Over the past two years, the LemonStand shopping cart has developed into a sleek and powerful solution for a wide range of eCommerce needs. Whether you are selling t-shirts with simple size variations or a built-to-order computer system, LemonStand has the flexibility to adapt to your specific product catalog needs.

For a typical online store owner, product and inventory management couldn’t be easier or more flexible. Import products via a CSV file (including product images!), offer physical and digital products, create unlimited categories and subcategories to organize your wares – then easily promote new products, sales and specials with seamless integration to popular email blast applications.

When it comes to discounts, sales and promotions, LemonStand covers an incredible range of options, from free shipping or quantity discounts to bundled product groups, to help you engage new customers and keep current buyers loyal. You’ll find it simple to move discontinued products by creating attractive packages and promotions, and just as easy to offer the latest and greatest products at introductory discounts.

Search engine optimization is a core feature of LemonStand’s technology, offering Google Analytics integration, auto-generated site maps, meta tags and descriptions on the product and category level, custom product landing pages and highly-indexable store URLs.

Recently added features include more theme flexibility in the design of your site and browser-detection to deliver an optimized site theme to mobile devices. LemonStand Marketplace modules allow you to further extend the functionality and features of the system.

Module options include:

• USPS Click-n-Ship for simplifying the process of printing shipping labels
• Gift certificates for enabling online store credit
• Connections to email marketing services, like Campaign Monitor and MailChimp

Contact us for more information about building an eCommerce site with LemonStand.

After providing search engine optimization services for the past year, the team at Wickham Financial Group, Wickham-Taurus Group and the Wickham Agency asked Southern Web Group to give the 40-year-old firm a dramatic facelift using the latest content management system tools available.

Client’s Name: Wickham Financial Group, Wickham-Taurus Group and the Wickham Agency

Location: Marietta, Georgia

Services Provided: Professional redesign, content management system, email newsletter design and cloud web hosting.

Website Link: http://www.wickhamservices.com

Client’s Name: EquiPT

Location: Atlanta, Georgia

Services Provided: Professional design, content management system, email newsletter, email & web hosting.

Website Link: http://www.ruequipt.com

Creative Dentistry of Atlanta selected Southern Web Group to build a first-class website to match their new Atlanta offices.

Client’s Name: Creative Dentistry of Atlanta

Location: Sandy Springs, Georgia

Services Provided: Professional design, content management system, & web hosting.

Website Link: http://www.creativedentistryofatlanta.com

For over 80 years, Bonded Service Warehouse has served as one of Atlanta’s top logistics firms.  Today, the company operates over 1 million sq. ft. of warehouse space all over the greater Atlanta area and has two facilities in the Savannah area.  We’re delighted to be part of their growth on the web.

Client’s Name: Bonded Service Warehouse

Location: Atlanta & Savannah, Georgia

Services Provided: Professional redesign, content management system, email newsletter design and cloud web hosting and email.

Website Link: http://www.bondedservice.com

Erin Yabroudy and Associates have established an outstanding reputation for helping Atlanta home buyers and sellers over years of hard work and successful real estate transactions. Their new site shows how we helped uphold that tradition.

Client’s Name: Erin Yabroudy & Associates

Location: Atlanta, Georgia

Services Provided: Professional design, IDX integration with mobile browser search, content management system & web hosting.

Website Link: http://www.erinyabroudy.com

The best part about Google+ is that it is fairly simple to use and your engagement within Google+ can actually affect your visibility in the search engine. Also, Google+ opens up another domain for you called the Search+ which is an algorithm that extracts data from the other logged in Google+ users. Search+ plays a pivotal role in promoting people as well as business pages on Google+.

Google has taken a bold leap by collecting and conveying results which are generated through personalization signals, similar to the engagement elements found in Facebook, such as likes, shares and comments.

Although Google+ is in its primitive stage, it is just beginning to impact in the search engine results pages.  Newer ideas are being thought of for its improvement, so its unrealized impact is still to be felt.

Advantages of Google+ Pages for Business

In order to understand the importance of Google+, let us first understand a typical Facebook scenario. You need to put in considerable amount of work in order to maintain your active fan page on Facebook, with reference to posting status updates and community responses. However, you cannot view your Facebook engagement work outside of Facebook.  Status updates and wall posts on Facebook are still the best way to generate comments and likes. However, Facebook comments do not affect the search engine results, unlike Google+.

Updates from the people you follow on Google+ are visible to you.  Your Google+ posts will actually turn into strong ranking search results on Google, unlike Facebook. The search engine visibility is according to keyword and the topic content and the visibility improves as per ‘AuthorRank’ and the engagement level of the content.

See a sample of how Google+ is shaping the search engine results pages.

The next important advantage of Google+ is that you can aim your particular messaging in a way that it directly interacts with your followers. You are also offered the chance to organize your followers into groups of your liking. This gives you the opportunity to track and converse with a specific audience in your followers group.

The Foremost Things You Need to Do on Your Google+ Business Page

• Start by completing the verification process, insert recommended links and use proper keywords and place them into the introduction and subtitle areas.
• Make proper use of the “Scrapbook” photos as well as the text editing features which will make your page attractive for creating your brand identity.
• The quality of your content is of utmost significance and the initial posts on your page should be rich and chic, so that you can attract potential followers by making a grand first impression.
• Use the personal profile pages available in Google+ for promoting your business page and you can also make use of the Google+ Badge on your website.
• Be careful about how you segment your audience as this will determine the posts which you will send out for your targeted followers.
• Carefully analyze your stream and should clearly understand about the +1′s, shares and comments of your follower’s posts.

In comparison, PPC, or pay-per-click, is a paid method of internet advertising used to direct targeted search engine traffic to a particular website. Advertisers specify a maximum bid to ad-serving companies like Google AdWords and Microsoft AdCenter to have their advertisement displayed when a user enters a particular keyword or phrase.

There are several distinct advantages to utilizing organic search engine optimization techniques over pay-per-click advertising campaigns.

Cost
In 2011, Google made $37.9 billion, 96% of which came from advertising revenues. The cost-per-click associated with commonly used keywords in major industries like finance and insurance can sit around the $40-50 mark. Although, in some cases, PPC campaigns have shown a brilliant return on investment, this is by no means guaranteed. It is possible to specify a monthly budget, but most companies who introduce PPC to their advertising portfolio will need significant capital to bankroll their endeavors. In contrast, if a company is willing to invest time and effort into organic search engine optimization, similar results could be obtained for free. Even if a company decides to hire a specialist, it is highly unlikely that the cost for this service will run anywhere near that of an intensive PPC campaign.

Trust and Propensity to Click
Studies have repeatedly proven that Internet users attach greater trust to natural search results over sponsored links. Consumers often go so far to say that they actively distrust paid advertising. In any case, consumers are increasingly aware of the use of PPC as a marketing tool and will often bypass adverts completely in favor of organic results. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that only a small percentage of users who do choose to click on a paid search result actually find the product or service they are looking for. Those companies and brands relying on organic SEO are usually much better placed to offer the user something of interest.

 Long-Term Results
While it is true to say that PPC campaigns can produce almost instantaneous results as opposed to the waiting game that must be played when favoring organic methods, organic search engine optimization campaigns offer results that last. When a PPC campaign ends or the budget runs out, the results stop in tandem. In general, once a company achieves a naturally high search engine ranking, results are seen to be more sustainable.

It’s Not All About Google
Although some 70% of global Internet traffic is handled by Google, there remains a significant 30% that utilize alternative search engines such as Yahoo and Bing. A PPC campaign across additional networks will become costly. This contrasts sharply to the results gleaned from organic search engine optimization techniques which, in spite of differences in search engine algorithms, can be achieved across all existing search engines.

Organic search engine optimization can take time and effort and can sometimes mean going back to the drawing board to fine tune the approach. When it is done correctly, it can offer the savvy business owner or brand manager an effective and sustainable method of achieving and maintaining a trusted position in the search engine rankings.

The consumer rights lawyers at Watts & Herring have extensive trial experience and a strong reputation for getting results.  When they needed a website that would help them get results online, they called us.

Client’s Name: Watts Law Group, P.C.

Location: Birmingham, Alabama

Services Provided: Professional redesign, content management system and cloud web hosting.

Website Link: http://www.alabamaconsumer.com

Since its founding, Southern Web Group has provided law websites and marketing.  We are pleased to feature a few websites for law firms in our portfolio.

Of course, the Bar’s directory is not intended to be inclusive or a recommendation of any vendor.