Southwest Digital Media offers advice and services to small and medium sized businesses.

We believe that an effective presence in the digital world doesn't have to be expensive or complicated to bring you new clients.

We also believe that the presence of each business or individual is their signature, and should be both authentic and engaging.

Social Networks, like Facebook, or Linked in, provide access to huge numbers of users. Each network targets a specific type of user.

Facebook targets a broad range of mostly adult users. Linked in is for professionals,

What is Your Ideal Client Looking For?

Unlock the Secrets of Search Engine Optimization

As we continue into the twenty-first century, the amount of information on the internet increases geometrically. The question of how to find relevant information on the web, becomes more and more difficult to resolve.

The Search for Relevant Information

Initially the number of entities with computers was so small that everyone knew who everyone else was. Most electronic information sites back then were run by universities, research centers, or the government. You had to know who they were to have their address. If you knew who you were talking to, you knew whether their information was trustworthy. You knew if whether their information was relevant. If it was trustworthy and relevant the information was good. If you didn't want their information you asked someone else.

Jumping over a little history of the web we come to the last twenty years or so.

The Search for Trustworthy Information

Now powerful computers are smaller and cheaper. Now every Tom, Dick, and Gladys can set up a web site, so how do you know which ones have good information and which ones are loaded with junk? If you are searching for something using words or phrases web crawling spiders can tell you what sites contain those terms, but there are so many sites containing any given term. How can search tools even decide what order to list them in? How can anyone know whether they are trustworthy and relevant?

Page Rank System

During the late 1990s Larry Page invented an algorithm that his company, Google, uses to measure the trustworthiness and relevance of a given site. Based on this algorithm, pages are individually ranked according to relevance and trustworthiness based on how they use keywords and other factors that indicate whether they are probably respectable/trustworthy. Each individual page on a web site gets it's own rank, but it is Larry's name Page, that is the reason it is called Page rank instead of something else. Notice that it is the page that is ranked rather than the web site as a whole. A single web site can have more than one page that is highly ranked...

Finding customers who continue to do business with you in a web world can be tough.  Businesses must set up an identity that customers can see as individual and trustworthy. This is your "Brand", and it can be as simple as a logo.

You can probably design your own logo, or there are plenty of services to help you make one. You can find the latest offering by using your search engine.

It also helps if you try to be consistent in things like answering emails or the phone. Courtesy and consideration lend a great deal of professionalism to your brand.

Digital Media is Connected

Digital media resides in and through digital networking devices, in other words, on the Internet.

Originally small and medium sized businesses made themselves available through the yellow pages,  newspaper, and/or radio ads.

With computers and computerized devices becoming pervasive, fewer customers use the yellow pages to find providers.

Most businesses can get better results with a well designed, easy to search, web site. Optional features like blogs, graphics, e-special offers, and frequently updated information items, can make your site more likely to be visited.

If you are on-line searching for marketing information, you probably already have at least the idea for some skill or product that you can market using the internet. This means you have a value proposition already in mind.

The proposition is this, your clients or customers will trust you to do or provide something they need. In return, they will pay you for this service. To promote your business in the increasingly on-line world there are three forms of marketing that every business should have. They are:

• Branding
• A Web Site
• Social Networking

Having an on-sight blog gives clients a reason to return to your web site. But it does much more than that. It ups your search engine goodness in a number of ways.

Your web-site blog will exist on a separate page that will be searched by search engine software, and each new entry will be read as a new page, adding to your score.

In addition, your blog allows you to elaborate on anything that makes you stand out. You, or someone writing for you, can tackle topics like customer service, materials you use, processes you use, almost anything.

These brief notes about what's new or what's interesting or different about your business can add lots of places for customers to land on your site. They can also add a lot of new ways for customers to learn to trust you. And for you explain why you do what you do.

Don't have time to write a weekly blog? We can research a topic for you, all we need is a suggestion of what you want to talk about.