Cyber Monday - Myth or Fact?

Well it turns out its all a myth! Well maybe not so much anymore, but before this past Monday it was. Some online retailers who wanted to compete with the Black Friday frenzy made up Cyber Monday.

It may not have been the busiest online shopping day of the year, but it sure will be next year. The buzzword "Cyber Monday" was started last week in hopes that the online stores would see some green from holiday shoppers. Unfortunately it didn't create as big a hype as hoped.

Online retailers aren't down about it though. Now that the word is out there, next year will be a big year for them. More sales, and specials will be offered and shoppers will be running to their computers to be sure they get the best deal.

To think a few hints and rumors started on chat boards and emails could start a (hopefully) yearly event. But then again that is probably how Black Friday started as well. A few stores saying how many specials and sales they had on the Friday after Thanksgiving.

So what turned out to be a big myth will most likely turn into a yearly event.

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Posted by Vision Marketing
Search Engine Optimization - Website Design - Print Advertising

Does Your Company Portray It's Image on the Web?

Have you ever been to a website that looks absolutely horrible, but know from personal experience that the company is really a high quality company? The opposite can even be true, but that usually works in the companies favor.

Your website portrays your company image. Who you are on the web more often then not tells a customer who you are in real life. Don't believe me, well here is a personal experience from one of our sales reps.

I had a carpenter come to my house to quote me on some work that I needed done. I almost didn't call the guy because his website was horrible. Luckily a friend had told me that his work was amazing.

I told the guy that he should really consider redoing his website because his work is definitely not reflected from his website. He proceeded to tell me that it was done by a friend as a favor and he just never thought to much about it.

The internet is everywhere now. Don't think that just having your site up there is going to bring in the masses. People are getting particular about which sites they will and will not visit. If your site doesn't look up to par, you probably are not getting inquires you had hoped for.

But it doesn't have to be that way. All it takes is planning and a good website design company. Be willing to put a little extra time into the organization of your website and the copy building and the website design company will be able to take it the last 10 yards.

Don't let the carpenter’s story become your own. Make your website portray your company image today.

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Posted by Vision Marketing
Search Engine Optimization - Website Design - Print Advertising

Internet Bubble? Or Not?

The recent and steady increase in online business has many people thinking back to the late 90's when the internet bubble burst! Could it be happening again? Is the internet bound to repeat it's past?

It's not likely to happen anytime soon, if it ever does again. As opposed to last time the internet has been steadily growing and businesses are becoming more reliant on it. There are no quick startup make millions and leave companies sprouting up (well not in the vast numbers that did last time).

Times have changed and although it may not seem like it has the internet has changed for the better as well. It has become a society of sorts. Investors are more cautious about the companies they back. They want to see a business plan and know that what the company proposes to sell online is what the customer will receive.

There may be some peaks and valleys, but the huge rush to the top and the crashing and tumbling down of the internet has come and gone. Steady long-term growth is how most investors and analysts see the internet.

What about you, what do you think the future will bring?

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Posted by Vision Marketing
Search Engine Optimization - Website Design - Print Advertising

Increases Search Engine Usage...

Search engines are gaining ground on the internet. More and more people are turning to search engines to find the information they are looking for. Pew Internet & American Life data has done some research into the usage of search engines by the internet community.

Through their study they have found that of the 59 million people who use the internet everyday, about 41 percent of them are using search engines on a regular basis! We are talking about roughly 25 million people who use search engines from day to day.

Think of the untapped potential that you could be missing out on if you are not optimizing your website and implemented a serious online marketing campaign. Even if only 1% of those people are in your industry that is still a significant number of people you could be reaching.

Maybe you are waiting for just the right time to get into the search engines, or just the right deal from a search engine optimization company. Well while you are waiting your competitors are taking your potential clients and running. The wait and see game is over, and it is time to start making a whole hearted effort to bring your website up to its full potential.

You don't have to spend millions and millions of dollars to have an effective campaign. There are plenty of companies that are reasonably priced and will work within your budget to ensure your site is working at peak performance.

Don't let your website be the weak link in the chain, when it could be your strongest player.

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Posted by Vision Marketing
Search Engine Optimization - Website Design - Print Advertising

Colors for Optimization?

Who would have thought that a color could make that much difference? But then again, think about the things you say to yourself when you see something: "oh wow that clashes", "that's a shocking color", etc. Color can make a big difference and SEO companies need to start recognizing this.

The last thing a company wants to do is offend someone before they even had a chance to try and sell them their product and/or service. That's exactly what can happen with color. Too shocking a color, or too dull of a color can have a huge impact on the thought process of the person visiting your site.

Depending on your industry there are certain colors that you should and should not use. For instance, there are a lot of food industry professionals that feel you should never use red when marketing for them. Other industries it might be green or blue that is taboo. Taking a little extra time to consider the color of a website could go a long way in converting traffic to sales.

It just goes to show that it isn't just about the code, words, pictures and name of the site, but the entire package that really makes the difference. Don't think that just because you have the best copy ever written you will start getting hundreds and thousands of orders. Each part of your marketing package makes a difference.

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Posted by Vision Marketing
Search Engine Optimization - Website Design - Print Advertising

Company Branding - Beyond the Look

When most people think of company branding they think of the overall look of the company. They try to see if the logo is the same on every piece of marketing material and the colors match. Branding however can go a lot further then that.

What is your email address? Is it johnsmith@aol.com? If so then you are missing out on a key piece of the branding mix (unless of course you work for AOL!). Your email address should be johnsmith@yourcompanyname.com, or johnsmith@yourwebsiteaddress.com. This helps people to remember your website address and or company name every time they see your emails.

But wait, you say you have an email address with your company name in it that forwards to your AOL account. Shouldn't that be good enough? No, because when you reply to those emails it is coming from your AOL account. After a while people will forget your company email address and just email you directly at your AOL address, therefore defeating the purpose of having the other account.

AOL in these examples stands for any third party email accounts such as Earthlink, Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, GMail, etc. AOL just happens to be the most common one that people will forward their company emails to.

But is email the only other branding technique that you are missing? Probably not. Have you thought of how your receptionist (or anyone for that matter) answers the company phone? Do they say the company name, or ask where they heard about your company if it's a new customer? Constantly talking about the company name, website address and company in general will help to reinforce it in the person mind.

There are hundreds of little techniques and ideas that can be applied to each and every company. It's a matter of figuring out what each company has working for them already and implementing the things that are being under-utilized or not utilized at all.

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Posted by Vision Marketing
Search Engine Optimization - Website Design - Print Advertising

SEO - An Investment...

That's right SEO is an investment. It should not be thought of as a one time, get it done and move on, purchase. Search engine optimization takes time and dedication to ensure that all aspects of your website are driving traffic.

The time and dedication need to come from both sides of the table. If your company is looking to have SEO done on their site, you should know that you or someone in your company would need to have the time to devote to the project as well. SEO is a joint venture between the company and the SEO firm.

Who knows your business better then you (or an employee)? Who knows when the calls are starting to come in, or emails are starting to pile up? Who can see the sales figures and say whether or not the efforts are increasing the sales numbers? The more time you or a person in your company can devote to working with the optimization firm, the better off the project will be.

Don't be afraid to tell your SEO firm that you want to be more involved. Most firms will love it and welcome the participation (as long as it isn't to start telling the firm what they should and shouldn't be doing!). The more input you have and the more advice you can give as to important products/services, new deals, etc. the better the optimization will be.

There are definitely SEO companies out there that will take your money, take your site, optimize it and be done and you will never hear from them again. On the same note there are businesses that just don't have the time to devote to working closely with the SEO firm that they choose to have optimize their site. In both cases you can expect that the long-term effects of the SEO campaign will be negligible.

Search engine optimization should be thought of much like the IT department. You need to communicate with them on a regular basis so they know what issues you are having with your equipment. SEO is the same way. If you don't constantly update your SEO company as to what is going on with sales, inquiries, new products, promotions, etc, how are they going to know what part of the site needs the most attention at that time, or what partner sites (inbound links) they should be pushing?

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Posted by Vision Marketing
Search Engine Optimization - Website Design - Print Advertising

What's In A Name?

What is your domain name? For most companies it is probably something like www.mycompanyname.com, or closely related to that. But is this really the best approach to take when registering a name? How many new customers are going to think of that when entering a website address?

A unique domain name can be a very important part of a website. It can leave a lasting impression on a visitor (both negatively and positively). If you have an overly long, hard to spell domain name, people are going to be annoyed when they have to type it in, if they can remember it at all! Short sweet and to the point is usually the way to go.

But if a company name isn't the right choice then what is? Well for starters why not a name that says exactly what your company does. Lets say you own a car wash business; it would be much better to have www.carwash.com then www.companyname.com. Right away people know what that website is about and what your company does.

A domain name is also another great opportunity to use your most popular keyword. Lets say you are a machine shop and your best keyword is fabricated metal, having the domain name www.fabricated-metal.com or www.fabricatedmetal.com would be ideal.

Don't get caught in the trap of thinking that if it doesn't say your company’s name it won't make sense. It may make more sense to have a unique domain name then to have the same old thing as everyone else. Thinking a little outside the box could help to drive more qualified visitors to your site, but remember not to pick a word or phrase that people would have to get the dictionary out to spell or could confuse with another word or phrase.

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Posted by Vision Marketing
Search Engine Optimization - Website Design - Print Advertising

A Struggle Back to the Top...

Computer Associates, once one of the top IT management software companies in the country, is now making its way back up. After tumbling to the ground with accounting problems and a CEO that the SEC needed to deal with, it looks as though CA, as they are now referred to as, is making a strong come-back.

Most, if not all of us have pretty much thought they were on their way out. Sure they were hanging on to a thread here and there, but nothing major has come out of the company in the past year or so. The new generation out of high school and college may not have even heard of the company because of all the financial and management problems that plagued them.

But now they are resurrecting themselves and charting a new course. Their new theme is 'Believe Again' which is a way of them saying we screwed up and now are trying to right our wrongs (well, in not so many words!). There is a lot to be said for the "new" company though. They have brought on a new CEO John Swainson, formerly of IBM, who feels that the company has "...taken the strengths of the past and combined them with new initiatives, strategies and ideas to ensure that CA is the clear industry leader in meeting the evolving information technology needs of customers."

Will all this new hype and change in company structure bring CA back to where they once were? That is the hope of John Swainson and the top executives at CA. Only time will tell at this point, but investors and industry analysts seem to think favorably of the "new" company.

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Posted by Vision Marketing
Search Engine Optimization - Website Design - Print Advertising

Google Analytics...

Most of you have probably heard of Urchin the Google owned statistics software, but not hey have renamed it for the personal user to Google Analytics. Rather then trying to reword how Google put it, here is what they have to say on their site:

Google Analytics helps you find out what keywords attract your most desirable prospects, what advertising copy pulled the most responses, and what landing pages and content make the most money for you.

Free.
Spend on marketing, not on web analytics.

Sophisticated Analytics.
Google Analytics has all the features you'd expect from a high-end analytics offering. It also provides tightly integrated AdWords support, so you can view AdWords ROI metrics without having to import cost data or add keyword tracking codes.

Easy to use.
Google Analytics is easy to use for novice marketers, while delivering all of the capabilities that experienced web analytics professionals expect.

Scalable for any size site.
Google Analytics is a hosted service that runs on the same servers that power Google. From large, high-traffic corporate sites to small sites, Google Analytics delivers consistent service.

Integrated with AdWords.
If you have an AdWords account, you can use Google Analytics directly from the AdWords interface. Google Analytics also calculates ROI metrics from automatically imported cost and keyword tracking data, saving you time.

Tracks all campaigns.
Google Analytics tracks all online campaigns, from emails to keywords, regardless of search engine or referral source.

Safe.
Google takes the trust people place in us very seriously, and is pledged to safeguard the privacy of your corporate data. We understand that web analytics data is sensitive information, so we accord it the ironclad protection it deserves.

Google just won't stop. They seem to know exactly what people are looking for at just the right time. Take a look through the Google Analytics and let us know what your thoughts are.

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Posted by Vision Marketing
Search Engine Optimization - Website Design - Print Advertising

Varying Link Phrases..

Have a lot of links pointing to your site from other websites or directories? Are they all using the same anchor text (the actual text used to link to your site)? Varying the phrases and words used in those links is critical to making sure your site gets indexed for all the terms you would like.

If you only have links to your site that say "My Site Here" you may not do very well in the search engines for other terms. However if you have varying phrases and terms you stand a much better chance of being picked up and not looking like you are trying to gather hundreds and hundreds of links.

Be sure to make those linked phrases, sentences, etc. enticing to the reader. Just putting "Widgets" with a link isn't very enticing. Putting something like "Get High Quality Widgets Here" is more enticing and more likely to bring visitors to your site.

Search engine optimization is another form of marketing and therefore you have to make sure you are using marketing techniques when trying to drive visitors. Grab that person’s attention, entice them to come to your site and once there be sure that the site does what it promises. Don't tell the visitor that your site is the most advanced site of it's kind, if it barely has two pages and no contact form.

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Posted by Vision Marketing
Search Engine Optimization - Website Design - Print Advertising

Microsoft's New Plan of Attack...

Microsoft has seen the writting on the wall. Large software solutions are falling by the way-side and internet marketing of online solutions are making waves. In an email that was leaked out from Bill Gates to his top executives, he states:

Advertising has emerged as a powerful new means by which to directly and indirectly fund the creation and delivery of software and services along with subscriptions and license fees. Services designed to scale to tens or hundreds of millions will dramatically change the nature and cost of solutions deliverable to enterprises or small businesses.

One of the newest projects out of Microsoft is it's Windows Live platform. Windows live can either be free with Ads running or can be purchased and used Ad free. The Windows Live press confrence fell flat on it's face, with low turnout and not much press about any earth shattering revalations it brought about.

Time will tell what the internet will do to company's like Microsoft and the like, but internet advertising seems to be the direction the profit is going.

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Posted by Vision Marketing
Search Engine Optimization - Website Design - Print Advertising

Definition and Glossary Page, Good or Bad?

Have you ever been to a site and wondered what a certain term was that they were using? For instance when you go to a site talking about search engine optimization, a lot of times there are abbreviations or words that you just don't get. Why not have a glossary and/or definition page on your site then?

More and more sites are starting to come around to this idea. It gives the user a clear understanding off all the technical terms being used and perhaps a refresher on terms they thought they knew. The glossary or definition page can also help to increase your visibility in the search engines!

Search engines are looking for information pertaining to your topic. What is more pertinent then a page dedicated to helping your visitors understand the industry terms? You have the word in bold type and then a sentence or two explaining exactly what that word is. There are multiple variations of ways a searcher can now find you when looking in Google, Yahoo!, MSN, etc.

But can a definitions page or glossary page be a bad thing? If done incorrectly, it most certainly can. You shouldn't try to make a page just for your keywords. This can be considered a doorway page and your site could be listed as spam. Only make this page if there are terms, phrases, etc. that a normal visitor might not understand or would need further explaining.

Remember, if you think it could be considered spam or black-hat then it probably is and you should steer clear.

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Posted by Vision Marketing
Search Engine Optimization - Website Design - Print Advertising

Tracking the Visitors...

So being number one in the search engines is all you want? You want to pull up the Google home page, type in your most prized keyword or phrase and see your company website number one. Well, is that really doing anything for you? Is that coveted number one spot driving visitors that might turn into customers?

Tracking visitors is a key part of an SEO and Internet marketing campaign. What good is it to have a number one spot if you don't know what it is doing for you? Lets say you are number one under the term "Gaskets" in Google. Your company specializes in O-Ring Gaskets and nothing else because you have perfected the manufacturing process for them. So you have thousands of people typing "Gaskets" into Google and clicking on your number one ranking. There is a very good chance that more then 90% of those people are not interested in O-Ring Gaskets. So that coveted number one spot is not really all it's cracked up to be.

How can you tell what that percentage is and what keywords and phrases are driving qualified visitors? A decent website statistics program will allow you to see not only who is coming to your site but how they came there, what they searched on to find you, what pages they went to and what actions if any they took while there.

Knowing the visitors that you currently have is key to finding the customers that you don't know about. Lets say that your current website visitor is searching for "Standard O-Ring Gaskets" when they do a search in Yahoo!, Google, MSN, etc. You now have a leg up on what you should target your marketing on. As the old saying goes "why re-invent the wheel?” If you aren't coming up very high in the natural rankings for this term, then a pay-per-click campaign might be in order.

The statistics can tell you a lot and can really give you a good direction for your marketing strategy. If you don't have a statistics program on your site, you should get one now (really you should get it yesterday!). Without one, it's like driving to a place you have never been without directions or advice on how to get there.

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Posted by Vision Marketing
Search Engine Optimization - Website Design - Print Advertising

Online Shopping Expected to Increase…

With the holiday season fast approaching, analysts have forecasted that online shopping will increase to a new record high this year. “2.5 million new households are expected to begin shopping online in 2005” says Forrester Research.

So what does this mean for you? Well it better mean that your site is up, running and ready to go so you can take advantage of the online frenzy. You can bet that no one is going to sit at a site and wait for something to load, or read about your site coming soon. If it isn’t working, or it’s too slow or hard to get around they are gone.

Now is the time to make sure your site is running in tiptop condition. It is worth the time to have someone sit and go through your entire site to look for errors. The quicker you find them and get them fixed the better off your site will be.

You also should be thinking about your advertising for the site. Is your site being optimized for the search engines? Are you running a pay-per-click campaign? Have you posted message boards about your products? Are there any ads running either online or in physical print? These are all things that should be happening and if you haven't started, you should get started as soon as possible.

Make your website work for you. It's a powerful tool that can increase revenue and clients in a relatively short amount of time. Not to mention how much you would have to spend on a real sales person to get the same amount of leads. It's an investment that will definitely pay for itself.

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Posted by Vision Marketing
Search Engine Optimization - Website Design - Print Advertising