a more detailed explanation of the difference between an email service and a webhosting company.

What is the benefit of having a custom business email address?

First and foremost, you are telling people you are serious about your company. Having a gmail address for your company is good, but doesn't give the same impression as a "custom" company email address as it doesn't project the professionalism that a custom email address does.

Secondly, if you have a website, for security and spam-management reasons, you never want to expose your personal email address whether for a company or with a "free" email address such as Yahoo, Gmail, Outlook etc. It is always better to use a generic, catch-all email address, such as info@yourcompany.com if you need to put an email address on a website.

Lastly, whether you have a website or not, your custom email address is helping you market your company and reinforce your brand with your clients and prospects every time they send an email to you or receive an email from you. This kind of marketing is a lot of bang for minimal cost per year.

So what are you offering to do for me?

There is a nominal set up fee for each user login to be configured to SEND AS yourname@yourdomain.com

Up to 5 aliases per user (e.g., info@, sales@, customerservice@, etc.)
Each alias can be forwarded to up to 5 users (for example two people are in customer service, so all the emails sent to customerservice@yourdomain.com will be forwarded to those two people)

*Assumes that Bizzistance can transfer your domain to a registrar that has an email forwarding feature. For example, Godaddy does NOT have an email forwarding feature, so we would have to transfer your domain to a different registrar that does offer email forwarding.

What is an alias?

"Think of Aliases as additional nick-names that can be added to your current and primary Email mailbox. It will use the same inbox, contact list, and account settings as the primary Email, but it could have a different name." - Legal Technology Solutions

For example, I have several alias email addresses: info@bizzistance.com and webmaster@bizzistance.com, which I receive in my cameo@bizzistance.com account. I just login to ONE email account but see the emails that were sent to all three email addresses.

Comparable services cost more

Most "business email" services charge by the user.

G Suite charges $5/user/month for a comparable service. G Suite annualizes to $60/year for one user, with up to 40 aliases each.
Godaddy runs a promotion for custom business emails for new domains at $1.99/user/month for 12 months and $3.49/user/month for 24-months, and then increases to $4.99/user/month after the promotion period. (No info on number of aliases allowed, but I'm sure they have them also). However, you must prepay for 12-months or 24-months to get the discounted price.

$60/year doesn't seem that bad, but why spend the money when you can get the same service forever for a one-time charge of $69?

In addition to substantial cost savings, another great reason to sign up for Bizzistance' email service is that should you decide to unsubscribe in the future, you will continue to have access to the pre-existing emails in your mailbox and your contacts. You just will not be able to receive NEW emails sent to your custom email address after unsubscription. Neither Godaddy nor G Suite will grant you access to your mailbox after you unsubscribe, so this is a great feature of Bizzistance' service.

Questions?

Please call us at 781-333-8648 if you have any questions. There is no obligation.

Bizzistance receives 2019 Best of Randolph award

Fri, 04 Oct 2019 14:45:10 GMT

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Bizzistance Receives 2019 Best of Randolph Award

Randolph Award Program Honors the Achievement

RANDOLPH October 4, 2019 -- Bizzistance has been selected for the 2019 Best of Randolph Award in the Website Designer category by the Randolph Award Program.

Various sources of information were gathered and analyzed to choose the winners in each category. The 2019 Randolph Award Program focuses on quality, not quantity. Winners are determined based on the information gathered both internally by the Randolph Award Program and data provided by third parties.

About Randolph Award Program

SOURCE: Randolph Award Program

CONTACT:

Cameo Moy

CEO & Founder

Bizzistance LLC

Email: info@bizzistance.com

###

MarlysCleaning.com launched!

Thu, 20 Jun 2019 20:44:56 GMT

Marly's Cleaning Services is a housecleaning service based out of Peabody MA. They have been in business for over 20 years and never had a website! We launched their mobile-friendly, uniquely-designed website on June 20, 2019.

Check it out: www.marlyscleaning.com

Read the project summary here.

AdWords - Do you really need them?

Fri, 14 Jun 2019 23:00:00 GMT

I'm going to say something sacrilegious

I don't think Google Adwords are worth the money. For that matter, I don't think ANY AdWords (Google, Bing, Yelp, what have you) are worth the money.

I've noticed that when a company's site appears in BOTH the organic search results AND in the AdWords area at the top of the search engine results page (SERP), I often accidentally click on the AdWords link instead of the organic link a few spots down. This is BAD for the company, because the CLICK gets charged back to the company. You get charged per CLICK, not per CONVERSION. Understand the difference. This means if I click your site through the AdWords ad and feel that you were too expensive and then decided not to buy or subscribe, you just paid anywhere from $0.25 to $100 (or more depending on your industry, if that was your agreement) for that click.

When you subscribe to an AdWords program, you're basically "bidding" against your competitors for being displayed (not for conversion) at the top of the results page.

And if you have lots of competitors willing to pay a lot, and you want to keep up with the Joneses, YOU will pay a lot, or not be displayed at all. I'm sorry. But as a struggling entrepreneur paying ANYTHING per click with no promise of conversion to a sale is a waste of money, imho. You can get the same results for free by asking friends and family to visit your website on a daily or weekly basis, for example. (I'm not advocating this, but using as an example.)

In essence, with AdWords, what you're REALLY paying for is for people to visit your website. And therein lies the rub. A lot of web designers will try to convince you to subscribe to an AdWords program. This allows them to shortchange you on the development of your website's SEO. Instead of them working with you to craft organic content that includes your keywords, they just help you buy advertising through AdWords for those keywords. No real work for them, and you pay extra for that privilege. You sacrifice the long-term benefits of building a lasting, content-rich website for the short-term benefits of the quick-click visit statistic. Great deal for your web designers (less work) and Google (more $ in their pockets), but not for you.

And it's insidious. Once you're an AdWords buyer, with website content that is organically deficient , you will be paying for AdWords for the rest of your life to ensure a top ranking.

I honestly think that Adwords ads need to display at the BOTTOM of the first page of search results. Because then the sites with the best SEO will literally rise to the top. But that ain't going to happen. Google makes too much money. And if you're paying for an AdWords program, your web designer can develop a poor SEO site and still call it "SEO optimized" when it isn't, with you being none the wiser. "So how do I verify if my designer optimized my site's SEO?" you may ask. That will be another blog post. Stay tuned!

So open an Incognito window in Chrome and do a search of key words you want to rank on. If your company already appears in the first page of ORGANIC search results, you may want to consider discontinuing paying for that AdWord's PPC. And if your website doesn't come up on page 1 or page 2 in the organic results, you need to consider finding a different web designer. One who actually helps you create long-term value for your website investment.

Basically, your choice is invest now (with a good web designer who properly implements SEO) or pay FOREVER through AdWords.

Your choice.

Update from 11/15/2018: I just noticed Ads at both the TOP and the BOTTOM of a SERP. Wow. I don't like that at all. I'd rather have all organic results followed by Ads. Didn't realize that Google had started putting ads at both the top AND the bottom.

Magic Bullet, Part II - SEO is a forever game

Mon, 10 Jun 2019 00:00:00 GMT

In one of our recent blog posts, we talked about the fact that there is no magic bullet in web design. Indeed, gaining visitors to your website is a complicated task and the competition is fierce. We covered the many ways that web design can hinder the user experience, and we spent a great deal of time talking about Google's prominence in the search engine industry and how they have restricted our access to valuable data to understand how users find our websites organically.

In this blog post, Magic Bullet Part II, we will further dispel the myth that SEO is a one-time event and continue with the line of thinking that you will need to pay your SEO forever. Sounds daunting, doesn't it?

To the contrary, we will argue that you will actually want to pay your search engine optimization team forever because the cost per lead is the lowest available from modern digital marketing strategies.

Onsite SEO is only the beginning

Let's take a step back and review some of the onsite SEO basics that every small business owner needs to be paying attention to. In simpler times, on-site SEO was a one-time project consisting of mostly technical activities that were done to the code of your site.

Just a few years ago, you could hire an SEO professional and they would run your website through a checklist and make several tweaks to the code in fairly rapid fashion. Typical changes included an analysis and rewrite of your title tags, examination of your H1 tags, a review of your site speed and image compression and other various technical components of how the website was constructed.

There was, and continues to be, evidence that Google favors websites with solid construction and easy spider consumption. An on-site SEO project will position your website appropriately for Google and will certainly help in the writing process.

The competition in SEO has become fierce. On-site SEO is incredibly important, but it's no longer sufficient to be competitive for a page one ranking. It is really just the beginning of your SEO journey as you move into content marketing -- which we will explore in more detail.

Offsite SEO used to mean link building

Offsite SEO is a term for activities that your marketing team will conduct that do not include any changes to the physical website itself. This is where things generally get pretty confusing for small business owners.

If you were going to optimize my website, how can you do that with activities that have nothing to do with my website?

A basic review of how the Google algorithm works reveals that backlinks are incredibly important components for ranking a website or any specific page of content on a website. Backlinks point to you from other domain names and essentially count as votes for your website.

In the early days of backlink building, SEO professionals would secure as many backlinks as possible. The thinking was that this was like stuffing the ballot box with votes and as Google saw those links your website would move up the rankings because it was very popular.

Google, of course, has made many modifications to their algorithm, and they have zeroed in on backlinks that they believe are manipulative in an attempt to discount them in the algorithm. In plain English, they've gotten very smart at detecting when a link was naturally placed versus placed simply to manipulate their search rankings.

One of the easiest ways for Google to detect a manipulative backlink pattern is through the analysis of anchor text. Anchor text is the English presented to the user in a hyperlink pointing to a website. If the anchor text is too similar across many different backlinks, this is a signal that they may have been placed with manipulative intent. The natural pattern of anchor text will include many varieties of words including instructional words like “click here” or “read more.” Google knows this and analyzes your anchor text to see if it deviates significantly from expected norms.

Content Marketing is the new link building

With the competition for page one rankings intensifying, many search engine optimization professionals have evolved their link building strategies into full blown content marketing. Content marketing is the practice of giving away very valuable information in return for gaining an audience of potential customers.

The focus here is producing extremely useful content for the end user. This is sometimes known as 10x content because it is 10 times better than anything else that is on page one of Google for a specific keyword phrase. Producing this kind of content is extremely time-intensive is often something agencies will outsource to a white label firm.

The heavy lifting in content marketing is actually in the promotion of the content after it has been created. Many experts recommend spending 20% of the allocated resource time on content production and 80% on the promotion of that content.

If you need confirmation of this statistic, take a look at any page one ranking for a blog post. You will quickly notice the content is extremely well-written, has probably over 1,500 words in the post, and the page hosting the content has at least 10 unique backlinks to it if not more.

These backlinks don't generate themselves, contrary to what Google wants you to believe. A concerted marketing effort is needed to promote good content to catch people's attention and lobby for a link from influencers in the industry.

Social and email are in play

Another way your SEO strategy will become evergreen in your marketing discussions becomes clear once you understand the interplay between SEO, social media, and email marketing. As you shift more to content marketing as a primary means for backlink acquisition, you realize that social and email are excellent channels for dissemination of content that has been published.

It's much harder to push great content if you do not have an active social media campaign running. If your social media pages are active and include many followers, putting new content out will instantly bring some click-throughs that will send positive signals to Google. Additionally, the people following you on social media are likely link creators looking for citations for their latest blog publication.

Email marketing can provide the same advantages to your search engine optimization that social media does. Despite the unsexy nature of email as a technology, it remains one of the most used platforms for most professionals. The strategy is to develop an extensive list of email addresses for users to opt-in to your content. The bigger your list the stronger your success will be with each new blog post as you can pull users back to your website and potentially pick up a link or two from interested readers.

SEO needs to be a new line item in your marketing budget

After you've been through the content marketing production cycle and produced long blog posts of over 1,500 words, and spent the 80% of your effort on promotion through social media, email marketing, and perhaps even direct link outreach, you start to see that SEO is no longer a one-time technical event you “do to your website.”

In the end, SEO becomes a critical marketing activity that integrates nicely with your other digital strategies. In this fashion, you will be paying for SEO forever, but you will also want to. The quality of the leads that come in through this marketing strategy rival other advertising channels as buying intent tends to be quite high. Inbound marketing channels generally close at much higher rates than outbound regeneration strategies, which will keep SEO at the top of your marketing lists as important small business activities for revenue growth.

StructuralWellnessChiro.com

Thu, 30 May 2019 00:00:00 GMT

Progress in Google Rankings Four (4) Months after Launch

Summary of Services

Responsive web design
SEO Implementation
Web hosting
Custom portal for statistics
GMB Concierge™ Service

Background

Structural Wellness Chiropractic opened it's doors in November 2018. Their original website had a great color scheme and logo. After conducting a website and SEO audit, Bizzistance found that the Structural Wellness Chiropractic website was not being returned in Google search results, except for their Facebook page. The website also had many broken links and some layout and readability issues. Dr. Elizabeth hired Bizzistance to address these issues.

About the Project

In addition to being an accomplished chiropractor, Dr. Elizabeth is also a terrific amateur photographer with a great eye for composition. All the majestic scenery pictures on the website were taken by Dr. Elizabeth or her hiking partner.

Dr. Elizabeth was a pleasure to work with. She was meticulous in reviewing the website and reviewing the SEO recommendations Bizzistance provided during the design phase. She provided tweaks to the SEO and made sure that recent updates to her practice made it into the website redesign. Bizzistance lightly edited a few of the pages and addressed all the issues identified in the website audit. We also expanded on her website's color scheme and gave her website a facelift with additional pictures. Bizzistance also set up her Google My Business listing and will be managing it with our unique GMB Concierge service for a period of time.

StructuralWellnessChiro.com was relaunched on February 8, 2019.

Four (4) Month Progress from #11 to #7 in Organic Search Results

February 13, 2019 Snapshot

On February 13, 2019, the website was already #11 in organic search results on Google (#1 position on Page 2) on desktop searches.

March 13, 2019 Snapshot

On March 13, 2019, StructuralWellnessChiro.com 's ranking improved to #10 in Google SERP results. Her site made it to Page 1 of Google in only two months!

Mission accomplished! But we tracked her site's progress for a couple of months more.

April 18, 2019 Snapshot

On April 18, 2019, StructuralWellnessChiro.com 's ranking advanced another spot into #9 on Page 1 of Google in organic search results on desktop.

May 30, 2019 Snapshot

On May 30, 2019, StructuralWellnessChiro.com 's ranking advanced up two spots into #7 on Page 1 of Google in organic search results on desktop.

About the Client

Structural Wellness Chiropractic & Nutrition is a chiropractic practice located in Norwood, MA.

There is no "magic bullet" in web design to get visitors

Thu, 18 Apr 2019 00:00:00 GMT

You have a choice between "pay now" or "pay forever"

If you want a website that consistently ranks on page 1 of SERPs (search engine results pages), you have to invest. As I see it you have a choice between "pay now" or "pay forever."

Google leads in search engine market share in the United States. 63.2% on desktops and a whopping 93% on mobile.[1] So I'm going to focus mainly on Google in this post.

Google has over 200 criteria it uses to evaluate a website to determine where it will be displayed in SERPs. No website will meet all 200 criteria, and I would posit that it would be futile to try. But that said, many companies can meet many of them. You can read the comprehensive list here.

And as you can see "awesome graphics" and "expensive videos" are not on the list. The list says videos and graphics are quality indicators. This means you should have them. But Google doesn't judge :) My point is that "awesome" graphics or videos are not where you should invest, if you have a limited budget. Awesome graphics and videos engage your web visitors when they get to your website. But how will they get there if they don't find you on Google first?

And this is where the "pay now" or "pay forever" proposition kicks in.

"Pay now" is to invest in a web designer who delivers a professional front end (the visuals) AND focuses on the back end (the SEO). Once you have a strong SEO foundation, you can, and should, continually monitor your website and tweak it as market "lingo" changes. THIS is what you should be analyzing when your web designer sends you a Google Analytics report (most web designers don't do this, but Bizzistance does this an integral part of our web design services). What pages are people visiting? What words are getting them to your website? How can I tweak my site content and SEO to capture the clicks that I didn't get?

And this brings us to the "pay forever" part: Google's "gotcha." Google used to provide the "search words" that people searched on when they clicked your website link. When Google developed AdWords, they STOPPED providing the search words for free. You had no idea of the search words used to get to your site UNLESS you bought into an AdWords program, and THEN Google would provide them to you. However, Google seems have to walked back that policy and are now providing search words via their "queries" section in their Analytics.

Google is a brilliantly Machievellian capitalistic organization :) To be fair, they also provide a substantial amount of quality "freeware" in the form of their Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Slides, Google Drive, and Google Photos. All of which I partake. And the trade is Google has access to all my online activities through that freeware. Google is aggregating my data to serve to someone who is willing to pay for it. I have nothing to hide, so this tradeoff doesn't bother me.

But I digress...

And this is the essence of the "pay now" or "pay forever" litmus test. "Paying now" means you spend the time to develop the content — the words — that describe your products or services in the way that people search for them. Let me repeat. You need to develop content for your website with the WORDS PEOPLE SEARCH FOR — NOT in the way your company wants to "push" the product. This mindset is NOT intuitive to people who own the products or services. And it goes against all the marketing training most marketers learned in college. With the internet, SEARCHERS often dictate your marketing strategy. You need to give searchers what they want. Because if you don't, you'll be locked into "paying forever."

What do I mean?

Think about it.

Let's say you're selling a new kind of car. Made from a new alloy that you developed. You named the alloy NewAlloyForCars . And you trademark it. And you write in your website copy:

At XYZ company we spent the last 20 years developing our NewAlloyForCars™ product. It is magical. It changes colors to match your mood. If you want to be invisible, the car will turn invisible. If you want to stand out, you think the color you want and it becomes the most amazing shade of that color the world has ever known! Our NewAlloyForCars vehicle can fly or swim at your discretion. It's yours for $2,000,000!

Unless someone happens to search for "flying cars," "invisible cars," or "cars that change color to match my mood," Google will not put your website on page 1 of their SERPS. No one searches for "amazing alloy" or "magical cars" (well maybe a child might, but they're not your target audience, right?).

So, how do you write about your NewAlloyForCars product? Exactly. Much harder when you're trying to pull instead of push, isn't it? And that is where a web designer who focuses on SEO is the one you want to hire. An SEO web designer thinks like Google (understands how algorithms work) AND loves words (understands how people do web searches) AND understands strategic use of images. For an SEO-focused web designer the art is in describing your product, not the graphic that displays your product. Remember, Google spiders don't care if your graphics are gorgeous or hideous. Google spiders care about the words you use to describe your product or services.

But the problem is that MOST graphic-artists-turned-web-designers don't understand programming and don't love words. Great graphic artists are great because they are great at communicating VISUALLY with images, not words. This is not to say that graphic designers aren't articulate. Far from it. Graphic designers are often great oral communicators as well. But they tend not to think like a computer. Fair?

This means when you hire a great graphic designer that doesn't know how do SEO properly to design your website, they're going to try sell you on AdWords before launching your website. And if you don't ever spend the time to develop the right "searcher-oriented" or "pull marketing" copy for your website, you'll HAVE to spend money on AdWords for a long time, if not forever. (Read this ).

Now remember, AdWords only get visitors to your site. There is no guarantee your site will convert them. So you are paying for the CLICK, NOT the conversion. You need to have a great product or service, with persuasive and easily understood copy on your website to help convert a visitor to a customer. Or you need the best (or close to best) price if you're selling a commodity. Just remember, AdWords can disguise bad, or non-existent SEO. So be wary of those who push AdWords along with their web design. Do your due diligence.

You have to write great copy for your website, first to get Google to serve your website up in their SERPS; and secondly, so that once a visitor gets to your site, they understand what YOUR value proposition is.

And since you need great copy anyways, doesn't it make sense to get the copy written now? Of course, if your budget is unlimited, you can do it all: a content-rich website, with wow 'em graphics and wow 'em videos, with brilliant SEO. But small companies rarely have unlimited marketing budgets. Good for you if you're one of the lucky ones!

But for the rest of us regular folks?

You know a website has great SEO if they come up on page 1 or 2 of SERPs and you never see them in any AdWords ads. This could be your company if you work with the SEO web designers.

The only caveat is that non-AdWords, organic SEO websites will take time, usually 6 months, to rank in SERPs. So you have to have patience. Yes, you can get on the first page of SERPs almost instantaneously with AdWords. And you may stay there indefinitely with AdWords. That's your prerogative. But is it smart or fiscally responsible? Or are you robbing Peter to pay Paul? Does that mean you have a great website? Or does it mean you have a great budget?

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/267161/market-share-of-search-engines-in-the-united-states/

Sales Support and Marketing Services for Rich's Removal

Wed, 14 Nov 2018 00:52:16 GMT

Transforming Estimates and Invoices into Advertisements

Rich used to write up his estimates and invoices manually. After about three months of typing up each line item individually, Bizzistance decided to redesign his invoices into a checklist form. Then we adapted the invoice form to an estimate form. The new checklist format for his estimates and invoices reduced the time required to draft them from 15–20 minutes each to about 5 minutes each. Then we email the estimates or invoices to his leads/customers when finalized. The bonus is that this solution not only streamlined a process and reduced labor, but it also serves as advertisement for Rich's Removal as his leads and customers can now see the full breadth of his services. This is another Imaginution™ (imaginative solution) from Bizzistance that kills two birds with one stone.

Business Card Facelift

A small redesign was given to their business card by adding their stylized logo and the color green to the design. The card is printed with raised lettering.

Web Design

Bizzistance had also redesigned Rich's Removal website. Read about the project here.

About the Client

Rich's Removal is a residential and commercial property cleanout and junk removal business servicing Greater Boston, South Shore, Metro-West, Norfolk County, and Cape Cod.

DuarteLandscape.com

Thu, 01 Nov 2018 16:15:30 GMT

Bizzistance launches Duarte Landscaping Corp's website!

DuarteLandscape.com went live on September 6, 2018.

Bizzistance wrote all the page and SEO content in addition to designing the website. We also created their Google My Business listing.

Summary of Services

Responsive web design
Web hosting
Content writing
SEO implementation
Web maintenance

About the Client

Duarte Landscaping Corp is a landscaping, hardscaping, and snow removal services company based out of Randolph, MA. They serve residential and commercial properties within a 10 mile radius of Randolph MA.

SouthcoastDogTrainingInc.com

Tue, 11 Sep 2018 17:28:08 GMT

Bizzistance helps Southcoast Dog Training & Care rebrand and redesign their website.

Summary of Services

Responsive web design
Blog implementation
Web hosting
Customer portal for editing & design
Web editor training
SEO implementation

Background

Southcoast Dog Training and Care, Inc. ("Southcoast Dog") had hired Bizzistance in February 2018 to retrofit SEO into their existing website and submit their website to Google and Bing for indexing. One recommendation that we had for Southcoast Dog was to "beef up" their content, which Sandy, the owner of Southcoast Dog, recognized she needed to do, but due to lack of time and, I suspect, the lack of user-friendliness of the WordPress platform, she didn't add the content.

Sandy had originally self-designed her Southcoast Dog website with Godaddy's website builder. Sometime in mid-August, she updated the Wordpress plugin in Godaddy. And then her website "went south" (so to speak). The website's layout went haywire and Sandy didn't know where to begin to fix the issue. She called Bizzistance for advice.

I had worked in Wordpress a few years ago for a friend and really didn't like the platform for a variety of reasons. For example, I didn't like the multitude of plugins you need to add nor the crazy number of clicks you need to go through to design a Wordpress website—plus a few other technical reasons, like having no access to a database for the forms that are sent through a Wordpress website. CL Safety's original website was also designed in Wordpress, and when one doesn't keep up with the Wordpress updates and other ancillary plugin updates, things stop working (as CL Safety found out); or the webpages lose their layout and can become a nightmare to fix (as Southcoast Dog discovered). Not to mention the fact that every plugin update potentially breaks something somewhere else. It's the nature of the beast when a website is cobbled together with a bunch of plugins.

So after a consultation with Bizzistance, Sandy decided to bite the bullet and migrate to the web design and hosting platform supported by Bizzistance. I design in the platform for my various clients and can enable each site for clients to self-design and self-manage if they so choose. The Bizzistance platform is much easier to use and much easier to design in, because it is "WYSIWYG" (what you see is what you get), and has a more powerful template management system than Wordpress, Wix, or SquareSpace.

When Sandy called Bizzistance for help, she was also interested in changing her domain name. She had been following the domain "southcoastdogtraining.com" and thought that the domain had become available. But alas it wasn't. Someone was squatting on it. So Bizzistance did a quick search and recommended that she purchase southcoastdogtraininginc.com instead, since that domain was available and Southcoast Dog Training and Care is, in fact, incorporated. She bought the domain. And Bizzistance connected the new domain to her new site.

About the Project

First, Bizzistance migrated the Southcoast Dog's webpages over to the Bizzistance-supported platform. Next, Bizzistance re-entered the SEO developed in the original project into the new site. Then Bizzistance showed her how to use the new platform. Sandy took to it right away and started working on adding and modifying content.

Sandy is meticulous and focused on perfecting the page header, footer, and contact form. I reminded Sandy that content was king for websites. Any professional could help her with design, but only she could provide good content. After several conversations, Sandy finally mentioned that she had written a "Puppy Guide" booklet and a pamphlet about her business years ago. However, she never thought to put that information into her original website. After review of the booklet and pamphlet, I suggested that she add the pamphlet and booklet content to the website before she relaunched. She said she would.

I was obsessed with Sandy's site, because I'm a dog-lover, and Sandy is a great person, who volunteers her time to train NEADS dogs as well as for other programs, so I really wanted her site to be the best that it could be professionally for her and be ready to launch before I started my 5-day mini-vacation the next day, with no computer access. It was clear to me that Sandy didn't have the time to add her Puppy Guide content, nor the information from her booklet, into her website.

So Bizzistance worked feverishly into the early morning hours and redesigned the Southcoast Dog website with the Puppy Guide and pamphlet content, updated the navigational structure to reflect the additional content, made some suggestions to edit existing content for clarity, and coined the phrase "Let us help your dog to be the best that she can be" (to allude to Sandy's veteran status). And voilá, a content-rich, marketing-conscious, SEO-friendly website was ready to be launched.

Sandy was happy with the design and published it the next day.

And within the first 24 hours of launch, she got her first lead from her Contact Us page (which she designed herself, btw)!

About the Client

Southcoast Dog Training & Care, Inc., is a veteran-owned, puppy and dog obedience training company based out of Dartmouth, MA

Business Consulting for Circle of Life Chiropractic

Fri, 27 Jul 2018 00:00:00 GMT

Summary

Leveraging free internet apps, Bizzistance helped Circle of Life Chiropractic streamline and automate patient-related processes.

Get New Patients to complete their patient profiles online

PROBLEM:

Circle of Life Chiropractic ("COLC") wanted to streamline New Patient visits by having new patients complete their patient profiles online, in the privacy of their own home, at their leisure, instead of rushing to complete forms during their first visit at the office. Additionally, online completion of the patient intake forms by the patient would minimize inadvertent transcription errors by office staff, and help the practice in its effort to become paper-free, and more easily HIPAA-compliant.

SOLUTION:

Office staff, when booking appointments, asked for email addresses in addition to phone numbers to confirm appointments. Then staff would send appointment confirmations by email and included instructions to complete the online patient profile before their appointment.

RESULT:

New Patient profile completion rate increased approximately 40%

Scheduling and communicating new patient consultation visits was inefficient and sometimes caused confusion

PROBLEM:

COLC has a website with a feature for patients to send online appointment requests to the office. However, the request was in the form of emails which forwarded to the doctor's email address. Sometimes appointment requests were received at very late hours (like 2 a.m.), and the doctor, wanting to be responsive would answer right away, but would sometimes forget to notify her staff the next morning, who kept track of appointments via a paper calendar. Sometimes appointment times were double-booked as a result.

Each morning when the doctor came into the office, she would ask if there were new patients scheduled for the day. The office staff would stop whatever they were doing and check the paper calendar to let her know. There was a lot of communication between office staff and the doctor, which is a great thing, however, Bizzistance recognized an opportunity to streamline both the booking process and the communication flow with the right digital solution.

SOLUTION:

Bizzistance implemented an online calendar solution that was easy to use for both office staff and new patients.

Patients could self-book and self-cancel their own appointments online 24/7. So the office didn't even need to be open for the patients to schedule a convenient appointment time. This is a great customer service experience for the patients and saved office staff time as they didn't need to be on the phone to schedule or reschedule every new patient's appointment.
Patients could still call the office and schedule their appointments, except now the office staff entered their appointment into an online calendar that was integrated with the self-booking calendar as well as the calendar on the doctor's phone.
Instead of asking her staff if there were new patients that day, the doctor could simply check the calendar on her phone the night before and throughout the day.

RESULTS:
In this case, digital communications streamlined office communications and lowered the stress level in the office while increasing organization and productive time for both office staff and the doctor.

Office morale increased because everyone felt more in control of their work day.

New patients booking online needed to supply their email address as well as their phone number. This allowed the office staff to send along the New Patient profile link and instructions in an email as part of the appointment confirmation process,

further increasing online patient profile completion rates,
further lowering the rates of possible transcription errors,
and saving staff time from having to enter the paper information into the patient's online profile.

Security and privacy issues caused by sharing one email address

PROBLEM:

Circle of Life Chiropractic had a branded website, but did not have branded email addresses for their staff. The office staff and doctor shared ONE email address. The email inbox contained the doctor's personal emails as well as business emails from the day the practice was founded in 1999! This was not a good or secure practice.

SOLUTION:

Bizzistance implemented custom, branded business email addresses for the office staff as well as a few generic email addresses for email routing purposes. This allowed information requests and appointments from the web site to be routed to office staff as well as to the doctor, so that they no longer had to share one email box.

RESULTS:
By implementing custom email addresses, not only are the doctor's personal and business emails more secure, but office morale also increased. The branded email addresses made everyone feel more vested in the company, because now the company "felt real." The staff also felt more "professional" because they could now send and receive email with their personalized branded email address instead of via a shared, unbranded Gmail address.

About the Client

Circle of Life Chiropractic is an established chiropractic practice in Weymouth, MA

CLSafety.com

Thu, 07 Jun 2018 18:22:43 GMT

Bizzistance launches CLSafety.com

Summary of Services

Responsive eCommerce web design
eCommerce Web hosting
Customer portal for store management and editing
SEO implementation
Custom business email addresses
Migration of business emails from G Suite to custom business email solution from Bizzistance

Thank you, Lou and Courtney!

Bizzistance launches its first website for an eCommerce-only retailer: CLSafety.com!

Thank you, Lou and Courtney, for allowing Bizzistance the privilege of helping out your small business.

Great products at affordable prices

If you're looking for affordable, high-quality safety apparel and supplies, buy from CL Safety. They sell directly to consumers at prices normally only offered to distributors.

Love taking evening walks during the summer? Check out this inexpensive, high-viz t-shirt!

Why carry around an umbrella, when you can carry a poncho-in-a-pouch in your pocket or your purse? Check this out! At CL Safety's affordable price, you can buy one in each color.

About the project, briefly

CL Safety contracted with Bizzistance to redesign their website after their original website was inaccessible shortly after launch. The original web designer refused to help them resolve the issue unless CL Safety signed a maintenance contract and paid him more money. On principle, CL Safety refused to be extorted into such a contract. They decided to invest the money with a trustworthy web designer instead, and start from scratch.

About the Client

CL Safety is a safety apparel and supplies company based out of Medfield, MA.

Tournament Directing for Baystate APA was a blast!

Mon, 04 Jun 2018 16:44:29 GMT

Baystate APA AMI Tournament, June 3, 2018

A great time was had by all…but the best time was had by the Dream Team, who won the day and a spot in the State tournament for Vegas on June 9-10, 2018. If they win there, they will be heading to Vegas in August. Congratulations, Dream Team, and the best of luck this weekend!

I've been playing in Baystate APA pool leagues for a few years now and had run a few tournaments at my favorite pub and pool hall, Stix and Stones in Abington, MA, as well as for the McDermott Ride the 9 pool tour. But this Sunday at the Fan Club in Wareham was the first time I've been the tournament director ("TD") for Steve Blaney's Baystate APA league. It was a blast! Great venue, great tables, great people!

As this was my virgin TD voyage for Baystate APA, Derrick Morgado, who helps Steve run many of Baystate APA's tournaments, made the trip down to the Fan Club to help me get situated with a quick Vulcan Mind-meld. Derrick, you definitely greased the wheels for a smooth running tournament. Thank you so very much!

All the teams were excited to be attending this event. All players showed great sportsmanship throughout the day. And everyone shot valiantly. And they were all so nice! The best team name, by far, was "Win or Booze." If you play pool, you know how apropos this moniker is. But the captain of the team was very disappointed that I could remember the team name, but not his face.

The tournament started at 11am and concluded around 11pm, with Dream Team (pictured) coming out on top. Bud Lights Out (great team name runner-up) took the longest road to the finals by trampling through the one-loss bracket and then wining the first match of the Finals, forcing the "double-dip" match.

Congratulations to all the teams that made it to the Qualifier and AMI Tournaments this weekend. While many did not win, they got there and gave it their all. They should be as proud as I am envious.

Here is the AMI tournament bracket of results. (Challonge is great for setting up and reporting bracket results. If Challonge had a Table Assignment feature, it would be perfect.)

For more information about Baystate APA pool leagures, click here.

For more information about Bizzistance services, click here . "Tournament Director" is not on the list, per se, but Bizzistance is versatile like that.

Do you have a favorite team name? If you do, can you put it in the comments below? I would love to hear them! Thanks!

Design updates and recommendations for Milligan Safe & Vault website

Sun, 20 May 2018 17:31:15 GMT

How an easy-to-implement social media strategy helped increase web traffic 421% in just a couple of days

We regularly review our clients' Google Analytics reports and make recommendations to clients to improve their web traffic results. One recent finding was that even though Milligan Safe & Vault ("MSV") has loyal FaceBook followers, they didn't visit their website. Bizzistance recommended that MSV funnel more visitors their website by simply giving his FB followers a reason to check out their website. And Dan and Heather ran with the idea. MSV quadrupled their weekly web traffic with two simple posts to their Milligan Safe and Vault FaceBook status.

In the meantime, Bizzistance updated their website navigation menu from sidebar to top menu for a better user experience.

At the same time, Bizzistance added a Customer Reviews section to the bottom of their home page, for both marketing and SEO purposes.

Check out the customer reviews section on www.milligansafe.com and write a review on their FaceBook page if you've done business with them.

Feel free to contact us if you would like more information on our design and consulting services for sole proprietors and small business owners. We would love the opportunity to help you, too!

What is the difference between an email service and a webhosting company?

Mon, 07 May 2018 19:35:02 GMT

Let's unpack this question without being too technical.

1) When you purchase a domain, you purchase it from the registrar.

1a) Privacy registration is often at additional cost (explanation below).

2) When you build a web site, you need to host the site with a web hosting company.

3) When you want a custom email address, you need either an email-hosting or an email-forwarding service.

Some companies provide all three services. For example, Godaddy provides all three. But each service they provide incurs add-on costs. Godaddy charges anywhere from $2 to $14 to register a *.com domain for one year and then renews at $11.99 (or more) per year thereafter. Additionally, whenever you register your domain, the owner's contact info is required to be published into the ICANN WhoIs directory where anyone on the internet can view it. Godaddy provides privacy registration for your domain (where your contact info is not exposed on the web) as long as you pay for it: $7.99/domain/year. Godaddy can also provide you a custom email address BUT after the promotional period of $1.99/user/month, it goes up to $4.99/user/month.

The email service Bizzistance is offering to provide is #1, #1a, and #3 above. This means that you can have a custom domain for your emails practically free. AND, when you're ready to go live with a website, this service will point to that website (exact same service as Godaddy, and, in fact, better, because it is easier to edit the registry). Bizzistance will configure the domain to point to your future website at no charge.

I was paying G Suite $5 per month for my custom @bizzistance.com email address, which annualizes to $60/year. Now my domain registration INCLUDES the custom email service. So I consider that I'm getting my business emails for free.

Bottom line is that for ~$10 a year you can have a custom email domain—and multiple users and/or aliases, e.g., sales@yourcompany.com, accountspayable@yourcompany.com—that can be accessed through gmail (after the necessary configuration). That's how we're doing it here at Bizzistance.

Intrigued? Would you like to have your own business email? Or perhaps would like a "vanity" email address for you or your family, such as yourname@smith-family.com, yourdaughter@smith-family.com, or yourname@lovetosing.com? You don't need to have a business to have an affordable custom email address. Check out my limited time offer here .

Rich's Removal Relaunched!

Wed, 07 Mar 2018 00:00:00 GMT

We're thrilled to announce that RichsRemoval.com was relaunched today!

Thanks, Rich, for giving us the opportunity to work with you.

Read our project summary here .

Southcoast Dog Training & Care, Inc.

Sat, 17 Feb 2018 00:00:00 GMT

An SEO Implementation Project

Southcoast Dog Training & Care had already designed their own website using Wordpress, but lacked the knowledge and time to execute the technical and copy writing tasks required to optimize their website for Google and Bing search engines. Bizzistance completed a free assessment of Southcoast Dog's website SEO needs and recommended a punchlist that Southcoast Dog could have executed themselves. Given the reasonable cost, Southcoast Dog decided to hire Bizzistance to execute the recommended SEO tasks instead.

New project: Website migration to Bizzistance' WYSIWIG platform

About the Client

Southcoast Dog Training & Care, Inc., is a dog obedience training company located in Dartmouth, MA

Editing and Proofreading for Ride the 9 Tour

Mon, 12 Feb 2018 00:00:00 GMT

Copywriting and proofreading

For Ride the 9 Tour, we helped draft and proofread tour announcements and other communications on an adhoc basis.

About the Client

Ride the 9 Tour is a billiards tour for amateur pool players with tournament venues in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire

Milligan Safe & Vault website launched!

Tue, 30 Jan 2018 00:00:00 GMT

We are excited to announce the first website designed by Bizzistance: MilliganSafe.com went live today!

Thank you, Dan, for giving my fledgling company the opportunity to design your website.

Protect what's valuable! Buy from Milligan Safe & Vault .

Summary of Services

Responsive eCommerce web design
Content writing
Web hosting
Customer portal for store management and editing
SEO implementation

A rose by any other name…is not the same

Thu, 07 Dec 2017 00:00:00 GMT

The pitfalls of branding. My story.

Question:

What does "Bizzistance" mean?

Answer:

I knew that I wanted to be a "virtual assistant" or a "digital personal assistant" (a term I found on Facebook) doing computer-related work (a specialized subset of administrative work). I also wanted to leverage the internet, not just word of mouth, to market my business. While I love my name, I really didn't think that my name would gain traction "out there" on the internet as a legitimate business. I mean, to provide computer- and internet-related services, you really need to have a catchy dot com name to help brand and legitimize that business on the web. And you need a business name (not your name, unless your name is "Tom Brady") to do that.

Going through the process to pick a unique and memorable company name is not easy...but it's not that hard either if you're a lexophile like me.

I just sat in my kitchen and did some brainstorming.

With the words "Virtual Assistance" and "Small Business" in mind, I came up with about a dozen names in about 5 minutes.

Then I went to Godaddy and searched for domains with those names. My favorite "BizAssist.com" was taken, and "BizAssistant.com," and "BizAssistance.com" have been cyber-squatted on and were being sold off at over $2,500 each. I could have purchased BizAssistant.us or BizAssistant.guru or BizAssistant.online, but I really wanted a dot com domain.

To that end, I decided to coin a new word by mashing together Business ("Biz") with "assistance"...and Bizisstance was born! I actually bought "Bizisstance.com" first and created a logo and got my business email all set up. I even had the business cards printed. I signed up for online services with that new email. I drafted a pamphlet that I showed to some friends for feedback. They all struggled with pronouncing "Bizisstance." Wake up call. That is not good. No one is going to recommend your company if they can't pronounce it.

Luckily, it was an easy fix. I changed the spelling to "Bizzistance" (with two Zs instead of one and one S instead of two) and, instantly, it was easier to read and pronounce. The change, while easy, wasn't quite free.

I had to edit my logo and regenerate all the necessary file formats (e.g., jpg, png, svg, pdf). I had to purchase a new domain. I had to have new business cards printed. I had to go back to town hall to update my DBA business certificate. I also had to request Facebook to change my Facebook business page name. I had to manually go through my marketing collateral, documents, and website to replace Bizisstance with Bizzistance. I hope I caught them all. Because the one un-user-friendly thing about websites is that they usually don't have a site-wide global search-and-replace function. You have to go page-by-page.

My Luddite (but very successful, blue-collar) boyfriend was perplexed. "Why don't you just use up the business cards you already got printed? So what if a couple of people can't pronounce your business name?" (One of those who couldn't pronounce it was his mother, btw. Maybe he knows something I don't know. Doubtful as she's a lovely, educated woman.) It's kind of hard to explain the nuances of URLs and email addies and branding and all the associated headaches that would come of having a company name that doesn't quite match your domain name to a guy who doesn't even own a computer. So all I said was, "It's better to do it now before I launch than after. Trust me."

Hopefully, "Bizzistance" catches on as the term to provide business assistance. And people will associate that term with MY business!

And, a word of advice, make sure you test market names before you launch a product. "An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure."

Below are some doozies from companies that failed to do so. I had a good chuckle. Must have cost millions to fix! My issues were labor intensive, but cost only $145.25 to make right.

The American Dairy Association replicated its "Got Milk?" campaign in Spanish-speaking countries where it was translated into "Are You Lactating?"
Braniff International translated a slogan touting its finely upholstered seats "Fly in Leather" into Spanish as "Fly Naked."
Clairol launched a curling iron called "Mist Stick" in Germany even though "mist" is German slang for manure.
Coca-Cola 's brand name, when first marketed in China, was sometimes translated as "Bite The Wax Tadpole."
Colgate launched toothpaste in France named "Cue" without realizing that it's also the name of a French pornographic magazine.
Coors translated its slogan, "Turn It Loose," into Spanish, where it is a colloquial term for having diarrhea.
Electrolux at one time marketed its vacuum cleaners in the U.S. with the tag line: "Nothing sucks like an Electrolux."
Ford blundered when marketing the Pinto in Brazil because the term in Brazilian Portuguese means "tiny male genitals."
Frank Perdue's tag line, "It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken," got translated into Spanish as "It takes a sexually stimulated man to make a chicken affectionate."
Gerber marketed baby food in Africa with a cute baby on the label without knowing that, in Ethiopia, for example, products usually have pictures on the label of what's inside since many consumers can't read.
Ikea products were marketed in Thailand with Swedish names that in the Thai language mean "sex" and "getting to third base."
KFC made Chinese consumers a bit apprehensive when "finger licking good" was translated as "eat your fingers off."
Mercedes-Benz entered the Chinese market under the brand name "Bensi," which means "rush to die."
Nike had to recall thousands of products when a decoration intended to resemble fire on the back of the shoes resembled the Arabic word for Allah.
Panasonic launched a Web-ready PC with a Woody Woodpecker theme using the slogan "Touch Woody: The Internet Pecker."
Parker Pen, when expanding into Mexico, mistranslated "It won't leak in your pocket and embarrass you" into "It won't leak in your pocket and make you pregnant."
Paxam, an Iranian consumer goods company, markets laundry soap using the Farsi word for "snow," resulting in packages labeled "Barf Soap."
Pepsi's slogan "Pepsi Brings You Back to Life" was debuted in China as "Pepsi Brings You Back from the Grave."
Puffs marketed its tissues under that brand name in Germany even though "puff" is German slang for a brothel.
Vicks introduced its cough drops into the German market without realizing that the German pronunciation of "v" is "f" making "Vicks" slang for sexual intercourse.

Source: https://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/the-20-worst-brand-translations-of-all-time.html

News & Events at Bizzistance

SEOblog.com Ranks Bizzistance Among Best Boston SEO Companies in the United States in 2022

Why your website needs to be ADA compliant

Think of ADA compliance as the "How" part of Website Accessibility

Think of WCAG compliance as the "What" aspect of Website Accessibility

Does your website have to be ADA compliant?

How do you make a website ADA compliant?

Does your website have to be WCAG compliant?

How do you make a website WCAG compliant?

What do we suggest?

Required: Install an ADA compliance tool on your website to comply with the law

Optional: Hire a web designer to make your website WCAG compliant

Bottom-line

What is your takeaway?

Trends You Should Understand When Marketing to Young Consumers

They Trust Influencers

They Avoid Phone Calls

Build Your Social Media Presence

3 Strategies that Help Improve Your SEO

Blog Content

Obtain Reviews

Utilize Other Mediums

What business owners need to know about logos

Vector files are king!

Cliff Notes of Resolution

You need more than a PNG or JPG from your graphics designer

You also need a logo that looks good on a dark background

Logo File Formats - Cliff Notes version

We coin great taglines

Web designs that search engines find™

Bizzistance

Inspiration:

We go for blood™

Speed without Compromise

Inspiration:

Imaginution™ / Imaginutions™

Inspiration

How SEO can affect what your prospective customers think of your business

Increase Visibility

Sway Hesitant Customers

Develop a Loyal Following

BickfordExteriors.com relaunched!

A little about the project:

Don't fall for the "Google Business Partner" scam

Google employees do not call anyone out of the blue

Who's calling me if it's not Google?

What you need to know

1) Google My Business listings are FREE to set up.

2) What should you do if you get a call from a "Google Business Partner" out of the blue?

3) How do I set up a Google My Business listing myself?

4) Never give up ownership of your Google My Business listing

5) You need to be an "owner" of your Google My Business listing

AtlanticQuotes.com relaunched!

Background ﻿

A little about the project:

Another Bizzistance-designed website is on Page 1 in Organic SERPs

SeanKeefeElectrician.com was on page 1 in organic Google results for “electrician easton ma” on October 23, 2020.

Bizzistance receives 2020 Best of Randolph award

Should you get an inkjet or a laser printer for your home office?

Laser wins if you're not printing glossy photo prints for your business

Do the Math

Replacement toner costs can be more expensive, but you can save money if you're not afraid to buy 3rd-party replacements

Your time is money

You don't have to worry about colors smearing

Conserving color printing on inkjets can waste money

Conclusion

How to improve your website to help your business compete with big box retailers

Implement an Online Store

Make It Look Professional ﻿

Optimize Your Website ﻿

GlobalProLab.com launched!

Harvard-Env.com launched!

ConstantCompanionCare.com relaunched!

11 things to consider when starting a small business

Administrating a Small Business

1. Consider choosing a business name that has flexibility

2. You may need to change your business name based on available domains

3. Test market your business name (and product names)

4. Make a conscious decision to become an LLC, or not

5. Obtain an EIN (Employer ID Number)

Background

Make It Look Professional

Optimize Your Website