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Archive for July, 2008

Why do you need a website?

Tuesday, July 29th, 2008

I get asked this question all of the time, and much to my surprise. I would assume that in this day and age this would be common knowledge. Anyhow. I Googled it and found a great article. There is no point in reinventing the wheel so here is the article: Why do you need a website?

Enjoy

Know your competition

Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008

Knowing your competition is one of the best practices or states of being for any business, online or off. I find that nearly every brick and mortar business knows their brick and mortar competition, but they don’t have a clue who their online competition is.

I recently had a medical facility give me their list of competitors. When I ran a competition analysis for their online competition, the list was completely different. All of their online competitors have physical locations in the same geographic area, thereby making them offline competitors as well.

Here are some things...

Sales Strategy In-person vs. On-line

Friday, July 18th, 2008

I just had a loyal customer come in and proudly announce he is moving product via his new website and that they Craigslist strategy we trained him on is working marvelously. However he noted that his online customers and his in store customers seem to be 2 different types of people. The people calling off of craigslist are not as eager and are not responding as well to his tried and true in person sales tactics. I believe there are some distinct reasons for this.

1. Expectations - If a customer walks into your store and asks a sales rep for help, they expect a conversation with a salesperson. ...

Blogging Seminar Notes from 7/10

Monday, July 14th, 2008

Here are my notes from the blogging seminar called “Grilling up a Great Blog.” You will see that I don’t use many notes to speak, that is why attending is always more valueable. For those of you who did attend don’t forget to send Clay Belcher an email: clay@signsoflifebooks.com for allowing us to use his beautiful studio for free.

Notes

*******************

What is a blog?

A blog is a website where entries are made in journal style and displayed in a reverse chronological order.

Who cares?

You,...

Conversions

Monday, July 14th, 2008

For most SEO professionals a conversion is closer to a click-through than it is a transaction. The whole purpose of SEO for most businesses is to increase business by increasing exposure. Exposure is the easy part. Business is not. I frequently have people contact me regarding SEO and tell me they have to have a PR of 5 or they need 10000 visitors a week or some unattached number and I usually ask, “why?” And…

there is a long pause…..

uh….I don’t know

That’s the usual answer. Go ahead…try googling “running shoes”...

SEO and Design

Wednesday, July 9th, 2008

There will always be the debate about SEO and design. Pure SEO probably isn’t very sexy design and visa-versa. Please understand that I am only referring to what we call “on-page factors.” This would not include the design or optimization of the sites linking to you, but rather the actual pages on your site. Read the rest of this entry &raquo

Charity Sites

Wednesday, July 9th, 2008

If you are a designer of web sites or are perceived as a designer or someone heard you once made a web page for a 10th grade project, then no doubt you have been contacted about “donating” your work to some local charity or not-for-profit. They are typically operating on a “small budget” and would like you to consider donating the work. Sometimes they say, “We don’t have much money, but how much would you charge for something like that?” For the 2 parties involved…. Read the rest...

Reciprocal Links

Wednesday, July 9th, 2008

As of late, my clients and friends have been bombarded with reciprocal link requests by the dozens, daily. Here is a typical email. Read the rest of this entry &raquo