Internet Web Marketing

Can you believe this!

Last week I was delivered one of several Yellow Books I get each year.  I was somewhat amazed at what was delivered. The Yellow Book has always been one of the largest books delivered in the area — and to my amazement it was almost half the size of last year’s.

What’s going on with the Yellow Book? Do you recall, back in November of last year, I talked about promoting your business yesterday and today? (If not, click the link and read it) I wrote back in November that the yellow book used to be one of the best places to market your business and that in the future things would change. WOW! I was right. The evidence of this year’s Yellow Book shows us that marketing your business is changing – and fast!

Internet Marketing is the way of the future. Google, Bing and Yahoo are evolving into a living and breathing directory where information changes in a blink of your eye.  They allow people to find information anywhere in the world; but primarily focusing on local business, along with offering so much to business with websites. Now even the yellow books have to rely on Google, Bing and Yahoo to survive; offering the same tools that are available to every business owner.

What is in the Future for Marketing?

Marketing is moving away from a type of interruption marketing to more of a true personalized engagement. What do I mean? Just Marketingthrowing an ad in someone’s face, spamming their inbox with emails, posting the same message over and over again in social media on a continuous basis, is on the way out the door. A more direct approach, with more of an individualized interaction between the consumer and the brand is taking over, on multiple channels.
 
This type of individualized interaction brings a brighter future for businesses. According to Forrester Research, their experts are predicting that digital marketing expenditure is to grow at a rapid rate in 2011. More businesses will be increasing their marketing budget for 2011 and beyond. This is an indicator that we will see a growth in the economy this year.
 
Furthermore; Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business along with the American Marketing Association found from their research that spending was up by 9.2 % over 2009. They also found that budgets for projects will double over the next year — pointing to continual economic improvement across the industry. Continue reading

Have You Been I-Framed?

When we started our website development business back in 1999 there were only a handful of web developers in the area. By mid 2008, the growth of website developers increased tremendously. The prices for designing and developing a website ranged anywhere from $99.00 to over $10,000.00.
Competition was at its highest. It also brought in some very questionable practices by some of the website designers and developers. Ever since the vast growth we have had numerous businesses come to us and ask us “what is wrong with our website?” or “my webmaster will not return my calls”. The next most common statement we hear over and over again… “We paid them so much money to build our website and now we don’t have the monies to fix it — can you help us?”
The majority of business owners don’t know where to start or what is involved in having a website. This lack of knowledge opens the door for unscrupulous practices which usually leads to unpleasant results. It is VITAL that every business owner knows what is involved in building any type of website whether it’s a small 1 page calling card website to large websites with several hundred pages.
I have a business friend that just launched a beautiful new website. She used the company that developed her original site… this company literally framed her website. They built the website on a different hosting company then where the website was being hosted,  then used i-frames (inline frame – an HTML document being inserted into another HTML page) to publish the website with their hosting company. The problem with this technique is, search engines will not be able to see the content of the website. The result of this practice is the website will not place very high within the search engines.
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It’s a Tragedy…

After doing some research we have found that about 40% of businesses in the US don’t have a website. Further research revealed that 50% of those 40% didn’t have the money in their budget to have a professional website developed… Continue reading

The Power of the Like Button?

Everyone that uses FaceBook has seen or used the “like button”. It’s a way of telling the person that posted something on their wall that you like or agree with what they are saying and want to share it with your friends. The same goes for when you re-tweet a tweet
 on Twitter.
But there may be more to that “like button” and the retweet than the eye can see. We all know that Google, Bing and Yahoo don’t show their full hand on the inner workings of their searches. There is a great possibility that the search engines are using the “like button” and the retweet as backlinks.
SEO backlinks play an important part on how a website will rank in the search engines. Google, Bing and Yahoo works very hard on determining if the backlinks which website owners use are good or bad links. There are so many backlinks that are actually a form of spam, which makes it very difficult to determine if they are good or not.
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How to Overcome Blogger’s Block

 

From time to time when you maintain a blog and have to write blog articles all the time you may suffer from a mental block. I know because it’s happened to me. You just don’t know what in the world… Continue reading

Promoting Your Business Yesterday and Today…

Let’s go back about 15 years ago — when one of the best ways to market your business was having an ad in the Yellow Pages. It was the best way to find a business because just about every home and business had at least 1 or 2 phone books.  As a business owner, if you did not get your ad in by deadline, you were left out until the following year.  Businesses suffered because of it. Today, there are at least 2 different “yellow books” being published, and if you don’t advertise in both of them, you take the risk of some people not seeing you.
 
Now, search engines are the new directories. The Yellow Pages are beginning to rely on the search engines because their books are not being using as much as past years. You find more and more people using the yellow books as a door stop or a booster seat for their kids. More and more people are using the search engines in order to find businesses and what they have to offer.
 
With the age of the smart phone now upon us, we are seeing an increase in mobile searches and with that comes maps that show where a business is located. Who would have ever thought several years ago, that you’d be able to find a business on a map – on your phone, driving down the road? Let’s also not forget about how many people have computers with high speed internet connections in their homes. They, too, use the search engines to find businesses. The yellow pages become outdated quickly, as they are only printed 1 time a year, whereas the internet offers fresh information on a daily basis.
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Can your business go viral?

Do you have ideas that you are busting at the seams to let people know about? These ideas will enable you to increase the revenue of your business or change people lives…but you hit a road block because you don’t… Continue reading

Does FaceBook Replace Your Website?

Last week one of our clients who has been with us for many years, sent us an email telling us all about a seminar she went to where the topic was about FaceBook and how great it is. Continue reading

Do You Want…

Do You Want…
  • To increase your company’s bottom line?
  • More walk in traffic at your place of business?
  • Your phone to ring more often?
  • To be recognized in your community?
  • More people emailing you about your products and services?
  • People… Continue reading