A web site is like a house. If you never do any maintenance, things will start to break. If you never make any improvements, it will start to look shabby and dated. While many of us can do general maintenance on a house, most small business owners don’t have the time or skill to do the same for a web site. And don’t get me started on your social media presence or email marketing…
We help organizations manage their digital presence.
We do it in three steps:
Step 1 – Web Site
Any organization today needs a web site. Unfortunately, web sites need care and feeding, like anything else.
We can build it, host it, and maintain it for you.
Step 2 – Get Found
Having a web site is essential, but it doesn’t bring much value if it sinks to the bottom in search results.
We’ll optimize your site to appear as high as possible in search engine results
Step 3 – More Leads
On average, only 2% of web site visitors identify themselves.
We can track the companies visiting your site and deliver those leads to you via email or directly into your CRM.
The Details
We’ll host and maintain your WordPress site. We’ll keep everything updated and secure and make sure it’s on-line all the time. You’ll get regular reporting on status, security, and a dashboard so you can keep an eye on your Google Analytics without getting overwhelmed. We’ll make sure your plug-ins stay current and perform regular backups. Bottom line is that we’ll keep everything tuned up so your content can really shine and you can stop worrying about the technical details.
The Details
We perform regular technical audits to ensure that there are no problems with your site that will hurt your search engine ranking. If we find them, we fix them. Further, we track how you’re doing compared to competitors, what keywords you’re ranking for, any brand mentions, social media, and who’s linking to your site. Once we’re doing all that, we can follow Google’s approach of making small improvements, that over time, drive organic traffic and improve your ranking in search engine results.
The Details
We offer a solution for identifying those anonymous users and turning them into leads that can be added to your CRM. You’ll know what companies they’re from, how often they visit, what pages they look at, how long they look at your site and more. In the end, you’ll know considerably more about your prospects and you’ll start using your site to generate qualified leads.
Your Web Site – The Details
We’ll host and maintain your WordPress site. We’ll keep everything updated and secure and make sure it’s on-line all the time. You’ll get regular reporting on status, security, and a dashboard so you can keep an eye on your Google Analytics without getting overwhelmed. We’ll make sure your plug-ins stay current and perform regular backups. Bottom line is that we’ll keep everything tuned up so your content can really shine and you can stop worrying about the technical details.
Search Results – The Details
We perform regular technical audits to ensure that there are no problems with your site that will hurt your search engine ranking. If we find them, we fix them. Further, we track how you’re doing compared to competitors, what keywords you’re ranking for, any brand mentions, social media, and who’s linking to your site. Once we’re doing all that, we can follow Google’s approach of making small improvements, that over time, drive organic traffic and improve your ranking in search engine results.
Lead Generation – The Details
We offer a solution for identifying those anonymous users and turning them into leads that can be added to your CRM. You’ll know what companies they’re from, how often they visit, what pages they look at, how long they look at your site and more. In the end, you’ll know considerably more about your prospects and you’ll start using your site to generate qualified leads.
Service
Here’s the way we look at it: technology should be an enabler. If you’re working on solving a web site or technology-related problem, you’re probably not working on advancing your business. If your web site isn’t improving your business, it becomes a questionable investment. In all our exchanges, our first thoughts are always, “Is this the highest and best use of YOUR time?” and “What can we do to get you back to building your business as quickly as possible?”
Oh, and when you call, we’ll pick up the phone. If you don’t want to talk, we’re on email pretty much all the time.
People
Jack Lavender
Founder, Principal Consultant
Mr. Lavender is an experienced professional with a deep understanding of business process and technology and the interplay between the two. Accomplished at managing and expanding long-term client relationships. Skills range from strategic business, operations, and technology planning through design to implementation of technology across the enterprise. Talented manager, motivator, organizer and team builder in environments ranging from large, multi-national firms to start-ups. Significant wireless and mobile experience.
Specialties: Application of technology to solve business problems and improve profitability. Taking action to make positive changes. Talented motivator, organizer and team builder.
In addition to having started and sold two companies, Mr. Lavender has also acted as a Mentor for the CleanTech Open, the world’s oldest and largest clean-tech startup accelerator, and was recently on the board of Surrey Services, a non-profit organization that helps older adults to live with independence and dignity and to continue as active members of our community.
Musings…
#6 Your web site is your company billboard.
You can’t just put it up and forget about it. After a few months, it’s going to start to look dingy. People are going to get tired of seeing the same words and pictures. After another few months, the paint’s going to be peeling and it’s going to start to send a new message about your company; that you don’t care about your image. Finally, it will become something we’ve all seen as we’re driving: a tired, faded, broken-down billboard with parts of the message missing and half a phone number....
#5 There’s a little more to it.
One of the trickier bits about SEO is that it isn't just about your content and your site. As you're crafting your message, you need to think about "search intent". You have to ask yourself what someone else would be searching for when you want them to find your site. If you have a restaurant, you would certainly put your menu on your site. However, if someone is searching for something like, "I'm hungry", would they find you? Do you have words like, "hungry" or "food" or "eat" on your site?...
#4 SEO isn’t fast, either
If you have read the previous post, you'll know that SEO isn't hard. I'm here to tell you it also isn't fast. You make the changes and then you have to wait. And wait. And wait. One of the key things to improving is to monitor. What's the old saying, "That which is monitored, improves."? This means using the tools I've mentioned before, like SEMRush and Google Analytics, but here I'm also using another called Hike SEO. In my practice, I try to improve at least one set of things each week. Then...
#3 SEO isn’t hard
I'm not going to lie: Search Engine Optimization (SEO) isn't that hard. Don't get me wrong, it's time-consuming and can be tedious, but it's not hard. It starts with a solid technical underpinning. If your site isn't secure, has mixed content (secure and insecure), has broken links, a broken site map, missing robots.txt file, or any of about 50, basic technical problems, you'll never rank well. Fortunately, these are pretty easy things to identify and can often be fixed quickly. We...
#2 Breaking up is hard to do
I've been involved in starting (and later selling) two companies. And I've done business with scores of others. Break-ups happen and they're often uncomfortable. They aren't always, but that's the way to bet. Years ago, I had an associate tell me that it was unfortunate that at the very start of every business relationship, when you're excited about working together and busy writing contracts, it was essential to think the worst of the other party. To ask yourself, what's that guy...
#1 Organizational Barriers
I do a lot of work with small companies. These are the ones that have 8-20 employees. In many cases, they can't advance their overall strategy because they've come up against organizational barriers. Barriers that can be reduced or eliminated, but the companies need the courage to do it. There has been research done about organizational sizes that I find fascinating. Since I can't recall when I read about it, I'll give you my summary: As humans, if we're really focused, we can keep...
#0 General notes about this site
This site covers things that are of interest to me and that will help others understand more about how controlGen can help; including the breadth of our offerings. First, I love the English language, and there are some things that I try not to do. I don't add extra words to make things politically correct. For example, I'm not going to include things like, "his or hers" or use funky constructs like "s/he". Sometimes I use the masculine, sometimes the feminine. It's mostly a function of how...