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FIRM NEWSNOVEMBER 2011 Welcome to Marijean, our new part-time Accounts Receivable manager! Marijean is an experienced office manager who has graciously agreed to some part-time hours to help streamline and maintain our receivables system.
When responding to a RFP, I needed to submit client loyalty/return business statistics. I am proud to report that the repeat business rate for CAROLINE ANDREW & ASSOCIATES, LLC is currently at 86%. When not including firms that have merged or closed, my return business rate jumps to 92%! I want to thank all of my clients for their continued business. As part of that return business, the new CAA Referral Program is resulting in discounts for several of clients. Thank you for all of your referrals so far during 2011! Caroline Search Engine Rankings: Where Is My Site?Google and Yahoo! search engine rankings are important to all website owners. We have re-developed many websites that were indexed with Google but not ranking well with keyword searches. Obviously, in a competitive market such as Chicago, page-one ranking can be difficult in an industry packed with competition compared to companies that operate in a near local monopoly. But no matter which category your company falls in, you can indeed optimize your rankings. First, Google rankings are based on an algorithm featuring four compenents: Content, Page-Title Tags, Keyword-Related Links and, to a lesser degree, In-Bound Links. Google considers relevant page content to be a large factor in determining each page's rank. Articles, insights, alt-tagged photos and other relevant information all help boost your page rank. Page titles (appearing at the very top of your browser screen) are placed in your HTML TITLE tags in your pages' HEAD sections. Each page should be uniquely named and relevant to your page's content. If the links pointing to your pages use relevant keyword text, these links will help your page to be ranked higher. For example, a link with the text "Business Cards" that points at the page on a site selling business cards will help create a higher ranking for that page when a visitor is searching for business card designs than if the link simply said "click here". Also important is the name of each of your pages. "business_card_design.html" will rank higher than merely design.html. Finally, in-bound links still factor into Google's algorithm, although reportedly not as much as before. Be sure that any organization or association with which you have a membership includes a link to your website. So, what can hold back your site's ranking? The number one deterrent to an optimized site is a Flash splash screen used as the home page. Yes, they are cool. Yes, they can be impressive. And yes, if the only text offered is "enter here," the search engine ranking will be adversely affected. Text content that can be indexed is absolutely critical to your home page and your site's ranking. Web 2.0 and its related programming (JavaScript, AJAX, etc.) has the ability to inhibit your site's ranking if the search engines cannot detect other pages on your site. The best cure for this is to always include traditional links on your pages.
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