Tag Archives: Small Business

3 Key Factors That Determine Local Search Ranking on Google

Web Wise, Website Tips


Did you know, Google (and Bing) search engines have two forms of presenting search results? One is general results, the other is local search results based on the location of user or business being searched for.

This topic is regarding the Local Ranking on Google which probably makes up 60-80% of your potential customers.



The following information is valuable to any small business trying to better understand the search engine giants’ inner workings.   It is indeed important to know that listing your business in the yellow pages and waiting for a response are long gone.

(Disadvantages of using Yellow Book/Pages for your online web presence)
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Beware of iDNS Domain Registrar Scam

Security, Spam Hall Of Shame

From time to time, some of Northwoods Web Designs (NWD) clients as well as ourselves, receive letters from fraudulent domain registrars.  We get asked about these from our clients, which tells me they have clearly deceived their letters pretty well to try to trick some domain owners into thinking a domain renewal invoice.

So we want to provide this information to protect you, whether you have registered your domain name with Northwoods Web Designs or some other provider.




These companies who send these letters, such as iDNS,  attempt to convince you into transferring or renewing your domain using their service. Which on average is 500% above the market rate for domain name services. 
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How Long Does It Take For a New Site to Appear in the Google Search Results?

Web Wise, Website Tips

Google Find If Index Your Site Yet

Here is the typical scenario: you’re a small business owner and you’ve just launched your new website to the world. Now you are wondering how long will it be before people searching the web find your site in the search engine results page (SERP)?

Since its brand new, the search engines do not know anything about it, so therefore cannot display it to anybody searching for it.

So some things need to occur before its “searchable”.  The site needs to be indexed by the search engine.  There’s no specific set time for Google to initially index your site, can vary based on several items such as:
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Why Are Companies Still Getting Hacked?

Security, Web Wise

It seems to be a recurring theme lately. We either hear in the news or read on social media that some other company has been hacked.  We all heard about the big Target breach which leaked personal data of 110 million (1/3 of US population) customers.

But many other companies have been hacked as well, but don’t make the big headlines like the Target breach.  Recently Kickstarter (respected crowd funding site), Snapchat and Skype’s social media accounts are among some of the other companies joining the hack attack crowd.

There are two simple answers to why this continues to occur.

  1. Criminal hacking, AKA as Crackers, is a full-time business that operates 24/7/365. While you sleep their still working. And the focus for these “businesses” is to get real dollars in the fastest way possible.  So they focus on the most popular companies with the largest audience for greatest gain.
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