As we work on content writing, graphic design, social media and search engine optimization (SEO) we often look at what a typical day looks like. Below is a list of what we do for our clients on a weekly and daily basis.

As more content management systems (CMS) having automated updates built-in the need for a staging server is critical. In our environment we have a development environment which is our development machines, a testing or UAT server, a staging server which is verification of a move right after everything having been tested, and finally a production (prod) server. With a UAT and staging server you will be as close to the production environments as possible. The reason is for this is so that you can closely test performance and usability before moving items into the production environment.

Pogo-sticking is not like the pogo sticks many of us grew up as a kid. When we talk about pogo-sticking this is when a person types a search term in the search engines, click on a link and then immediately after reaching a page clicks the back button as the page they landed on was not what they were looking for. In the terms of a business when pogo-sticking happens on their page a lost sale has most likely just happened.

Often when we are out and about working at Valparaiso Uptown Café we are often asked by one of our loyal blog readers why we continue to give away knowledge that we can easily charge for. In fact, we do charge for the knowledge we share and give away. The reason we do so is to show our expertise to others. Those that pay for us to do work for them like to know we are industry experts while others have the time available to handle the tasks themselves but often don't have the time to do it themselves.

When you start to blog you have a sense of excitement that you are going to do something continuously to not only help others but also to help yourself grow. Having a blog helps refine and improve what you are already passionate about. This passion is what helps you grow from good to great. When you curate (aka share) others people's content you are helping them grow but not yourself. Having a blog allows you to grow yourself and at the same time your company. In today's article we'll discuss why it's not only important but imperative to blog to make your business stronger.

Every once in awhile, we have one of our clients stop by our office. While most clients stop in businesses to discuss problems or issues, we do something a little different with this particular client.

We just talk

That's right, we talk. Not about business and not about selling him another new product. We just talk about whatever comes to our mind. Sometimes it's about family. Sometimes it's about current events, but not matter what the topic, we take the time so sit back, relax and talk.

Coming off of Labor Day weekend we thought we would talk and discuss maintenance plans. Maintenance plans are specific tools for getting the job done in a timely and efficient manner. A form of labor that JM2 Webdesigners from Valparaiso Indiana does to help your business grow. Your employees are dedicated to helping your business grow in the real-world. We become employees for you in the virtual world and help them come to the real-world to learn about your products and services for a lot less than you think. In this article we go over everything in our "Web and Social Media Package". If you only want search engine optimization (SEO) take the social media away and that's that package. These are designed to be simple and complete to meet every need your business has when doing digital marketing.

Today we had the water turned on for our new office. This sounds like a simple ordeal to have done. The week before as we had it scheduled we found out that it had been seven years since water was on. This raised a flag so we looked over all the pipe by feeling every inch we could see and it was relatively all new with shut offs, etc. We set all the shutoffs to closed so that we could test each section one at a time. When the city turned on we had leak number one and it was in a wall. Five hours later and that was fixed. Water back on and good. Turned on the next shutoff valve and another leak (again in a wall). Repeat this four more times. Have you ever felt overwhelmed with your website, social media, or SEO as we did with our water today? We will go over some ways to ease that feeling so that you can grow your business with today’s article.

Initial thoughts are that paying to be seen and move up will garner you the best engagement and increase in sales. That is not always the case. We have several friends that pay for advertising to grow their business. They are reasonably happy talking with them. At random we listed out our social media maintenance plan contracts and asked them for a number between one and XX. They chose a number and we pulled up the results of that client. We will not be sharing the name of the clients but luckily for our comparison they are in the exact same field. They are located 15 miles away from each other in different towns. Both towns have less than 20,000 people in each town and average within a few hundred dollars the median income according to the last census data.

Believe it or not there is more than one type of search engine optimization (SEO) out there. Most people that are trying to sell your business on SEO mention that they handle SEO. We find that interesting as part of our conversations with SEO we ask "what type of SEO are you referring too". More often than not we here "SEO". There actually are three core pieces to optimizing for SEO. In this article we'll go over those three pieces.