HWG State of the Group

Posted in: Blog, Graphic Design, Hawaii Videos, Maui, SEO, Social Media, Testimonials, Twitter, Web Design by MauiHawaiiUpdates on February 4, 2012 | No Comments

Here at Hawaii Web Group, we believe in being transparent.  This is why we’ve decided to issue a yearly “State of the Group” to let our clients and our ohana know where we stand.  See Previous State of the Group.

2011 HWG Traffic

After reviewing our analytics in 2011, we’ve found that our small network of Maui/Hawaii websites (owned and operated by HWG) brought in the following traffic relative to previous years.  All of the numbers below come from Google Analytics.  (If anyone shows you numbers for their sites that are derived from some other analytic program, be wary!  We only trust Google for this.)

Increase in traffic

In the last 31 days, our websites have increased in traffic by over 47% across the board.

In February of 2013, you can expect a similar report.  On this new report, you’ll find that the numbers above will have increased substantially.  Our goal is to grow by around 50% every year for the next 5 years.  Our goal is to market our islands while maintaining an educational emphasis.  We want our visitors to leave with more than just a tan.  We want them to leave with a better understanding of the unique culture and environment that we love on the islands.

New websites built in 2011

MauiWebCameras.com – This site shares the webcameras of Maui by area of the island.

In 2011, we concentrated on building up our social profiles and growing our blogging community.  We also did a few side projects for clients: Haleakala Bike Company and Auntie Snorkel.  We also began building a website about Molokini, which is still in progress.

The Social Web

In 2011, we’ve been extra busy socially on the web.  We’ve built 2 new social blogs and we’ve been diligent with Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, Foursquare, and more.  Below are some of our growing numbers.

Outsourcing

We still have yet to hire anyone not on the island of Maui.  All of our independent contractors reside and work on the island of Maui, Hawaii.  We believe its important to keep jobs within our own State.

Overview

All in all, we’re very happy with what our efforts have produced in 2011.  It’s been more work than we’d ever imagined, but the feedback from our clients and our increased numbers above make us feel like it’s all worth it.  How do we do it? The old fashioned way with a lot of HARD WORK. We believe that nothing worthwhile comes from shortcuts. We build the best content possible and focus on our visitors. If they’re not happy with what we give them, the page (or site) will come down. Overall, we want our impact on the web to be positive in a way where our visitors appreciate the work we’ve done and share it with friends.

We’re looking forward to sharing our numbers again in 2013!

Social Media for Business

Posted in: Blog, SEO, Social Media, Twitter by MauiHawaiiUpdates on October 22, 2011 | No Comments

For most people, social media for business is a waste of time.  In order to utilize it successfully, it requires:

• TIME
• More TIME
• And an increasingly complex knowledge of how to convert, which only comes from an obnoxious amount of testing and research. Read more…

Maui Web Design

Posted in: Blog, Graphic Design, Maui, SEO, Web Design by MauiHawaiiUpdates on October 1, 2011 | No Comments

We’re building websites for clients again! We know, it sounds strange that at one point we had even stopped.  I’ll explain:  We took a short hiatus from designing websites for clients in order to concentrate on our own network of Hawaii websites.

Now we’re back and building!  Our goal is to build no more than 6 websites per year.  because of our detailed methods involved in designing, we can’t take as many clients as we’d like.  Below we’ve listed a few prerequisites required of our clients.

1. Flexibility – This is very important.  Hawaii Web Group builds websites for local businesses in order for them to grow their exposure and brand.  Ultimately, the website has to help the business become more popular and increase their sales.

This means that we have to have the final say in design.  Again, this sounds strange.  You know your business, but we know the web.  If you want someone to build a site exactly as you want, we recommend you find different designers.  We’ll do everything in our power to make your site look the way you want, but some things shouldn’t be done if you want to reach the largest amount of your ideal visitors.   You have to trust us.

2. Content – You know your business better than we do.  We need you to write the content for your pages before we even start.  This point will make or break a business relationship.  Right off the bat, I can tell you that most people we deal with are amped to begin the project and ready to pay, but they’ll never get us the materials we need.  This kills the project. We can make things up for your business, but it won’t be entirely accurate, it will take longer to write and fix mistakes, and it will cost you more for us to write it.

3. Commitment – Once you’ve decided to go with us, you need to be committed 100%.  When we need your input, you’ll need to give it to us in a timely manner. That means getting us answers within hours, not days.

I know this sounds strange to have prerequisites for clients, but we have high standards for what we build, and it takes time.  If we’re going to build, we’re going to do it right!  Give us a shout!

HWG State Of The Group

Posted in: Blog, Graphic Design, Hawaii Videos, Maui, SEO, Social Media, Twitter, Web Design by MauiHawaiiUpdates on February 3, 2011 | No Comments

Here at Hawaii Web Group, we believe in being transparent.  This is why we’ve decided to issue a yearly “State of the Group” to let our clients and our ohana know where we stand.

2010 HWG Traffic

After reviewing our analytics in 2010, we’ve found that our small network of Maui/Hawaii websites (owned and operated by HWG) brought in the following traffic.  All of the numbers below come from Google Analytics.  (If anyone shows you numbers for their sites that are derived from some other analytic program, be wary!  We only trust Google for this.)

Increase in traffic

In the last 31 days, our websites have increased in traffic by over 55.92% across the board. Read more…

Facebook Fan Page Problems and Poor Support

Posted in: Blog, Maui, SEO by MauiHawaiiUpdates on December 16, 2010 | No Comments

We’ve had a fan page up for several months to help promote the island of Maui, Hawaii (See here…maybe: Maui Facebook.)  We’ve used both paid advertising and our own organic linking skills to drive traffic to the page, which now has over 3,400 fans.  Everything was working successfully.  We used many of the available embedded tools from Facebook to set up “Like Buttons” and “Profile Streams” around the Internet on relevant Maui websites. Read more…

Slimy Webmasters & SEOs

Posted in: Blog, Graphic Design, Maui, SEO, Web Design by NORBERG on September 29, 2010 | No Comments

Recently, I’ve had to let go of a very large SEO and Web Maintenance client due to our little company picking up too much steam in other directions.  We felt it necessary to help our former client find replacements that will suit their needs.

Understandably, we’ve never looked for webmasters or Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Experts before because that’s what we do.  As we contacted dozens of companies in Hawaii, this is what we came up with:

• A few solid quality companies
• Many companies that wouldn’t get back to us
• Many companies that took a week to reply to our inquiry
• Many companies that claimed they have experience doing SEO, but clearly don’t
• Many companies offering web design that would make my cat puke
• A few companies that are based on the mainland, but have satellite sites for different states.  (Their offer was very generic, over-priced, and didn’t feel honest.)
• And then a few slimy webmasters (see below)

The slimy webmaster

I have to share this quick story.  I asked for a list of websites that they’re responsible for the SEO paired with the keywords they had gotten up in the rankings. Read more…

Foreign Link Exchange

Posted in: Blog, SEO by NORBERG on June 2, 2010 | No Comments

Everyday… EVERYDAY we get barraged with emails from people asking to exchange links. 1 in 10,000 is legitimately considered by our company. Why? This is our most common form of email:

Why will we not accept this?
1. It looks EXACTLY like 9,000 of the 10,000 we get every month. It’s obviously automated, which means we’d be added to a list with 1,000 other unrelated sites.
2. The company has absolutely no relevance to our clients. Why would an art website link to a pool builder?
3. There’s more, but I won’t waste the time.

The other email we get a lot is from people with REALLY poor English. We’re as guilty as the next company for occasional grammar and spelling mistakes, but the emails we get are far beyond a simple mistake. These guys have no right to be asking for links. What kind of a website do they have if their emails suck this bad?

Anyway, that’s how we feel. This won’t change anything. The same schmucks will keep annoying us, because they certainly wouldn’t go to the lengths of actually reading someone’s site before asking to link to it.

THE SEO MAGIC BULLET

Posted in: Maui, SEO by NORBERG on May 24, 2010 | 1 Comment

A quick note:

We are VERY regularly asked the question, “So what is the secret of getting your sites to #1 in Google?” As we begin to try and explain in the most simple way possible, we’re interupted. “So, there’s no magic bullet? Some kind of way to cheat the system?” Yes, there is. But it won’t get you long lasting results.

For Those that are genuinely interested, THERE IS NO MAGIC BULLET! Just like anything else in this world, if you want to be successful, it takes a lot of work… a lot of smart work.

So please, if you’re looking for a way to cheat your way to the top, please don’t think that online marketing and SEO are the way to do it. It ain’t easy. Aloha!

Adding Maps to your website

Posted in: Blog, Maui, SEO, Web Design by NORBERG on March 24, 2010 | 1 Comment

We recently worked on a website for a client when we realized that it needed help when it comes to the map. The client is a furniture company in Maui, and it had a map built most likely by the original web designers. The map is unclear, too small, and very hard to find:
Original Map

We took the liberty of building and adding a new map to the site, found from a prominent link within the top navigation (as well as adding the written address to the bottom of every page:
New Map

This helps people find your store, and it also helps search engines know your physical location.

The moral of this story: If you have a brick and mortar business, you need to make the address location prominent. Adding an interactive Google Map is even better.

We Plant Trees

Posted in: Blog, SEO, Web Design by NORBERG on June 24, 2009 | 1 Comment

We’ve planted Hundreds of trees!

Other than the energy we use for our computers, we’re a pretty green web firm. We Recycle everything we can, invest in Solar Energy, and now we’re starting to Reforest the Brazilian Atlantic Forest. We’re doing it ten trees at a time. Read more…