New Client: Rotary District 6380

Our latest project was to develop and online user-driven directory of Rotarian owned and affiliated businesses for the local Rotary District. The owner, Scott Brills, is an active Rotarian, and so he donated the companies time and resources into getting the project going.

The Rotary Business Directory is based on a custom WordPress template, and the process of using it was deliberately made very simple. The district hopes this will be an invaluable tool in not only allowing members to connect with trusted businesses in the area, but also as a way to raise a bit of extra money through advertising.

Quality Web Hosting

Web hosting used to be tricky to navigate and overly expensive. Nowadays, the proliferation of hosting companies has driven down the cost and learning curve to a point where nearly anybody can sign up for an inexpensive account to host their own web site. Go to Godaddy.com and you can get a hosting account for as little as $30 per year.

With all of the choices comes quite a bit of mediocrity, along with a few really poor providers. Sure, you can get your site hosted for $3 or less per month, but will it still be up on that critical day when your product launches? What if you get a load of traffic and the web site crashes, or the hosting company shuts down your site because you’ve exceeded bandwidth limits? We’ve seen it happen to clients before (although never when they hosted with us of course!). Pricing is the same. Storage and bandwidth are more or less the same. There are really only two main qualities you should look for in a web host, all else being more or less equal: a.) up-time/reliability and b.) support.

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Domain Registry of America Scam

Have you ever received one of these envelopes in the mail? I know I have…along with many of mSeven‘s clients. The company’s name is Domain Registry of America, and they send out millions of spam letters every year to domain owners throughout the U.S.

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Web Designers Suck

Well, the vast majority do it would seem. Not us though–no sir.

You wouldn’t believe how many clients come to us after getting burned by some unscrupulous person posing as a professional web page developer. Or maybe you would, if you’ve been in the same situation before.

Common gripes include:

• Everything started off great, and then the guy just disappeared, and we couldn’t contact him anymore.
• Our web designer is holding our web site files/URL hostage and won’t give it back to us (despite being 100% paid up).
• The site is only about halfway finished, because halfway through the project the guy decided to stop working on it!

…and many more that I can’t think of at this particular moment. Believe me–the stories are many.

Now really, we have no problem with this trend–no problem at all. It’s great how these guys and gals are nice enough to push all the clients our way.

Keep it up guys–we definitely appreciate it!

(Have you had any web developer horror stories? Please share below!)

New Client: Irina Jesionowski

Irina Jesionowski is a Russian language interpreter and translator based in the Metro Detroit area. She is one of only three professionals in Michigan licensed to provide simultaneous courtroom interpretation, and has serviced many big-name clients in her home state and abroad, including the U.S. Government, GM, Ford, Chrysler, the UAW, The North American International Auto Show, DOW Chemical, and Owens Corning.

Irina needed a new site showcasing her talent that she could use both as a portfolio and as a ways to attract new business. mSeven developed a WordPress web site for her, included a content management system to allow for easy client updates, and integrated it with PayPal, allowing her clients to pay invoices online.

New Client: Burdette & Rice

One of the leading, most respected probate law firms in the Dallas area needed their site redesigned from scratch, along with a new internet marketing campaign. Well, that’s exactly what we gave them. We created a custom WordPress web site, set up a content management system so that they could update it themselves, edited the site content to improve organic search result rankings, and went through their Google AdWords campaign to garner more relevant leads.

Say hello to our newest client, Burdette & Rice, P.C.!

Choosing a Domain Name (URL)

We oftentimes work with clients on starting up web sites for new businesses. The first thing many of them look to do is pick a domain name–some even go so far as to choose the name of their business on the availability of a particular URL.

Once you pick your URL and start building a brand, it becomes harder and harder to change your URL as time goes by (not to say that it can’t be done through redirects and such of course). As you start building brand recognition, handing out businesses cards, and gathering links to your current site, you and your clients become familiar with whatever URL you currently have. That is why it is so important to choose the right domain name in the first place, to avoid the hassle of going back and changing everything later.

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New Client: Occams Resources

Occams Resources is a software and solutions provider to research and educational institutions around the world. They specialize in custom-made collaboration software that allows groups of people to effectively manage time and resources regardless of where they are physically located. Think Microsoft Sharepoint, but better.

mSeven will be assisting with developing a new corporate web site, as well as leading the design and layout development of their flagship product.

New Client: Organizing With You

Thanks to Pooja Gugnani, owner of Chicago-based Professional Organizing Firm Organizing With You. mSeven just finished the renovation of the Organizing With You web site in time for Mrs. Gugnani’s appearance on NBC 5 Chicago News’ Tips of the Trade segment.

Congratulations on your big media debut and best of luck with your future business opportunities!

Easy WordPress SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

Whew! It’s been quite a while since the last update hasn’t it. Over the past year we’ve been extremely fortunate to have the amount of business that has been coming our way, and that sometimes makes updating internal projects (web site, blog, etc.) a bit difficult. All in all, not the worst problem to have in the world.

Today we’d like to touch on the subject of SEO–Search Engine Optimization–which basically means tweaking various parts of your web site to get ranked higher in free (versus paid, or PPC [Pay Per Click]) search engine rankings. About 30% of our business is devoted to SEO, and it seems that more and more clients are asking about it when it comes time to discuss the terms of their project.

You don’t necessarily have to go to a firm like mSeven to achieve better rankings though–there are many things that the average web site owner can do on their own, without a lot of time, previous knowledge/experience, or effort on their part.

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