Well, the importance of great photos on your website got ratcheted up a notch. As I wrote in our last post, the new Search Options feature on the Google Search Engine Results Pages, aka SERPs has changed the way searchers will view results. “Sites with mages” isn’t the only feature  (actually, a search filter you may activate by clicking) that is easier to see and more likely to be seen, but it is extremely important.

Since the “Sites with images” feature  has the potential to impact many of our clients and a lot of other website owners, I believe it is worth closer look. For those of you who rely on photos to help sell your product (and if you don’t do that, you should), it is definitely time to pay more attention to photo quality. Google understands that searchers like visuals. That is why the have options for maps, videos, sites with images,wonder wheel and more. Believe me as more and more users discover the “Sites with images” feature, that will be the only way they look at search results when searching for products, real estate property, homes and anything for they may hope to see a photo with the results. It will be the first filter applied to real estate searches.

The bottom line is — you need quality photos to compete on the web. Now I know some of you are saying to yourself, yeah, yeah I’ve heard you say that before. Well, there is a reason I preach quality photos. Website visitors like photos, and they LOVE quality photos. Now, I am not telling you to go out and buy the newest, digital camera with a dozen or more megapixels. I won’t get started on the “Megapixel Myth.” I’ll just let David Pogue tell/show you about it in this short video on the Megapixel Myth.

What sets great photos apart from those seen on many websites is photo composition and lighting. Of course, having camera with a good optical lens, sensor and circuitry, not to mention knowing how to use the camera settings, all factor into shooting really great photos. It is not enough to buy a good camera. You need to learn how to use your camera, and how to shoot great photos.

Here is an example of what was displayed when I searched for “southwest wi trout stream property.” (sans quotes) Google will display photos that are on the page visitors will see if they click. Great photos will make them click.

If you don’t have, or are not willing to spend, the time to learn, then you need to hire the best professional photographer your budget allows. Before hiring them ask to see examples of photos they have taken that are similar to what you need for your website. Whether it is your time or your professional’s time it will be some of the best time you can spend. It will reap benefits in the form of more visitors to your website, more page views, and visits of longer time on your site.

The quick and real summary: Professional quality photos will help you more than ever when searchers use Google’s Search Options “Sites with images” feature.

In today’s world, we all have to be careful of any link we click on in email that we receive. If you don’t know the sender, don’t click. The risk of infecting your computer is high when clicking on unknown links.

Sometimes knowing the sender is not enough. As many of you have seen, the thieves who write these emails are smart enough to “spoof” your own email address. Unfortunately, one of the phishing attacks arriving in many mail boxes the last couple of weeks, looks (as many do) to be legitimate. It tricks many users because it uses your email address and domain name. A couple of addresses it may come from are noreply@youremaildomainname.com or operator@youremaildomain.com, or something similar.

The email “Subject” may be “For the owner of the yourusername@youremaildomain.com e-mail account” or “A new settings file for the yourusername@youremaildomain.com” or something similar. The body of the email will read something like this:

Dear user of the youremaildomainname.com mailing service!
We are informing you that because of the security upgrade of the mailing service your mailbox (yourusername@youremaildomain.com) settings were changed. In order to apply the new set of settings click on the following link:

http://youremaildomainname.com/owa/service_directory/settings.php?email=xxxxxxxx…

Best regards, yourdomainnamecom Technical Support.

If you receive an email like this, and you mouseover the link and read carefully, you will see that it leads to a different server other than youremaildomain.com. If you click on it you will be redirected to a site that will likely infect your computer. Just delete the email. Do not click on the link!

If you are a WebWise Design & Marketing customer, please know that we would never send an email asking you to apply new settings by clicking on a link. No other responsible email provider would ask that of you either.

Protect your computer with good antivirus and malware software that includes anti-phishing protection.

Most importantly do not click on links without looking to see where they will lead you!

Practice safe clicking.

Last night I had the opportunity to give a brief talk to the GCEDC – Grant County (Wisconsin) Economic Development Corporation monthly meeting in downtown Livingston, WI. I gave them a checklist to help them make sure their community web sites are Economic Development friendly. As you may suspect, this checklist can be applied to community and economic development sites anywhere. In fact, many of the items should be implemented on every web site.  Obviously, we talked in more detail about most of the items.

That said, in addition to the nice dinner served by Rebel’s Northern Exposure restaurant, and the gracious hospitality of our Livingston hosts and that of Ron Brisbois, Executive Director,  and John Murphy, President of GCEDC, here are the questions I posed last night:

Site Checklist:

1. Is Economic Development prominently displayed in the navigation?
2. Do you have text on the home page about Economic Development in your community?
   1. Specifically a paragraph with search terms that Economic Development professionals, business owners, job seekers, and relocating workers would use to find information.
3. Are there links in that text that take visitors to the appropriate pages on your site?
4. Does your Economic Development area include community profile information such as:
   • Transportation
   • Utilities
   • Emergency and Medical Services
   • Education/Employee Training
   • Major Employers
   • Taxes
   • Area Labor Force Information
   • Available buildings, sites, businesses
   • Housing Information
   • Community Contacts
   • Business & Industry Contact Information
5. Is ALL of the information current?
6. Have two people proofread your information for errors and accuracy?
7. Do your Economic Development pages have the appropriate Title and META Description words?
8. Do you have contact information on every page (in the footer) that interested parties will have in front of them after they print ANY of your pages?
9. Do you have a Google (or other mapping service) Map/Directions page?
10. Have you tried searching Google using the terms you believe prospects would use to find a community such as yours, when searching to locate a new/existing business, or  for personally relocating? If so, how did you do?

I also spoke briefly about using AdWords for Economic Development and gave them this very short list of AdWords Advantages:

• Reach people who self-qualify themselves
• Deliver them to the exact landing page that has content relevant to their search
• Fully control your ad budget – Chose daily budget; change or stop it in seconds
• See your ads on Google within minutes of creating them
• Very flexible, pause, start, change, create ads in seconds or minutes

Quick tips that will get you results.