At the kickoff meeting for every website development project, we ask the business owner where their domain is registered, and their DNS lives. I usually get a lot of blank looks, but we need that information to bring their website live. So in this article, I will share what every business owner should know about their domain and DNS settings, along with a drawing to make it all easier to understand.  

Your domain is not the same thing as your website.

Your domain, also known as your website address or URL, is how people find your website (www.myawesomecompany.com), but it is not the same thing as your actual website. Your actual website is made up of many different files that live on a website server, and that website server could be anywhere.

Your DNS is not the same thing as your domain.

DNS stands for Domain Name Servers, often referred to as just Name Servers for short. Name Servers are basically giant digital directories that tell the internet where to find stuff. For every domain, there must be entries on a Name Server somewhere that says, “Hey world! The website files for myawesomecompany.com can be found on this server over here!”

Name servers have names like ns1.awesomeserver.com and ns2.awesomeserver.com. The individual entries are called DNS records, and you may have other records telling the world where other things associated with your domain live, such as your email. For example, website servers use A records, and email servers use MX records.

DNS records are often located at the same place where the domain is registered. This is why many people think of them as the same thing. But they don’t have to be at the same place, and in some cases, you won’t want them to be at the same place. In other cases, you will need to move some of these pieces to support your growing business needs.

Why should I care?

As a business owner, you can and should hire people to do things you don’t want to do or don’t have time to do. However, your domain and DNS are essential digital assets, and knowing where they live and how to access them is very important to protect the longevity of your digital footprint.

Often, business owners have tech-savvy employees or outside agencies register domains for them. Unfortunately, when you do this, you risk losing access to your domain if your relationship with them sours. 

Additionally, many DIY website platforms offer domain registration services. It’s easy to say, “Cool! I can just get my awesome domain here!” You don’t even have to hear the word DNS because when you register your domain through these platforms, they will automatically create the DNS entries that point your domain to your website files. 

That works fine until you graduate from a DIY website and want to build a new website that lives somewhere else. You must then go through the process of moving your domain and your DNS records.

So what is the best way to set all this up?

Ideally, you should register your domain under your own business name and address. However, you will want to use a separate email address that you will always have access to, regardless of what happens to your business and employment. Keep a detailed record of where this domain is registered and file it with other essential business documents. 

Suppose your domain is currently registered by someone else, such as a website platform like WIX or Squarespace, or is controlled by a website development company, freelance website designer, or ex-employee. In that case, you’ll want to transfer the domain to your own domain registrar account. 

There are many pros and cons of various domain registrars. You can certainly ask a professional in the industry for recommendations on where to register your domain or for help setting it up. Just make sure to keep a record of where the domain is registered and how to access it.

What is the domain transfer process like?

Transferring a domain is a multi-step process. 

1. First, the domain must be unlocked at the current registrar, and then an EPP transfer key is requested and sent to the email address associated with the domain owner. This is why you want to use a separate email address; if you lose access to your domain’s email address, it is difficult to get the transfer key. 
2. The new account receiving the domain enters the transfer key on their side. 
3. Then, an email is sent to both parties to approve the transfer. 
4. Once the transfer is approved, the domain is in the new account, and you can then set Name Servers or enter DNS Records. 
5. When transferring a domain, it is best to change only one variable at a time. So when the domain is transferred, you should utilize the previous Name Servers and keep all the existing DNS records in place for at least a week. 
6. After everything is humming along nicely, you can change the Name Servers.  

I know where my domain is, but not my DNS.

Often we meet with a business owner who knows where their domain is registered but doesn’t know anything about their DNS. Since all your DNS records are public (remember, they are the directory telling the internet where to find things), you can use directory tools to look up the Name Servers for a domain. 

If your domain uses the default Name Servers, moving from one website to another or one email solution to another is a relatively straightforward process. The proper DNS records just need to be updated. 

Changing Name Servers

If your domain uses Name Servers of another service that you no longer wish to keep, you will need to change Name Servers. This process is more straightforward than transferring a domain since both parties do not need to approve the transfer. The trick here, though, is to make sure that you move over all the records associated with your domain. For example, if you have MX records for your email, you’ll want to be sure to transfer those records. Some domain registrars allow you to preconfigure all the DNS records ahead of time so that all the records are already in place when you switch Name Servers. 

Is this article over yet?

If this all sounds complex and overwhelming, that’s okay. It takes years and years to fully understand DNS. You should certainly enlist a professional to make domain transfers or DNS updates on your behalf. Just make sure that they keep in mind what’s best for the longevity of your business and not what is quickest and easiest at the moment. Did I mention you should also be sure to keep accurate records of domain registration details?

Reach out to the team at Iceberg if you have any questions about the next steps for your domain or DNS during your new website development project.

The post What Business Owners Need to Know About Domains & DNS appeared first on Iceberg Web Design.

At Iceberg Web Design, we have an entire team of penguins dedicated to helping you solve your business dilemmas with web-based solutions. Our newest developer is Josh Smith. Today in our Penguin Profile, we will be talking to Josh to learn more about him and what he does at Iceberg.

Josh | Senior Developer Penguin

How long have you been working for Iceberg? 

I started working at Iceberg in February, 2021.

Have your duties changed since you first started working here? 

Even though I haven’t been at Iceberg all that long, I’ve worked on some really exciting projects. I really enjoy the mix of working on new projects and providing support to existing customers.

What do you do for Iceberg’s customers? 

I help our customers create or enhance their online presence in a way that reflects their business values and goals. Using the latest web technologies, I make sure that our solutions work well and follow the highest standards for functionality, accessibility, and design.

What’s your favorite part of your job? 

I really enjoy working with customers and coming up with innovative solutions. I also like constantly learning the latest in digital technology and marketing. 

What is your #1 goal when working with a customer? 

My #1 goal is to understand the customer, what their business objectives are, and how we can bring all of their vision to their website.

In what other industries have you worked? 

I’ve worked in IT, product development, ecommerce, digital marketing and web development.

Tell us a bit about your family (including pets): 

My wife and I have 2 kids, a dog and a couple fish.

Do you have any hobbies/special interests? 

I enjoy playing guitar, discovering new music, reading great books, and mountain biking with the family.

What is something about you that might surprise your customers and co-workers? 

My wife and I have taken on many DIY home & garden projects over the years. Our kids are now reaching the age where it’s fun to teach them some of the skills we’ve learned.

Describe your perfect day: 

Wake up early enough to watch the sunrise with a good cup of coffee. Then a day filled with some work, reading, listening to music and a bike or motorcycle ride. And a perfect day would always include trying out a new recipe and having time to cook a great meal.

Science or History? Which is your favorite and why? 

I really like both, but as a sociology major, I’ve probably studied a lot more history and do find it fascinating how much history repeats itself.

If you were guaranteed the correct answer to one question, what would you ask? 

What is the secret to eternal happiness?

What is your best piece of advice? It can be about anything. 

“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

Connect with Josh and the Iceberg Team

Thank you, Josh, for sharing a bit about yourself for this week’s Penguin Profile. And thank you for all you do to build our customer’s website projects in a way that will meet their business objectives even better than they imagined possible. 

Learn more about The Iceberg Team. Read Some Of Iceberg’s Reviews!

The post Penguin Profile: Josh Smith, Developer | Iceberg Web Design appeared first on Iceberg Web Design.

Your Ideal Customer Profile Could Change—Proceed with Caution!

Imagine you are a nutritional supplement company that has historically marketed to men in their 50s, and you decide to release a new line of supplements for women over 45. Not only is your customer profile going to change, but you will also need to carefully rebrand so that you don’t alienate your base while you bring on new customers. This means considering how you will keep past promises you have made as a brand while taking on a new role in the market.

How Do You Discover Your Ideal Customer’s Profile?

Base your ideal customer profile on solid, current research. For example, if you are an established company, you can look at your existing sales data.

If you are a new company or are marketing to a new type of customer, such as in our supplement company example, you will want to use market research studies and surveys. It can often be most effective to hire an outside consultant to do this research.

What Information Do You Need for Their Profile?

While you want a thorough profile of your ideal customer, don’t get bogged down in the weeds of details that don’t matter to your marketing campaign. It doesn’t matter what their kid’s names are, for example. What matters is what their needs are and how you can meet them. If you are doing the research yourself, here are some things you will want to find out.

•       Name- Give them a name to make them more human
•       Gender
•       Age
•       Job Title and Industry
•       Income Level
•       Ways they connect with businesses like yours. What social medial platforms do they use? Do they prefer mobile or computer?
•       Pain points. What matters the most to them right now? What keeps them awake at night worrying?
•       How will your product/service help solve their problems?
•       Any questions specific to your business; For example, if you are a flavored water company, you will want to ask what flavors they currently drink and what flavors they would like to try. Then give them some unconventional options that you are thinking of about trying to market. Finally, ask why they choose flavored water over other beverages. Your sales and marketing department will be able to determine any other specific question that would be helpful in their campaign.

Do the Research!

There are so many ways that you can get the information you need. Use online surveys, direct or mass email with or without an incentive to participate in the research. You can also do post-purchase surveys of your current customers.

Compile the Research

As a team, compile the data. Once you input all the responses onto a spreadsheet, you will start to see some patterns. List more open-ended questions, such as those dealing with pain points, separately to gain new ideas and insights that you may not have had before.

Now, look at the data and create 3-5 ideal customer profiles. For each profile, you will answer the questions you asked during your research as if you are the person whose profile you are creating.

Here is a super simplified, non-scientific example. Imagine you are marketing a long-term memory-care facility for people with dementia. Even though your clients will be the facility’s residents, your customer profile needs to be the primary decision-maker. Naturally, that will be the adult children or spouse of the client.

Name

You can choose to name your ideal customer anything you want, which will help them feel more like real people to you. Of course, it helps to know the genders before you choose names.

Gender

For example, if 2/3 of respondents were women. You might create one male profile and two female profiles. So, let’s call our profiles David, Andrea, and Jessica. You can give them last names, too, but it’s not necessary.

Age

The respondents’ ages were between 28 and 79. Men tended to be older than women. So

•       David is 76. His wife has severe dementia. As a result, he is no longer able to care for her himself at home.
•       Andrea is 48. Her dad has developed dementia and lives alone in another state.
•       Jessica is 31. Her mom has early-onset dementia. Jessica’s dad cared for her until he contracted Covid 19 and unexpectedly died from its complications. Now Jessica is caring for her mother.

Job title and Income Level

Of the respondents, 1/3 were business owners or professionals in high-income fields. 1/3 were professionals making $60-75,000/year. And 1/3 were retired.

•       David has an annual income of $142,000 from his retirement accounts. He was a petroleum engineer.
•       Andrea makes $65,000 a year as a public relations specialist.
•       Jessica makes $20,000 a year providing part-time daycare services out of her home. She will have access to her mother’s social security and her father’s insurance funds to care for her mother.

Pain points

The obvious pain point for all of these people is the pain of losing their loved one, if not physically, emotionally, and mentally, as their memories fade. But there are other issues, too, including:

•       Safety
•       The ability to ensure access to medical care and medications on the proper schedule
•       Ensuring no one takes advantage of their loved one
•       The guilt associated with placing a loved one in long-term care

Think about what it is that your customers worry about most.

How will your product/service help solve your customers’ problems?

Your brand needs to speak to these pain points and reassure them that you can help them with these issues.

Ways customers connect with businesses like yours

Do they use social media, email, direct mail, or do they prefer to call? Do you need to plan in-person events that you should promote on your website?

Are there other service providers that you could connect with to market cooperatively? For example, as a long-term-care provider, would a local medical equipment supply store be willing to display your brochure in exchange for a link on your website. Think creatively!

Now, Use It!

Use the information you’ve gathered and compiled, or it will have been a waste of time and resources for you and your company. Once you have your ideal customer profiles created, you know who you are speaking to every time you write a piece of marketing copy, a web page, or anything else that you hope will reach them.

Do you need a website makeover?

Partner with the best! At Iceberg Web Design, we’re experts at helping businesses connect with their ideal customers. We have a website-based business solution for you! First, read Our 5 Star Reviews!  Then, Contact us today.

The post Creating Your Ideal Customer Profile appeared first on Iceberg Web Design.

When you intern with Iceberg Web Design, you work with an entire team of web marketing professionals to learn and grow. We have been spending time getting to know some of our full-time employees pictured above, but today we will get to know our intern, Cece Talbot. We are helping our business, and our community grow by giving opportunities to new people to the website industry, and we can’t wait to see all that Cece will acomplish.

Cece | Design Intern Penguin

If you could describe Iceberg in three words, what would they be?

Fun, Caring, and innovative 

What have you enjoyed so far about working for Iceberg?

The Creative freedom, ability to learn so many things in different areas, and I enjoy coming into the office to be with great people.

What do you do for Iceberg’s customers?

Help design mock-ups, websites, and fill in the content.

What’s your favorite part of your job?

Building mock-ups; It’s fun to watch how much it changes as you create, change layouts, colors, features, and build out new ways to navigate. Creating Style tiles is fun. Taking words and matching them with images, fonts, colors to make the company’s message come to life. 

What is your #1 goal when working with a customer?

Creating something they love and something that not only can help their business grow but something that can grow with the business.

In what other industries have you worked?

I worked in the Dance industry my whole life. From working in LA, Atlanta, Chicago in front of the camera to working behind the stage and in the studio. Creating is what I love to do, whether it’s on a computer screen or on the stage. Dance also led me to start my own Dance equipment business. I have also worked in the restaurant industry. 

Non-Work Related Stuff

Tell us a bit about your family.

My mom is my best friend and someone I’ll take on every trip with me. I got my love for fast cars from my dad, who used to drag race and had a mud truck my whole life. The best memories with my dad are going to his races and mudding! I also have an older brother who I can always count on. I can never forget about my dog Ziggy!

Do you have any hobbies/special interests?

DANCE and Fast cars. Although I love dance and fashion with two walk-closets full of sneakers and clothes, I am not your typical girly girl. I will get my hands dirty and change a front rotor, or go wheels deep in a mud pit!

Describe your perfect day

Sunny blue skies hanging with my dog and family, definitely staying busy with activities if it’s the farmers market, swimming, or trail riding.

Now for Some Deep Stuff

Science or History? Which is your favorite and why?

BOTH. I am a big history snob and know a lot of weird random facts about history and science, especially astronomy. 

If you were guaranteed the correct answer to one question, what would you ask?

Is there a way I can live forever?

One last question: What is your best piece of advice? It can be about anything.

“It’s all good.” 

Connect With  the Iceberg Team

 Thank you, Cece, for sharing a bit about yourself for this week’s Penguin Profile. And thank you for all you do to keep our customer’s design projects running smoothly. 

Learn more about The Iceberg Team. Read Some Of Iceberg’s Reviews!

The post Penguin Profile: Cece Talbot | Iceberg Web Design appeared first on Iceberg Web Design.

Because of how these virtual crawlers work, many people call these bots spiders, crawling the world wide web. It is their work that allows us to retrieve information so quickly when we search the internet. It’s pretty mind-blowing when you think about it.

Managing Bot Traffic with robots.txt Files

There will be times when you won’t necessarily want everything on your website to be found by everyday people searching the internet. These would be pages meant for employees, thank you pages, and other internal business-use-only pages.

You can usually manage to keep search engine bots out of these pages, at the directory level, by using a robots.txt file. The robots.txt file is just a request. Even though Google’s crawlers are generally respectful of these requests, there is no guarantee that their bots or those belonging to other search engines won’t ignore your request.

Robot Meta Tags

Robot meta tags (also known as robots meta directives), like other meta tags, are pieces of code. They tell the search engine bots that crawl websites how to index web page content. Unlike robots.txt files, these meta tags aren’t suggestions. And rather than trying to keep bots out of your site, they tell crawlers that a page should not be indexed.

Two Kinds of Robot Meta Tags

There are two kinds of robot meta tags:

•         Directives that are part of the HTML page
•         Directives that the web server sends as HTTP headers

These directives tell search bots how to crawl and index specific web pages on your site. Even though these are directives (meaning they are orders), bots can still ignore them.

Why Wouldn’t You Want Something Indexed?

•         To block an element on a page, such as an image or a video, rather than the entire page.
•         Content not written in HTML, like flash or video, should not be indexed.
•         If you can’t access the <head> section of a page’s HTML
•         When you can’t change your site’s global header

Since bots need to crawl your site to read robot meta tags and follow them, having robots.txt files will be counterproductive. The robots.txt file will keep the bots out, so they never see your directive. If you are unsure which one you should use, opt for a meta robots tag with “noindex, follow” parameters over a robots.txt file.

Beware!

Even if you correctly use a robots.txt file or meta tags to allow or disallow search bots from visiting and indexing your website, you will want to get your website set up in Google Search Console. This will let you see what is being indexed. It will also allow you to request that Google remove specific URLs from its search index.

Never count on either of these to keep private information out of the public eye. For that level of security, you will want to keep your data under password protection.

Always be careful when using these files. They have their place, but occasionally, people will inadvertently make their entire site inaccessible to Google’s bots which is no good for your SEO at all.

Your Best Bet with Bots

Iceberg Web Design builds custom websites every day. We also have SEO services available for new and existing sites. Are you looking for your next website-based business solution? Contact us today to see how we can help.

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The Benefits of a Multilingual Website

Your Content Will Reach a Wider Audience Worldwide

Worldwide, only 25.9% of internet users are native English speakers.[1] The next three are:

•         Chinese 19.4%
•         Spanish 7.9%
•         Arabic   5.2%

If you have a business that could benefit from a worldwide audience, you must serve a worldwide audience by adding another language to your website.

Your Content Will Reach a Wider Audience in the United States

Even though most people within the United States speak English, many don’t or prefer to use websites in their own language, especially when making purchasing decisions for products or services online. 

According to the American Community Survey in 2017, in the U.S., these are the ten most common languages spoken at home by people five years of age or older[2]:

•         English only – 239 million
•         Spanish – 41 million
•         Chinese (including Mandarin, Cantonese, and Hokkien) – 3.5 million
•         Tagalog (including Filipino) – 1.7 million
•         Vietnamese – 1.5 million
•         Arabic – 1.2 million
•         French – 1.2 million
•         Korean – 1.1 million
•         Russian – 0.94 million
•         German – 0.92 million

Do you live in a Multilingual Region?

If you have a product or a service that anyone can use and are only marketing to people in English, you could miss out on much potential business! This is especially the case in some regional regions where languages other than English are spoken in more significant numbers. For example, if you live in California or Texas, it would be worth considering adding Spanish to your site. If your business is in San Francisco, Chinese would be an excellent language to consider adding. You know your business and the area it serves. Do some research and decide for yourself.

A Multilingual Site Will Also Improve Communication with Customers

It is important to be able to serve your customers beyond the website, as well. You wouldn’t want to have your photography site translated into Russian and have no one at your business who can speak Russian when the customer comes in to get portraits taken. You would need to figure out how you will serve that customer.

One example is Bienvenidos Law. They are specialists in immigration law in Anoka, Minnesota. Clients can read their site in English or Spanish by choosing the language in the menu. When you go to their law office, the people who work their also speak Spanish, so it is a seamless system that serves both English and Spanish speakers well.

https://www.bienvenidoslaw.com/en/opening-doors-united-states/

This is also an obvious example of a business that should have a multilingual site since their client base is usually not native English speaking.

Businesses that Should Consider Adding Languages to their Site

Aside from businesses serving non-English speaking clients, other types of industries that should have a bilingual or multilingual site are:

•         International Ecommerce
•         Travel and Tourism Companies
•         Hotels and other accommodations
•         Sightseeing and cultural centers
•         Transportation
•         Event Organizers
•         Companies in countries with more than one language

Another business that has a multilingual site is La Perla Tortillas. Because they sell their products in restaurants and grocery stores, English and Spanish speakers alike will be purchasing their products. Customers can choose in which language they would like to read the website’s content. All they need to do is click on the flag of their choice on the upper right-hand side of the page. Go ahead. Open the site and try it for yourself!

Reaching Your Audience

If you need help reaching your audience, contact the experts at Iceberg Web Design. We look forward to talking to you. 

[1] Johnson, Joseph. “Internet: Most Common Languages Online 2020.” Statista, 27 Jan. 2021, www.statista.com/statistics/262946/share-of-the-most-common-languages-on-the-internet/.

[2]American FactFinder, Census Bureau, 2020

The post The Benefits of a Multilingual Website appeared first on Iceberg Web Design.

When you work with Iceberg Web Design, you work with an entire team of web marketing professionals. But just who are these people who are hard at work helping you connect with your customers? For the next couple of months, we will be profiling our team of penguins. Today we are talking with our Project Penguin: Mariann Martin. Mariann is our Project Manager, so every website client we take on will work with her throughout the website creation process.

Mariann | Project Penguin

As Iceberg’s Project Manager, Mariann keeps everything running smoothly and on track. She is adept at identifying potential problems and prevents issues from arising with her proactive approach.

How long have you worked for Iceberg?

Since April 17th, 2017

Have your duties changed since you first started working here?

Yes, I started as the CSR (Customer Service Representative), Project Manager, accounts receivable person.  Then I added content writing to that role.  After that, I dropped the CSR role.  And then added the VP of Finance role and dropped the content writing. Now I’m the Project Manager and VP of Finance

What do you do for Iceberg’s customers?

I am the main point of contact for customers when they have an open, active project.  I plan and organize their project within their scope of work and schedule our product calendar. I also handle all client billing.

What’s your favorite part of your job?

I like learning about the different businesses we serve.

What is your #1 goal when working with a customer?

To deliver on time and in scope.  Preferably early and over-deliver.

In what other industries have you worked?

Radio, Retail, and Automotive

Tell us a bit about your family (including pets):

I have a husband named Alexander (whom I call Alex). We got married in 2019.

Do you have any hobbies/special interests?

We keep plants, a lot of them, and hope to have someday a conservatory or year-round greenhouse full of them.

Although I have not done this much in recent years due to lack of space, I also sew. I hope to be able to do it more when I have a dedicated space for it soon. In addition, I love to make clothes from my designs.

Describe your perfect day:

To be at home with my husband and later have friends and family over for brunch and games.

Science or History? Which is your favorite and why?

Definitely history. It’s fascinating.  The history you learn in school is so limited, so there is always more out there to learn.

If you were guaranteed the correct answer to one question, what would you ask?

What are the meanings of life, the universe, and everything?

What is your best piece of advice? It can be about anything.

Drink more water.

Connect With Mariann or the Iceberg Team

There you have it. Thank you, Mariann, for sharing a bit about yourself for this week’s Penguin Profile. And thank you for all you do to keep our customer’s website projects running smoothly. 

Learn more about The Iceberg Team. Read Some Of Iceberg’s Reviews!

The post Penguin Profile:Mariann Martin | Iceberg Web Design appeared first on Iceberg Web Design.

At Iceberg Web Design, you get to have a dedicated partner with an invested team working for your business’s interests. Each month we have been featuring each of our team members in a profile post, so you can get to know the penguins better. This month, we are talking to Heather Erickson, our SEO Content Writer.

Heather | SEO Content Writer

I’m an SEO content writer and head of the content department at Iceberg Web Design. I was a freelancer, contracting with Iceberg from November 2019 until July of 2020, when Iceberg hired me to be on staff full-time.

Have your duties changed since you first started working here?

I started writing blog posts for customers who subscribe to our SEO writing services. That involves researching the business and the things about which their customers are concerned. Then, I write articles about those topics. I might be writing for a lawyer and an electrician one day, and the next, I could be writing for a roofer and a flooring company. So, I get a lot of variety.

Over time, I started taking on website projects. That’s an entirely different type of writing, but the same SEO principles apply.

What do you do for Iceberg’s customers?

Every website project that I write content for starts with a content interview. I prepare for the interview by doing some preliminary research and deciding what I need to prioritize since I will only have an hour with the client. That time can go very fast!

My job is to gather enough information from the content interview to put the business owner’s passion for what they do into words. I need to do it in a way that evokes trust and assurance to customers and gets customers excited about working with the business—all while making the copy search engine-friendly.

The process includes writing a couple of drafts to ensure I get all of the details right. Once I have delivered the final copy to development, I am pretty finished, other than checking the site before it goes live for any potential issues.

What’s your favorite part of your job?

My childhood dream job was to be a detective, so I love the content interviews and the research. I get to pull out important details to get an accurate picture to have on the website. Plus, I love getting to know our customers. It’s the one chance I have to really connect with them.

What is your #1 goal when working with a customer?

My number one goal is to help create a website that will fulfill their business’s needs. Sometimes that means they want sales. Other times they want to hire new staff because of high turnover. I love finding ways that their website can make their job easier. The truth is, we do much more than build websites. We build business solutions that happen to look like websites.

In what other industries have you worked?

Haha. You name it. I’ve been a nursing assistant, a waitress, a cashier, a trainer in restaurants. I guess I like the service industry. I was also a realtor for about ten years. My favorite job was homeschooling my kids. I got them through to college, which they each started at the age of 16.

Tell us a bit about your family (including pets):

I’m a widow. My husband had lung cancer for seven years before his death in 2019. Our kids are Matt (17), Samantha (19), and Summer (22). Summer just got married, so now I have a son-in-law, too! I have a gerbil. My youngest kids are allergic, or I would get something more interactive.

Do you have any hobbies/special interests?

I hunt wild mushrooms and am involved in the Minnesota Mycological Society. I also carve Wooden Duck Decoys. I don’t hunt, but I love the carving process. I enjoy learning Spanish, as well. I like learning anything.

What is something about you that might surprise your customers and co-workers?

I’m a true crime junkie.

Describe your perfect day:

Perfect weather, 72* with no humidity and a soft breeze rustling through the trees. I get to spend the day in the woods. I can walk, look for mushrooms, read, take a nap, relax. That sounds amazing to me.

Science or History? Which is your favorite and why?

I think history, though it is tough to choose. I love the stories that are attached to history. There are science stories, as well, but they aren’t well known.

If you were guaranteed the correct answer to one question, what would you ask?

“What should I do?” The key thing is to save that question for the most crucial moment—a pivotal point in time.

What is your best piece of advice? It can be about anything.

If you can learn from your mistakes, you turn them into life lessons. Then, they are no longer regrets or wasted moments in time.

My second-best piece of advice is to contact us at Iceberg Web Design for all of your website needs! 

Connect With Heather or the Iceberg Team

Learn more about The Iceberg Team. Read Some Of Iceberg’s Reviews!

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Keep it Simple

The most important job your contact page has is to put your readers in touch with you. That’s the whole point of your website, so in a way, the contact page is the king of pages (Okay, we know that it isn’t, but it’s still essential). By keeping your contact page simple, you will let your audience quickly and easily contact you in a way they feel most comfortable.

Options, Options, Options

There are plenty of options you can offer to website users for reaching you. People often have strong feelings about these options. One person may hate forms while another loves them. Text is becoming a more popular contact method than ever, and it can be set up with an autoresponder outside of business hours. Some business owners are concerned with having an email on their website, thinking they may get a lot of spam. Thankfully, there are ways to ensuring you are being emailed by a person and not a robot.

Special Considerations to Keep in Mind

While offering options to suit most web users is ideal, you also want to consider what fits your business model and lifestyle. If you are a contractor who never checks your email more than once a day, you may want everything to go to your phone number.

Some industries are subject to specific regulations such as HIPPA laws, which affect how and when you can contact someone. Unless you are using a particular server that is secured consistent with HIPPA, providers cannot send outgoing emails. In those cases, collecting a name and phone number via a form may be the best solution, and having your phone number available for people to call your business.

Have Your Contact Information Available

You should include the addresses, phone numbers, and contact emails of your primary location and each satellite location, franchise, or alternative office. Please discuss with your web development company whether each of these locations merits its own page or not.  

Having a location map is also a good idea. If there are multiple locations, you may want to add a locator feature that allows visitors to find the location nearest to them.  

This contact page from Select Eyecare is a good example that includes multiple locations.

Keep it Consistent with the Rest of Your Site

The thoughtfulness you put into your content and design shouldn’t come to a stop when you hit the contact page. The contact page should be a natural extension of your site, naturally flowing from it, giving your readers confidence to reach out to you. It should reflect the personality and beauty they have seen up to that point. This contact page from the Animal Behavioral Clinic of New Jersey is an excellent example of that.

The Best Contact You Can Make

The best contact you can make is with Iceberg Web Design. We’re experts at helping businesses connect with customers. We have a website-based business solution for you! Contact us today. Read Our 5 Star Reviews! 

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Then Yahoo Changed the World

In 2000, Yahoo introduced Google to the world, and Google unveiled its algorithm for deciding how to rank websites. It boiled down to “if they are talking about you, you are important.” Links were one component of their algorithm, so people suddenly added all the backlinks they could point to their site—even if it meant paying for them.

You can learn more about the fascinating history of SEO in The Search Engine Journal. The important thing to take from this is that even though the black hat tactics of keyword stuffing and paid backlinks are rooted in the internet of the early 2000s, you will still see people attempting to use them.

Keyword Stuffing

Have you ever read an article on the internet that kept repeating the same keywords throughout the content to the point that it felt like overkill? They may use different variations of the keywords, but something about it does not seem natural. That is because it isn’t. It’s keyword stuffing in an attempt to rank higher on the search page for that particular word or phrase.

Google has gotten wise to this black hat tactic and will kick those pages down in the ranks when detected. As a website owner or a content writer, it is essential to keep your content useful and relevant for the readers you are trying to reach. By doing this, you will naturally grow your audience and move up in the ranks.

Paid Backlinks

Receiving a backlink from another site on the web is a high compliment. It means they trust the content you are putting out enough for them to share it with their audience. Because of that, Google counts that as a factor in how you should rank on the search engine results page. It’s like carrying extra clout.

Unfortunately, some people would instead take the quick and easy route rather than the honest way. They pay for links that others work hard to get. Google and other search engines have taken a tough stance on this, banning the buying and selling of links as a way of manipulating page ranking. If they do detect this, they will penalize both the seller and buyer of the links.

What if I Have Paid for Links in the Past?

If you have paid for backlinks in the past, not realizing it was wrong, and you want to straighten things out, there is a way to do that. Google has a Link Disavowal Tool.

How Can I Rank Well?

The best way to rank well with search engines like Google is with high-quality content that follows search engine optimization rules. At Iceberg Web Design, we specialize in website-based business solutions, including premium content and SEO services. Contact us today to see how we can help take your business to the next level.

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