Archive for the ‘marketing’ Category
Saturday, January 3rd, 2009
Quoting from Churches open door to ministry on the Web By Tracy Farnham
Bennie Greene, left, chairman of Media Services for Hopewell Baptist, and Ken Mull, sound technician for Hopewell Baptist, work on a recent Sunday morning to get the churches services online.
Photo contributed by Joshua Norman
MORGANTON - Much like an interactive church bulletin, local congregations are embracing the Internet to broaden the scope of ministry and stay in touch with members.
Hopewell Baptist Church uses the Web for their church calendar, prayer requests and member contacts. Josh Norman, who handles media and technology for Hopewell, said they had a test run in October for previously recorded services over the Internet.
“We record all our services and broadcast them on the Internet. We went full streaming with our Sunday morning services in November,” Norman said.
Along with offering free sermon outlines, questions may be asked and submitted to Dr. Raymond Rowland. The Web site has information about ordering a CD or tapes with messages through the Bible by Rowland. These are free and can be received by following the links on the site at www.afocusonchrist.com.
To view past services for Hopewell go to www.hopewellbaptist-church.org.
Read the entire article at http://www2.morganton.com/content/2008/dec/29/churches-open-door-ministry-web/
Posted in church, content, management, marketing, promotion, web traffic | No Comments »
Friday, January 2nd, 2009
If you ever have a link that says “Skip Intro”, then you need to remove the page that contains that link. There’s no question or debate about this. The ONLY time I would ever do that is if you are promoting a video game or a movie. The only time ever.
Have you ever heard anyone tell you about a really cool splash page?
What good does it do if your website has the most beautiful web pages ever designed, but it doesn’t convince people to engage with your organization?
They don’t happen as much as they used to, but there are still websites out there that are more of an art project than effective promotion tool.
I’ve seen some splash pages that were a just monument to the web designers Flash and CSS skills. Designers love this stuff, but it’s the users that you need to worry about. Have you ever heard anyone tell you about a really cool splash page that they saw?
Regardless of your designer’s technical prowess or if the pressure is coming from some management above you, resist the temptation to use a splash page.
Just say no.
Posted in SEO, Web Site Starter Kit, content, design, development, marketing, promotion, small business website | No Comments »
Wednesday, December 31st, 2008
Who needs ‘em?
I do remember one year that I sat down and thought through some goals I had for my life. At New Years, I sat down and wrote them out and formalized them. There were only 3 or 4 and they were very specific and attainable.
During that year, I actually remembered those goals and started to make decisions based on them. Should I do this or that? This lines up with the goal and that would be a lot of fun, but doesn’t line up with the goal.
I kept track and measured myself during the year. Nothing hard core, but I was aware of exactly where I was on the quest.
What do you want to achieve?
At the end of the year, I had done really well on them all. I was shocked at how well I had done. I thought I had stumbled across a new way to make my life everything I ever wanted it to be.
I create even more goals for the next year. I had charts and graphs for the entire upcoming year. I had a manila folder. I was set. This new year was going to be great.
About 3 months into the second year, I realized that I had no idea what those detailed goals really were for each step along the way. I couldn’t remember the details. At 6 months, I had given up on all of them. Quit. Done.
At the end of the year, I hadn’t accomplished anything. I was still were I started and completely distracted by other things.
What do you want to achieve? Pick a couple goals. Make them simple. Make them measurable. Then go accomplish them.
What are your goals for the upcoming year? Leave a comment.
Posted in SEO, business development, management, marketing, promotion, small business website, web traffic | No Comments »
Tuesday, December 30th, 2008
Douglas at Hostgator actually looks for people talking about his company. This is the kind of proactive research that you should be doing for your company. You need to search Google and Technorati to see what people are saying about you on a regular basis.
Look at his response. Leads with a compliment, addresses the concern, and follows with a positive statement. Also notice that he gets a link to his site in the comment he left (good for SEO). If it was just comments spam, I wouldn’t have approved it. Since it was a meaningful comment, it’s approved and he got the link.
I wish I could comment as well as Douglas! The dude is a professional. I’m happy to give him the extra links.
I’ve been promoting PowWeb, since they are who I’m happy with, but perhaps it’s time to stroll on down to Hostgator and check them out.
Quoting from How To Use The “Suckage Ratio” | Web Design and Developement for Small Business
I wish I could comment as well as Douglas!
By Douglas - HostGator.com on Dec 29, 2008 | Reply | Edit
I’m glad to see that you utilize a ratio (most posts like these just use the flat out number of results), but am disappointed to see that HostGator had the highest “suckage ratio.”
With that in mind, though, our customer service is still amongst the best in the industry and is continually improving. We also invest a lot of time and resources into reaching out to customers that have any trouble (we have an extremely strong presence on the Twitter and regularly reach out to bloggers). And the CEO of the company is also personally available to customers who ask (this is not a gimmick and actually does happen).
Hopefully our reaching out will help demonstrate our commitment to customer service excellence. If you have any questions or concerns, don’t hesitate to send me an email.
Read the entire article at:
http://www.walton.com/2008/12/22/how-to-use-the-suckage-ratio-to-pick-companies-and-products.html#comments
Posted in SEO, business development, content, domain name, free, marketing, promotion, web host | No Comments »
Tuesday, December 30th, 2008
Web addresses on business cards just work. Every church needs a web site. Every one.
Quoting from Church Marketing Rocks « Billy Chia
When I reached into my wallet to pull out my debit card to pay, I pulled out a churchinabrewery.com card as well. I laid it down and said,
Web addresses on business cards just work.
“I worshiped with these guys on Christmas Eve.”
She said she’d never heard of Church in a Brewery but that she really enjoyed the Christmas Eve service at Grace UMC. She asked to keep the card. (My vibe was that Grace is the right place for her - but I’m suspecting she might have a friend to pass the card along to who would find a great home at Sojourn.)
Business Cards with a web addresses just work. In a situation where it’d be awkward to try to start up a conversation about going to church while there are 300 other people waiting for driver’s liscneses it’s simple and gets you to the point quick.
Read the entire article at:
http://billychia.com/2008/12/29/church-marketing-rocks/
Posted in church, marketing, promotion | No Comments »
Monday, December 29th, 2008
It looks like there will be some valuable articles on WordPress SEO over at Remarkablogger. Since I’m such an advocate of WordPress and SEO, I’ll be interested to see what he has to say. He usually have some good information that I can learn from.
Quoting from About WordPress SEO
Why WordPress SEO is Separate from Blog SEO or “Regular” SEO
WordPress SEO needs to be its own thing because of all the unique factors a blogger needs to understand when applying basic SEO principles to a WordPress blog. For example, many of the common points of standard SEO advice have to be translated into how to specifically do them for WordPress SEO. Things like:
Title tags
File names
Headings
Redirects
Meta tags
Robots exclusion
This Ain’t the Old Days Anymore
Back in the day, web pages were edited by hand, and you had to know HTML, and, for some of this stuff, a little scripting. How is today’s blogger going to accomplish the above without any editing of HTML or scripting?
WordPress. With WordPress, about the most technical thing you need to know is how to install a theme or a plugin (and with the advent of WordPress 2.7, even plugins have become super-easy). There are plugins for WordPress SEO. Problem is, that’s not quite enough. You have to know what to do with them in order to really improve your search rankings. And in order to do that, you have to know SEO.
Read the entire article at http://michaelmartine.com/2008/12/28/wordpress-seo/
Posted in SEO, Wordpress, content, marketing, promotion, small business website, web traffic | No Comments »
Thursday, December 25th, 2008
WOW! THIS is what using the Internet is about. Here is an organization that advocates spending less money on Christmas and giving more. This is what Christmas is all about.
This is what Christmas is all about.
Now, look closely. Their web site is hosted on wordpress.com, a free hosting service. This is what I advocate you do in my Web Site Starter Kit book. Look at the domain name of the site.
This organization has a free web site that looks great, works great, and has great results.
Yes, they did lobby displays and other, more traditional marketing efforts also, but the free web site was part of it.
Merry Christmas. Spend time, not money.
news: Back to the basics at Christmas
How did the movement generate such a massive response?
Church leadership sowed the seeds several months earlier. Beginning in October, the congregation, including children, repeatedly heard the Advent Conspiracy’s call to “spend less, give more, worship fully and love all.” Officials added a blog to the church Web site (adventconspiracy.wordpress.com) and created a lobby storyboard where churchgoers could share ideas on how to give creative gifts of time and relationship.
Read the entire article at news: Back to the basics at Christmas
Posted in Free Small Business Web Site, SEO, Web Site Starter Kit, church, content, development, domain name, free, marketing, promotion, web host | No Comments »
Wednesday, December 24th, 2008
This is quite an indictment against the church’s use to technology, or the lack there of. This is how the secular world views the church, as “a primitive, backwards relic from a superstitious, theocratic Dark Age”. While this article is specifically about the Catholic church, the view applies to most all Christian churches.
I think that phrase could also be used for any business that doesn’t have a web page. In 2008, there is not reason that any business doesn’t have a web site, none at all.
It’s not that hard folks. It’s really not. I sell a book, Web Site Starter Kit, that will tell you how to get a web site for free, (yes, free!) and it won’t suck, I promise. You need to drag your small business or church out of the Dark Ages and into the 21st century. All the kids are doing it these days.
The Teapot Atheist: Isn’t that cute! The Church figured out the intertubes!
Church is a primitive, backwards relic from a superstitious, theocratic Dark Age.
The whole story is quite a commentary on what people really think about the Church. Why would it be news for them to use the internet if it didn’t defy our understanding of the fact that the Church is a primitive, backwards relic from a superstitious, theocratic Dark Age?
Read the entire article at The Teapot Atheist: Isn’t that cute! The Church figured out the intertubes!
Posted in Free Small Business Web Site, Web Site Starter Kit, church, content, free, marketing, promotion, small business website | No Comments »
Monday, December 22nd, 2008
The “suckage ratio” can tell you which company or product to use, including web hosts.
You can do Google searches on exact phrases by putting quotes around the words. If you want to know what people are saying about a specific company or product or web host, do a search for these phrases: “product” and “product sucks”
When you compare the suckage ratio of one product to another, you'll get an idea of what the general population thinks of the products.
Note the number of results returned for each search.
Divide the number of “product sucks” search results by the number of “product” results. That is your “suckage ratio”. The idea is to compare the number of times the product is talked about with the number of times that it is talked about negatively.
The number itself doesn’t tell you anything important, but when you compare the suckage ratio of one product to another, or of one company with another, you’ll get an idea of what the general population thinks of the products or companies. I wouldn’t this as the only point to base a decision on, but it’s a good piece of information to have when making choices.
As you can see from the chart below, Powweb, the web host that I recommend, I use and I am very happy with, is very close to the best. I don’t have any experience with BlueHost, but maybe I will have to check into them.
| Web Host |
Total |
Sucks |
Suckage Ratio |
| Hostgator |
2,980,000 |
1,900 |
6.38% |
| HostMonster |
2,060,000 |
926 |
4.50% |
| iPower |
1,470,000 |
1,650 |
1.12% |
| Pow Web |
779,000 |
815 |
1.05% |
| BlueHost |
2,120,000 |
2,180 |
1.03% |
Posted in marketing, small business website, web host | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, December 17th, 2008
Dwight D. Eisenhower: “In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.”
This seems to sum up the essence of web project management. There are always plans and as long as you understand the plans, then you can change them when you need to, and you will need to.
In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.
It’s really important that you understand what you want to do with your web site. You need to know the content and how the content is organized. You need to know what the user is supposed to do and why they come to your site. You should have a site map, with little boxes and lines and arrows between them all. You should have a list of pages with the content written out for each page. You should have all that.
But…
As Pee Wee Herman said, there’s always a big but.
You need to know all of that stuff so that you can change it when you need to. Things will be different than you assume they will be. Something will come up. Something will break. Something will work better than expected.
Usually, when a client sees their site for the first time, even after they planned it and agreed to it in detail, they want changes. It happens every time. I have NEVER built a site to plan and had the client approve it without changes. Doesn’t happen. It won’t happen to you either.
Just be ready for it when it comes, because it’s coming.
Posted in content, development, marketing, small business website, web traffic | No Comments »
Monday, December 15th, 2008
She doesn’t mention the idea of using search terms, your keywords in your URL. That’s the best way to get found for those search terms.
Choose the Best Name for Your Business Web Site | The Small Business Blog
Some business owners get caught in the trap of thinking their business name and their domain name have to match. They don’t. Schultz advises you think of your potential URL as more than just a name, but as a descriptive call to action as well. And, he adds, think locally. For example, a plumber might choose as his or her URL “BestPlumberOnWestside.com.”
Think of your potential URL as more than just a name, but as a descriptive call to action as well.
Once you buy your domain, your job isn’t over. Remember that your URL is your Internet identity. Use it as your e-mail address. Schultz advises that your domain name appear on your business cards, in your e-mail signature, and on all your marketing materials and other business collateral. And spread the word. Get registered on all the search directories, social networking sites, and rating sites like Yelp or Angie’s List. Ask your customers to go to the various rating sites and rate their experiences with your business.
Domain names are cheap enough that you can buy one whenever you get a good idea, years before you actually start the business. I own around two dozen URLs. Some may never see the light of day, but I have high hopes for a few of them.
No more excuses. Coming up with a domain name is fun, easy, and inexpensive. How many business activities can you say that about?
Read the entire article at Choose the Best Name for Your Business Web Site | The Small Business Blog
Posted in DNS, SEO, domain name, free, marketing, promotion, small business website | No Comments »
Friday, December 12th, 2008
I finally got the book done and up on the site. The sales page is done and you can actually buy it now at www.websitestarterkit.com
There’s a bonus of one month of email support if you buy it now. That won’t last forever, but I’m not sure yet when I’ll stop offering that.
Posted in marketing, small business website | No Comments »
Wednesday, December 10th, 2008
Everyone knows that the economy is in trouble. How should you react as a small business owner? How are you going to pay the rent next month? Which employee are you going to let go? How will you keep your current clients? Don’t panic.
The easiest and quickest budget item fora small business to cut back on is marketing. There’s no immediate affect felt, so you think it might be safe to cut, but nothing could be worse for your business. The Harvard Business Review said:
It is well documented that brands that increase (marketing) during a recession, when competitors are cutting back, can improve market share and return on investment at lower cost than during good economic times.
The best time to take advantage of your place in the market is in an economic downturn. Because other people are quick to cut marketing, you will have the perfect opportunity to reach even more prospective customers. In a downturn, aggressive PR and Communications strategy is the solution.
Building or updating your web site is one of the cheapest and easiest ways to reach those prospective customers. Now is the time to put some time into reviewing your web site. Does it say everything it needs to say about your small business? Can you add features that allow more customer involvement or at least feedback? Maybe it’s time to have a professional review your site and give you suggestions on how it can be improved.
Now is the time to spend more on advertising, not less.
Posted in marketing, small business website | No Comments »
Tuesday, December 9th, 2008
SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources » Blog Archive » How to Convert More Website Traffic into More Customers & Sales by Inviting Prospects to Take Action
Here Are 3 Easy “Calls to Action” to Convert More Website Traffic into Sales on the About Us, Media and Contact Us Pages
1. On the “About Us” page, after your bio, add a powerful client testimonial praising your expertise and your measurable and specific impact on the client’s bottom line. Then add the line “Ready for these kinds of results in your organization? Click here to get started now!” (This links to the contact page).
This call to action, in fact, can be used for any page that does not have an obvious next step.
2. Your “Media” page should not just be a collage of logos. It should contain short videos of your TV appearances, audio clips of your radio interviews or featured-expert interviews on teleseminars. It should also include links to the articles where you were quoted or links to your articles that got published on the top websites. Let the world see what a sought-after, in-demand expert you really are.
With that being said, a simple, but effective call to action would be, “Sarah B. Marketer looks forward to being the featured expert on your next program. To schedule her appearance right now click here.” (This links to the Contact page.)
3. The Contact page, by definition, is a call to action. It needs to take your visitor by the hand and lead them through the next step.
It should not just be a page that displays your mailing address, phone number, and main corporate e-mail. Rather, it should lead with a paragraph that congratulates the reader for their decision to take action. Then, it should explain the process for getting in touch with you. It should also describe what someone should expect once they contact you.
Next, guide them through a simple web form that asks specific questions. This way you can do your homework and present prospects with a specific response and action plan. Make sure to keep this form as brief as possible, and only ask questions that directly inform how you and your visitor would do business together in the near future.
Having a web form, rather than just a link to your e-mail address, guides your visitor to take a specific action. This raises their level of commitment to you and increases your chances that they will buy from you.
Bottom line: Make sure that every page on your website provides a roadmap for your visitor with a specific call to action. This is the only way your prospects will reach the destination that you prepared for them. And, it’s the only way you will increase your website sales conversions.
Read the entire article at SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources » Blog Archive » How to Convert More Website Traffic into More Customers & Sales by Inviting Prospects to Take Action
Posted in content, development, marketing, small business website, web host | No Comments »
Saturday, December 6th, 2008
Web Site Starter Kit First Draft is done!
I need to go back through it all and review it, but the basic idea of using Wordpress.com to set up a free web site is a good one. I have all kinds of tips and tricks to make that the best possible web site you can get, including SEO and promotion of the site.
As an example, I created a free site aimed at 3 keywords. Within 3 weeks of creating it, it was number 3 in the search results for those keywords in Google. That shocked even me. This SEO stuff really works.
Of course, now that I’ve written it all out, Wordpress is releasing a new version and the admin interface is very different. It’s in production on wordpress.com, but the downloadable version is not available yet. It should be any day now.
When it is available, I’ll go do screenshots and the book will be ready to sell. It will be aimed at small businesses, really small ones, and in addition to background on general good web site ideas, it will have a “free” and a “cheap” method for creating web sites.
It should be all done and ready to go by next week.
Posted in Free Small Business Web Site, SEO, Web Site Starter Kit, content, design, development, domain name, free, marketing, promotion, small business website, web host, web traffic | No Comments »
Friday, December 5th, 2008
Many small business owners will use their old generic email address when doing business, even after they’ve spent money to buy a domain name. Sending an email to someone with a HotMail, Yahoo, or Gmail domain name is a sure sign that you don’t know what you are doing, that you are second rate, that you are not professional.
You should set up addresses like support@ and sales@ and information@, just to look professional.
Make sure that the web host that is hosting your web site can do email also. All of them should be able to. It’s not that hard. Take the time to go in a get it set up. Find out what the host name is there and set up the account.
Set up your email application to log into that account, then use it to send and receive email.
You should also have a “catch all” account that will probably get filled with spam, but you’ll also get those emails with misspelled email addresses that you might otherwise miss.
You should set up addresses like “support@” and “sales@” and “information@”, just to look professional. You, or someone, should be able to log in and send and receive email at each of your custom addresses.
Also, don’t let any address lay dormant. Make sure that someone is logging into every account, every 10 minutes. “I sent you an email last week. Did you get it?” is not the question you want to hear.
Posted in domain name, marketing, promotion, web host | No Comments »
Tuesday, December 2nd, 2008
Stores seeking sales on Web :: PostStar.com
Locally, Paul O’Donnell, owner of Celtic Treasures in Saratoga Springs, saw an influx of orders Monday thanks to a free shipping offer.
“UPS came in with a big hand truck to carry it all out,” he said.
Online since 1996, Celtic Treasures has established an online presence and customer database that would make many small businesses drool. O’Donnell’s store appears on the first page of a Google search for “Irish gifts,” which he called “priceless” and chalked up to longevity.
Celtic Treasures in Saratoga Springs
While the Cyber Monday phenomenon is largely absent from Main Street, online stores are becoming a popular way for local merchants to reach out to their existing customer base, and sometimes beyond.
In Glens Falls, SensibiliTeas owner Donnalynn Milford said a Web site has allowed her to send teas, herbs and spices all over the world. And when gas prices exceeded $4 per gallon, she noticed that customers from Chestertown and North Creek were ordering online, too.
“It was cheaper for me to send it to them, than (for them) to drive down and get it,” Milford said.
For most small businesses, a functional Web site is as good as a second storefront, said Todd Shimkus, president and CEO of the Adirondack Regional Chambers of Commerce.
“The primary benefit for a local small business, irregardless of where you are, is it gives you a chance to compete with those larger operations who are trying to draw business away,” Shimkus said.
Merchants with a unique, specialized product often have an easier time attracting an online audience.
Read the entire article at Stores seeking sales on Web :: PostStar.com
Posted in content, marketing, promotion, small business website, web traffic | No Comments »
Monday, December 1st, 2008
Here is the web guy at the NYT saying that their main costs for their web site is the manpower to build it. The software is cheap. The hardware is cheap. That’s basically the approach I take in the Website Starter Kit. Use Wordpress, which is free, and buy space on a cheap web host. Use their hardware for less than $10 a month.
The main cost to build a web site is the manpower to build it.
You be the labor. You do it yourself and save a ton of money. Using these tools, it won’t be that hard to do.
In my experience, even the building of the site is easy. The real time suck is politics. The meetings between marketing and well, marketing, seemed to drag out every decision. They needed to be sure everything was just right before we could move ahead. When you can tell a developer to “do it this way”, they can knock it out quickly. When you ask a marketing person which way they want it, have a seat and wait.
Don’t fall into this same trap. Just get the site up and out the door. When you build custom stuff, it will take a bit to make changes, but using Wordpress, it’s easy. Make all of the changes you want.
Make a decision. Make it happen. Bam. You’re done.
Old Media Interview: Aron Pilhofer, interactive guru, editor at The New York Times | Old Media, New Tricks
Everything we use is free and open-source… The cost here isn’t software, or even hardware, which is relatively cheap these days… The price most … organizations (and it’s not just small ones) seem reluctant to pay is for people…
Read the entire article at Old Media Interview: Aron Pilhofer, interactive guru, editor at The New York Times | Old Media, New Tricks
Posted in Free Small Business Web Site, Web Site Starter Kit, development, marketing, small business website, web host | No Comments »
Sunday, November 30th, 2008
All local business should have these 4 things on every page for people and search engines to read. Most sites these days are built on templates, so it’s easy to put in a footer or side bar containing all of these essential elements. All of these should be in text so that search engines can easily read them.
Your business name, a description of what you do, where you do it, who you do it for.
1. Your business name, a description of what you do, where you do it, who you do it for. Be short and to the point. They have other pages on the site for in depth information if they want more detailed information. This is for people to know at a glance what they are looking at.
2. Your address, phone number and email address. Be sure to put all of this information in full, including the street address, city, state and zip code. Put the area code with the phone number.
3. Hours that your business is open.
4. A list of cities you serve. If someone searches for the type of business that you have plus the city name, they can find it in the search engines.
Posted in SEO, content, marketing, promotion | No Comments »
Thursday, November 27th, 2008
One reason that I want the primary focus of my business to be helping people build their own web sites instead of building sites for them is that everyone needs to embrace their own web site. We should know what is the content and update it regularly.
Embrace your site!
I can’t stress enough that you should be personally involved in your web site. You would always keep a copy of the keys to your front door. You would always have access to your bank account. You should always be involved with, control, and manage your own web site.
Don’t pay people like me to build you a site so that you can forget it and get on with the important parts of your business. The web site IS an important part of your business and you need to treat it that way if you are going to be successful.
Web wise: Startup company’s website- Internet -Infotech-The Economic Times
So whether it is a small-time business setup or a larger brick and mortar entity you are launching, a website is like the screwdriver in a toolbox that you really can’t do without. Says Rajeev Karwal, CEO and founder of Milagrow Business and Knowledge Solutions, “Internet domains are the most cost-effective method of getting your message across to a huge audience.
In fact, it is a very personal way of connecting with them. Unfortunately, only one or two percent of small companies use their websites effectively today.” There are quite a few reasons: low connectivity, low awareness and a tendency to “outsource and forget” what is treated as a necessary evil. Also, a website is not just a one-time investment of time or money—it demands constant attention and upgradation. But as these entrepreneurs prove, an attractive and well-tended website can be a key pillar of success and growth.
Read the entire article at Web wise: Startup company’s website- Internet -Infotech-The Economic Times
Posted in content, development, marketing, small business website | No Comments »
