If there’s one thing we’ve learned from President Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign, it’s that social media is just as important, if not more important than all other forms of advertisement. With this in mind, I took it upon myself a few years ago to get into the political game. No, I didn’t run for office, no I didn’t publicly endorse any one candidate. What I did was tweet. And that experiment is one of several topics TM  Social Media Manager Michael L. Hoffman, PR and Communications Expert Dario Chiarini and myself discuss in this week’s TM podcast.

Detroit Mayor Dave Bing

In 2009, after former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick left office in disgrace, there was an election for a new mayor and I decided to do my part. I registered several Twitter accounts for the candidates, on my own volition, such as Dave Bing, Ken Cockrel Jr. and Freeman Hendrix. But the one that took off was Dave Bings (@davebing). Within the course of just a few months, the @davebing account had gathered more than 10,000 followers, all of which thought I was Dave Bing. In fact, this @davebing account was quoted as saying, “We just need new leadership. The city of Detroit had a lot of oysters but no pearls for a long time,” in a May 17, 2009 Detroit Free Press article entitled, “Social site become political tool.”

When I decided to take up the task of operating a Twitter account under the guise of Mayor Bing’s persona, I did so without malice. But this still leads us to proper reputation management. Bing’s team did nothing, literally nothing, to obtain ownership of the @davebing account. And in December 2009, after several attempts to contact his team, I wrote the mayor a letter, which read:

The reason I am contacting you today is because I would like to consult and manage – free of charge – web marketing and social media for you through your term.  My motivation is to raise the profile of small, entrepreneurial companies such as mine that are working to diversify the economy in Southeast Michigan and create new jobs. Being a native Detroiter and DAC member I was happy to finally see a qualified, honest individual step up to turn our city around.

Detroit Free Press: May 17, 2009

Still, I never heard anything back from the Bing camp. No phone call, no email or no letter. But around Christmas of 2009, the @davebing account had been closed and a new one had been registered, which actually has less followers than mine did.  But what should we take away from this? Was it right to operate a Twitter account as another person? Probably not. But it shows how important it is for you, as a company, brand or public figure, to monitor  your online reputation. I could have done a lot of damage has @davebing, which shows how easily it is to get duped online, and why it’s crucial that your image is protected on the Web.

Listen to the podcast below for more on our @davebing experiment as well as Google’s new privacy policy. Do you think what we did was wrong?

We discussed the blackout in detail in a previous blog post, but its importance and effectiveness cannot be understated. The protest of SOPA and PIPA was spearheaded by social news site Reddit and online encyclopedia Wikipedia. The goal was to illustrate what the internet would look like if SOPA and PIPA made it through Congress. The effects of the protest were palpable in Washington as several supporters and co-sponsors of the bills dropped their support, and eventually, both bills were tabled indefinitely.

But perhaps the most interesting week’s most interesting news regarding online piracy was the federal take down of MegaUpload. MegaUpload was a file-sharing website that the US government shut down on Jan. 19, the day after the blackout. In response to MegaUpload’s take down, hacker organization Anonymous, attacked the Department of Justice, Recording Industry Association of America and the Motion Picture Association of America websites, as well as UniversalMusic.com. This isn’t the only issue we discuss in the podcast though, we also discuss more changes from Google.

The search giant announced this week that it will be penalizing websites that have too many ads “above the fold,” which is the part of the website you can see before scrolling down.  As Search Engine Land’s Danny Sullivan points out, Google “heard complaints from users that if they click on a result and it’s difficult to find the actual content, they aren’t happy with the experience. Rather than scrolling down the page past a slew of ads, users want to see content right away.” This, however, isn’t the only big change Google has made recently.

We revisit the topic of Google’s new search format–Search, plus Your World–and how it makes ranking reports nearly obsolete. The reason being is because search results are now different for everyone. If I search “credit cards” here in Michigan, and Michael searches it in Florida and Dario searches it in California, we will all get different results based on location and personalized results. This means that one website could rank much higher in one area than another, thus making SEO much harder in the future. It further emphasizes how important it is for companies and brands to be engaged socially.

We want to know what you think of these issues, let us know in the comments or contact us! For more on these topics, listen to the podcast below:

There were several big news stories in the past week that we discuss in this week’s podcast. Some of the topics we touch on include Google’s “Search, plus Your World,” protecting children on Facebook and the Stop Online Piracy Act.

Perhaps the biggest news this week is the roll out of Google’s new search format, Search, plus Your World. This new format is an integration of social and public search that is unprecedented. Search Engine Land’s Danny Sullivan discusses the new search format in detail saying, “The new system will perhaps make life much easier for some people, allowing them to find both privately shared content from friends and family plus material from across the web through a single search, rather than having to search twice using two different systems.”

What we wonder here at TM is what implications this will have on SEO. If personal results are getting shown before organic results, it will force more companies to get social and engage. We also note that this could really push the competition between Google+ and Facebook to a new level because of Facebook’s search deal with Bing.

One issue that has been gaining traction over the past few months is protecting children on Facebook. According to the New York Times, many parents are actively lying to let their children on Facebook under the age of 13, Facebook’s minimum age requirement. This is a multifaceted problem, and needs to be handled on many levels. First, parents need to stop letting children on Facebook under the age of 13. This is a direct violation of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act and it also compromises their children’s privacy. One of the things we think needs to happen is either a) an update to COPPA or b) a completely new law that is more relevant to today’s Web. What do you think needs to happen to help solve this problem? It’s something that needs to be tackled, but it’s still unclear what way is best.

Another issue that has been getting a lot of attention online, but not in the mainstream media, is SOPA and the PROTECT IP Act. For months there has been opposition on the Web to these bills, but until now there hasn’t been a lot of action taken against them. That’s all going to change Wednesday Jan. 18 from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. when Reddit and the entire Cheezburger Network go dark in protest of the bills. But will this be enough to sway the US Congress or will more sites like Google and Facebook have to go down too?

We want to know what you think of all of this, so let us know in the comments below or contact us to tell us your thoughts!

In this week’s podcast we discuss a variety of topics including innovative RFID use, Google’s surprising mistake, Rick Santorum’s Google problem and the importance of SEO and content.

It’s not everyday Google messes up, but when it paid bloggers to link to the Chrome browser’s download page, they did just that. In fact, the search giant violated its own terms of service and because of that is penalizing itself. For at least 60 days  Chrome will be lowered in search results due to the violation. What do you think, did Google slap its wrist hard enough?

Great Wolf Resorts is taking RFID technology to the next level. The resort chain’s guests are already using RFID-enabled bracelets as a charge card, room key and guest identification bracelet. But that’s not all. The bracelet can now be used it as a social media tool. Guests can link the wristband to their personal Facebook accounts to upload photos to Facebook throughout their stay. All they have to do is go to one of the park’s “Paw Posts” get their picture taken and the photo is automatically uploaded to their Facebook. This four-in-one wristband not only makes life easier for guests, but allows them to stay connected without their smartphone.

Do you want to know more about these topics? Listen to the podcast below and let us know what you think in the comments! If you have anymore questions, don’t hesitate to drop us a line.

In this week’s podcast I am joined by Dario Chiarini (PR and Communications expert) to discuss tips to help your business overall in the new year. Some of the topics we discussed were SEO tips for 2012, how to improve your content, why social engagement is important, and continuity in your company’s message online and offline.

One of the simplest things you can do to help improve your business’s site is to produce original content on a regular basis. Even if you don’t have the most comprehensive understanding of technical SEO, publishing original content regularly is one of the best ways to bring people to your site. It’s also crucial to spread the word about that content across your social media accounts to further expand your readership.

We also discuss how important it is to interact with people on your social networks, especially if they say something directly to you. One rule of thumb I believe in is to do your best to respond to your followers’ comments within an hour if possible.

Another topic we discuss are the updates to Google Analytics, which we addressed in a previous blog post as well.

Dario primarily focused on keeping your company’s message consistent, both internally and externally, to ensure that everyone is on the same page and that it’s uniform throughout all channels.

Listen to the podcast below – there is a lot of great information in there for SEO & Social Media improvement. We want your feedback and other suggestions as well, so don’t hesitate to contact us!

According to Google, “Google Analytics anonymously tracks how visitors interact with a website, including where they came from, what they did on a site, and whether they completed any of the site’s conversion goals. Analytics also keeps track of your e-commerce data, and combines this with campaign and conversion information to provide insight into the performance of your advertising campaigns.”

Some of the most important changes made to Google Analytics include enhanced dashboards, the addition of the keyword cloud, integration of Google Webmaster Tools, and the added ability to track social engagement. Let’s take a look at these things individually to better understand their importance.

First, the new dashboards in Google Analytics have been simplified to make them easier to use. One of the new features of the new dashboards is that users can now create up to 20 separate dashboards to fit their needs. This gives users the option of setting up unique dashboards for things like visits or source/medium and many others to create a customized experience within Google Analytics.

Because search is so important for getting traffic to your website,  one of the best improvements to the Web tool was the addition of the keyword cloud. Before this, users had to analyze keyword lists to spot trends, which wasn’t always the easiest thing to do. The cloud, though, allows you to visually analyze what the top keywords based on criteria from users like bounce rates, visits, and pages per visit are. Understanding keyword trends is essential to developing a search engine-friendly website and the keyword cloud makes this that much easier.

Another improvement to Google Analytics is the integration of Google Webmaster Tools. Though the statistics from Google Webmaster Tools are not 100 percent accurate, it is a great way to spot trends regarding where your site’s visitors are coming from within Google. And while this integration is extremely useful, it is still limited within the Google Analytics platform; but knowing Google, they will probably update it in the future to improve it.

One of the most useful components to the new platform is the ability of being able to track social engagement. Social engagement is becoming just as important as search for bring traffic to a website and being able to track where visitors are coming from is extraordinarily helpful. Being able to track this engagement is essential for understanding how your social media strategy is working and where you’ll need to improve.

Google Analytics continues to be one of the most important tools used on the Web for analyzing site traffic data. The TM Team has the skills to not only analyze your site’s data, but also help you improve your site’s SEO. Contact us to learn more about how we can help your business!

The participants were Tom Nixon from Identity PR, Pam Perry from Social Media PR Solutions, Melih Oztalay from SmartFinds Internet Marketing, and myself.

As social media took the marketing world by storm in the last couple of years, PR companies have had to learn to quickly adjust to their clients’ needs and wants. Clients are becoming increasingly more educated on the latest tools and trends as the promise of social media fulfills itself: people are spreading news to more people, more rapidly than ever before. If a traditional PR agency can’t stay on top of it, their clients will go elsewhere.

We have seen a pattern over the years, as we’ve kept up on the trends; however, our focus has and always will be tangible results from any outreach efforts. We’re working hard to increase page views, increase search traffic, and get new business for our clients. Right now, social media tools are one of the methods we’re implementing to get this done. Social media can be a powerful force for SEO and we’re making that a part of our client strategy.

At the end of the day, social media is just another tool in the toolbox. The fundamentals have remained constant: a rock-solid code base as a foundation, semantically correct markup, and excellent content. These will continue to win the day, no matter how the message is spread. Regardless, whatever comes next, we’ll be on top of that, too.

It feels like this is the future for rich web content. With its clean, standards-compliant code, this combination is essentially the end of proprietary web formats. Let’s spell is out: The writing is on the wall for Flash, Adobe knows it, and this is their attempt to get a head start on it.

The preview version of Adobe Edge is similar to older versions of Flash. You can drag assets into the timeline, keyline them, animate shapes, and create transitions. When you “collect for output”, all the assets are put into an /images/ folder on your server and the appropriate code is packaged and uploaded with it.

Adobe Edge will most likely come out with Adobe CS 6, but that’s just an educated guess on our part.

Code hippopotami, code chickens, code deer, code horses, yes… Code monkeys? Never. Won’t do it.

Writing good code is not a job for monkeys. Hippopotami are fierce, hard-working animals who will stop at nothing to achieve their goals. Horses are highly intelligent and loyal. Deer are agile, move quickly, and are amazingly perceptive. Chickens? Well… You can’t win them all.

When we’re not creating amazing websites or helping increase our clients’ traffic, revenue, and search engine rankings, we engage in the gentlemanly sport of “paw wrestling”, also known as arm wrestling in seedier parts of town. Here we have Code Hippo versus Code Horse while the menagerie cheers them on:

We’re here every day in beautiful downtown Royal Oak, Michigan. Stop by and say hi, we’ll give you an ice-cold Vitaminwater or Smartwater, and perhaps you can challenge Code Hippo to a paw wrestling match.

Google has always claimed that their mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. Anything they do has to be filtered through that mission statement, as they have shown time and again that this is their core value. How does creating a social network make the world’s information universally accessible and useful? “Useful” is the key word, here.

Google realizes that the value of Twitter and other social networks is in personal recommendations and connections. While they do have access to Twitter’s “firehose” of information, they don’t own it. Better to have their own network of social signals. They knew that if they built a good social product (and they’ve tried and failed in the past), they would start having excellent and useful data to enhance their core product: Search.

The fact that Google was persistent in attempting to break into social shows how important it is to them. Finally, Google+ is the one that just might make it. According to some reports, they are rapidly approaching the 20 million user mark. That’s certainly enough data to help make search results more useful. There are many people criticizing the “geekiness” of Google+, saying it’s not a thing their mom or dad would use; if Google is trying to get tech-savvy geeks to link to things and share relevant data on Google+, though, that’s not a problem for them at all.

In order for Google+ to truly become a “Facebook killer” it will have to become an ingrained habit—part of a daily normal lifestyle; with Android, Google has a shot at this. However, even if they don’t ever achieve Facebook Huge status, they can still mine the incredibly relevant and useful patterns and data from their techie userbase to influence their most precious product: search.

Well, not really, but their car was parked right outside our back door today, so we went out and snapped a few pics for geek porn purposes. Obviously, Google has their work cut out for them in terms of mapping every single road, alley, street, circle, route, and frontage in the world, so there’s a good chance this is not a very rare sighting, but at least it got us excited.

Last week, The Detroit Zoo (which is just down the road from us) got the nod as the first theme park in the nation to get mapped out by the StreetView team. This makes it the first pedestrian StreetView destination in the US. They’re using the StreetView Trike to make that happen, not this car, but still—we love geek porn just as much as you do. Enjoy!
Video:

Pics:

TRUE or FALSE?

TRUE: According to Sprint spokesperson Lloyd Karnes, the credit is designed to “give customers a chance to try Sprint without having to worry about fees or charges for terminating their contracts with their current carriers.”

Businesses that want to switch their wireless carriers for their Smartphones will be eligible for the $175 credit while personal Smartphone switches will be eligible for $125 credit and low-end phones will be offered $50 if they switch wireless carriers.

Originally, the offer was designed for only T-Mobile subscribers, but once the blog Spantechular caught wind of this special, the story spread like wildfire throughout the Internet world. For these reasons, Sprint decided to make the offer available for all wireless customers.

The offer began on May 4 and will run all the way up to June 23.

VetJobs

Vetjobs.com has been helping veterans since 1999. They have been considered one of the top job boards for veterans because they have already helped more than 10 million veterans find work. It’s free to register on the website and, once registered, you can post your resume and search through numerous job postings. If you’re looking to help your spouse find work, Vetjobs.com also provides a “spouse” tab for spousal career services.

America’s Veteran

This website is strictly designed to help military veterans find jobs within the federal government. Veterans, veteran family members and transitioning service members can search for jobs on the website. The site also has some interesting information regarding the lists of Veteran Employment Program Offices. This information provides contact numbers, names and e-mail addresses of organizations recruiting military veterans. Veterans are stressed to contact these people while on their job search.

Military.com

This is probably the most recognized and trusted source for military veteran careers. They proclaim that they have the “largest veteran job board in the world” and not many would disagree with that. Veterans can create and post their resume, search for jobs and network with other veterans to find out about local career fairs. Some of the major companies that post to Military.com are Boeing, Wal-Mart and Allstate.

These are three great resources for our courageous veterans out there. All of us here at Trademark Productions would like to thank all of our military veterans for their service and sacrifice for America. We truly hope this information will help you find the right career.

True or False?

False. It’s also kind of true because IE9 has been released. It’s quite false, though, that it’s every user’s dream browser. Let’s be practical about this for a moment; support for IE9 ends with one operation system. Thanks for the thought, especially since I just bought a Mac. Second, IE9′s coding remains closed, so while the other browsers out there are open and constantly being improved, IE9′s is at the whim of its own people. Finally, Firefox (and others) are still outscoring IE9. Katherine Noya of PCWorld points folks to a page on Gigaom discussing this lovely bit of information. Ah, I pity the poor fool who walks into this office touting Internet Explorer. We might just to feed them to Matt or Seth…

TRUE or FALSE?

FALSE: According to ExactTarget’s figures, sending e-mail messages directly to customers’ inboxes is still a practicable way to spread the word about your brand and products. According to ExactTarget’s research, 93 percent of consumers are subscribers to an organization’s e-mail list. Most people check their e-mail before they do anything online, and e-mail marketing messages will greatly improve your chances of reaching a larger audience. E-mail is also more commonly checked on smartphones over Facebook, Twitter and other social media pages. Not to mention that 45 percent of those people check their e-mails several times a day. So, in the end, social media is not the end to e-mail marketing. E-mail marketing is still a great way to engage in conversations with your consumers. These e-mail messages also convey information to your consumers that they would not have been aware of if they hadn’t received your e-mail and they would not be able to learn about in such detail through social media pages. So stop neglecting your e-mail marketing campaign, and remember, social media is not the death of e-mail marketing.

First, let’s go over the numbers.  According to experts, three out of five visits to the doctor’s office are stress-related.  Kinda stressful in itself, isn’t it?  62% of people are stressed out about their jobs.  Imagine for a moment how stressful it must be to actually work IN a doctor’s office.  And did you even stop to realize that two-thirds of the obscenities we use are directly related to stress?  I don’t know about you, but it seems like just about anything and everything we do can cause us to stress out.  But what are supposed to do, just eat a Snickers bar and act satisfied?

Actually, eating 1.4 ounces of dark chocolate in a two week period has shown a reduction in stress.  Granted, this study was conducted by Nestle, but still it’s a start and something we can look forward to.  At least you can tell your significant other not to nag you about eating chocolate.  All joking aside, stress is a serious problem and we should discuss some solid ways to reduce it.

I’m sure it seems as if you’ll never be able to avoid the stress in your life.  Maybe the bills are stacking up, you accepted a proposal before the beer goggles came off or your or your spouse had your name tattooed on their unmentionables out of some subliminal need to torture you.  Whatever it is, believe it or not, you can do something to control the level of your stress.  The first thing you need to do is take a minute, relax, breathe, and put everything into perspective.  Identify the things that are making you stressed in order to gain a better understanding of what’s going on.  Avoid zoning out to TV, drinking alcohol excessively, or taking pills to relax.  These practices are not doing anything except taking the stress away momentarily, but it will creep right back up on you.

Some easy things to do to relieve stress involve exercise.  Exercising at least 30 minutes a day is a great stress reliever, and it helps you to sweat out those negative vibes coursing through your veins.  Massages are great ways to relax and rid yourself of stress, too.  More often than not, we all put off taking a break and doing something for ourselves.  You need to stop making excuses like “I just have too much on my plate right now” and sit down and take a breather.  Also, get a bigger plate.  We need to realize that it’s OK to take a break; yes it is OK to do something for you!  It’s your health and you need to do what is necessary to stay healthy.

Laughter is a sure-fire way of dealing with stress.  I don’t care what anyone says, if you’re laughing…you’re not feeling stressed or upset.  Get out and be a kid again!  No matter how old you get, we’re always going to be kids at heart.  The idea of just going out to play may sound ridiculous, but it’s a great way to relieve your stress-related issues. So try something new this week.  Go out and play a pick-up game of basketball, go dancing or even play a game of laser tag! Also, try and eat breakfast every morning.  I know you remember your mom telling you “breakfast is the most important meal of the day.”  This is very true; in fact, a recent study highlighted people who happened to live past the age of 100. They all stated that they were regular breakfast eaters.  So, tomorrow morning, make sure you get yourself some flapjacks and eggs before you start the day.

There are numerous things you can do to relieve yourself of stress, but the biggest thing you should take from this is you need to relax and take some time for yourself.  These are stressful times we are living in today and sometimes we let those issues take over our lives.  We need to plan for the problems in the future and deal with the problems we have in the present.  But, more than anything, love everyday you have in this world, laugh as much as you can and make sure you take some time for yourself.   Life is way too short to always be stressed about the little things in life. As for me, I’m planning on watching the movie Sharktopus tonight and I guarantee I’ll be laughing the stress away in no time!

E-mail changed the face of the planet since we no longer had to add postage to an envelope and communication was almost instantaneous. Then there’s texting, only that doesn’t quite get the word out if you want to share something with tens, hundreds or a couple thousand people. Twitter allows you to do just that. It’s quick and it goes out to everybody who’s following you. Have a good day because you just received the rare Megaforce soundtrack in the mail? Share the news! Catch Charlie Sheen sniffing some Pillsbury All Purpose Flour? Share it! Take a picture with your camera phone, too.

And speaking of celebrities, they seem to be tweeting their little hearts out these days and we, the public, are getting an inside look at just how human—and sometimes awful—they can be. I’ve actually been at a convention before and a celebrity has announced what their Twitter address is. Next thing you know, they’re sitting on stage and tweeting with people in the audience. Annoying? Yes. The point is everybody is curious about somebody and Twitter has opened the door to satisfying some of that curiosity. Explore! Have fun! Learn to lower your expectations!

Twitter trends are actually set by a meager 20+ users, mainly news outlets. That’s an awful lot of control to have. Fortunately, there are a number of other users out there who have massive followings and share news and information that the media outlets won’t. Ask yourself what you want your followers to take away from reading your tweets. Are you just another “That girl looked at me. She obviously wants me!” kind of person or are you a “I have an opinion about something I feel is important and I’m going to express it” leader?

Finally, you’ve got 140 characters to set your example and make your presence in the world known. This forces you to think about the most important point about what you’re trying to say, yet also makes you realize how it’s being said. Using Twitter is a bit like playing a game of Battle Ship; some tweets miss and others hit their mark. You just have to play and learn as you go. Just be sure to play wisely.

TRUE OR FALSE

TRUE! Yes, believe it or not social media has made its way into the cultured art world. Presently the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art has a piece, from a collection of a bunch of random Flickr photos. The Volta art fair in N.Y., which happened this month, had videos uploaded from the video-sharing site Vimeo. And the four Guggenheim Museums presented 25 videos, which appeared on YouTube. This is a growing trend, which some experts are excited about. Hugh McGrory, creative director of Culture Shock Marketing, stated “we think that art"s meant to characterize its time and explain what it’s like to be alive now.” While showing these things at museums is an accurate depiction of the life we in today, some experts don’t believe it’s really art. These people believe that people should be going to museums to find out what important art is, not random imagery from a website. But for now, the social media transition into the art world is moving fast, and shows no signs of slowing down.

I will say that a smaller, fairly unknown company that manages to get a large number of followers on their Facebook fan page has my respect. They’ve been working overtime to build that up because Facebook doesn’t make it easy and the rules are very much not in your favor. So they’re doing something right. But Twitter?

One of the folks who works here in the TM office has some ties to the publishing industry and something authors need are readers. No readers, no sales. However, when someone fairly well known in the industry has 2000 Twitter followers, but someone much more unknown has 5000? Something’s not quite adding up. It might look impressive to someone unfamiliar with how Twitter is supposed to work versus how it can be manipulated, only one has to examine just who these followers are and how many are legitimate.

Part of the key to social media is indeed legitimate users. Having 2000 fake or spam accounts following you isn’t going to look impressive to your other followers when they see the kind of crap that gets tweeted out. And it’s not just about having an account with legitimate followers because how likely are they to convert into potential customers or recommend you to someone if you never actually interact with them?

Interaction is the key. Sending out a thank you message to folks who follow you is a start. If they like that sort of thing, and most do, they may respond just to see if you’re still listening. If you consider them important enough to have added to your online social media portfolio, then you’ll dash them back a quick note, which is something they’ll remember. Do that and if something comes up where they have a question, chances are they’ll remember you and come to you first.

The same can be said on Facebook. You can bait your followers with posts and links until you’re blue in the face, but miss responding back to a question or comment someone makes and your job just became many times more difficult. Make the time, take the time and even if you only manage to get 100 followers in a month or two on Facebook, at least you know you’re getting the right kind of followers.

Would you rather have 100 followers you interact with or 5000 followers who don’t care they’re following you and you never interact with?

True or False?

False: The belief that social media campaigns just jump-off and start making businesses money, is a little ridiculous.  Now that may not be the case for a big conglomerate, such as Pepsi, which already has a devoted loyal customer base. But for most companies, this is not an easily achievable task.  You need to start slow; you should consider yourself the tortoise vs. the hare in the social media race.  Companies that expect huge results right away have the potential to be unsuccessful and be referred to as spam by social media subscribers.  While social media campaigns seem like a lot of fun, it’s truly hard-work.  It’s not easy for a company to get people to “Like” their products and/or services right out of the gate, but with patience, most organizations will see a steady amount of progress.  If organizations do not practice the proper procedures with their social media campaigns, they risk the wrath of being “Unliked” by everyone in the social media audience.

True or False?

False: Facebook does not allow administrators of fan pages to ask people to like their fan page through Facebook.  Now, this doesn’t mean on your personal Facebook page that you can’t ask your friends to like your business’s fan page.  You just can’t do this while logged in as an administrator of your fan page. Professionals recommend you find a way to get people, who already like your fan page, to start discussing your organization through their personal Facebook pages.  This will spread the word of mouth of your organization through a mass amount of channels on Facebook.  In the end, it takes a lot of work to get your organization recognized, but with enough hard work, you’re able to maximize your organization’s potential to be seen by the massive Facebook community.

Skolfield believes video content, on websites, gives a lot more to the consumers’ experience for e-retailer websites.  He backs up his theory by explaining how consumers get the most out of their experience on HSN.com.  For example, if a consumer was watching HSN, and saw a dress being modeled, they could then visit HSN.com’s Fashion Experience video area and take a look at a model showing off the dress they found interesting on TV.  This gives the consumer a mindset of how the dress will fit, detailed product information and how the dress stacks up with other modeled materials.

Skolfield also mentions how he intends to soon enable consumers the ability to click and buy directly from videos on their website.  This is a new idea that has a promising outlook of being a productive tool for e-retailers.  With many e-retailers using video on their sites, this would give the opportunity for the consumer to purchase something immediately after they see something they like.  This will also help to establish positive consumer engagement within the website.  The reason is because people will find it very convenient to click and buy something within moments of seeing something they’re interested in.

HSN.com also uses celebrities who advertise products on HSN.com to their fullest potential to help sell their products.  During television tapings of the celebrities on HSN, HSN makes sure they get a lot of extra footage which they can use on their websites, to help sell products in the future.  This helps HSN to build web pages and extra content to contribute to building branding for a product.

The extra content is essential to improving the relationship between a business and their consumers.  Consumers always want to see more information, especially when they’re researching a product, service or brand. “They can watch [a product] on TV and then jump to the dot-com and explore something new and interesting immediately,” said Skolfield.  This results in positive feedback for a business and their products, because the consumer feels they are provided with all the information the need/seek.

Skolfield is very surprised by the lack of video content being used by e-retailers.  “There’s an expectation among consumers today that e-retailers should have video. It’s remarkable how few e-retailers are working to adopt a video strategy,” said Skolfield.

Businesses not using video content on their websites might find it to be detrimental to their future.  This seems to be a growing trend that businesses should be adopting, to receive the most they can from their e-retailing marketing efforts.

If your business is new, and you need help with improving your website, Trademark Productions offers training services on the best way to startup a new website.  Contact us today to find out how we can improve your e-retail marketing and advertising efforts.

Who are the perpetrators?
Controversial “content farms” such as Yahoo’s Associated Content, Demand Media (the parent of eHow), and AOL’s Seed, including the now owned Huffington Post.

Is it really a killer?
No, but a Google engineer told Harry McCrakin that the recent changes are among the most significant Google has ever implemented in one fell swoop: 11.8 percent of queries will get meaningfully different results than before.  Findings show that big-name sites such as Amazon, eBay, Wikipedia, and Walmart.com are coming out on top while sites such as TheFind.com, BizRate.com, ShopWiki.com, EzineArticles, HubPages, and Associated Content aren’t fairing nearly as well.

What’s considered good or bad content?
We recommend that all of our clients stay involved in social media and blog regularly. Google loves fresh content. But when does frequent updating become too strong and look like a farm?  Some clients who aren’t used to blogging will make the mistake of posting multiple small updates in a single day about a popular subject in the media, then launching into a hard sell of their products.  This scenario isn’t likely to make friends with people who read your blogs or the search engines since it could be mistaken as a farm.  Worse yet, Google’s new algorithm is fairly objective in how it decides a site is important, only rating content is–at the same time–a subjective process.  As for figuring out how Google arrived at these changes, they aren’t saying.  To do so would be to invite others to try and figure out how to manipulate the system.

Like paid links and that whole ugly debate–I say buy them, just don’t get caught–Google also added a plugin to their Chrome browser that allows consumers and competitors of yours to add a personal blacklist.  Realistically, we see this as a way to report content spammy sites, but I would venture to say that your competitors could mysteriously fall in to this category, too, right?

Who else is in the fight?
While Google does have its share of a 70%ish market value, there are other search engines that deserve your attention and they’ve been combating content farms and ucky spammy search results for a while now. Take a gander at Blekko, Duck Duck Go and Topsy. If you’re concerned with rankings and competitive analysis, I’d really start to use Blekko–big fave of mine since November.

What to do if you have a penalty?
You’re probably hurting right now and should have someone working on it. Correcting the situation could be a handful.  Fortunately, we can advise on strategies, so consider contacting us.

Take Away…
Stay up-to-date on changes in Google, search engines and other competitive strategies–even if they aren’t always ethical. Knowing both sides of the fence helps and identifies parameters in which you can operate, obviously still within ethical boundaries. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Recently top marketing professionals met at the Internet Retailer Web Design & Usability Conference to discuss changes in today’s modern marketing field, as well as a critique of other professional websites. One of the big issues experts focused on at the conference was the idea that putting big attractive images on the home page of a site could be troublesome in the future. This may sound completely opposite of what many people were taught in college, because everyone knows big pictures, with lots of color, get people to say “ooo pretty!”

Well, with the emergence of smartphones, netbooks and web-enabled gaming devices this may all be coming to a change. The explanation for this is somewhat puzzling, but at the same time a little understandable. People use their fun flashy devices for everything now, so if someone were to use their smartphone to look up a product on a website, they may be steered away because of big images frustrating people on their devices because they have to scroll down to find product information.

According to experts at the Internet Retailer Web Design & Usability Conference, many people won’t even bother with a retailer’s site if they have to scroll to the bottom of the page to find information they are requesting. Experts recommend people cut down the imaging size on their sites to become more profitable in the future.

Another useful tidbit is the recommendation that retailers should start to try and build mobile-optimized sites which would make it so any web enabled smartphone can access the specific site. A big reason for this is for people who own the iPhone. websites which use flash programming (the Adobe Inc. technology known for it’s use with Internet videos and animation) will not be able to be accessed by an iPhone, because iPhones use iOS, which unfortunately, does not support flash technology. But don’t fret, web organizations today, like Trademark Productions, offer online advertising consulting to help businesses establish the best fit of online advertising for their organization.

Apps can be designed for specific types of phones like Android or the iPhone. This is recommended with caution, because this will obviously be helpful for organizations which have the capital and proper assets, but for the business on the bottom rung of the ladder, this would not be such a good idea.

TRUE: Privacy protection is a service provided by numerous registar organizations, and this will ensure that your personal information is not available to the public.  This is definitely something websites should invest in, as the advantages truly outweigh the disadvantages.  Many privacy protection organizations provide this feature for free, or a nominal yearly fee.  With privacy protection helping to protect your register domain address, you will also severely decrease your spam e-mail’s because your personal information will no longer be available to spammers.  The main disadvantage of this service is the ability for scamming registar companies to trick you into giving them your personal information, so it’s always important to research the registar organization that will be providing privacy protection for you.  This is a no brainer! If your Web site is not protected, get it protected now!

Ironically, e-commerce site owners are, at the same time, frequently reluctant to want to change things. Why? Because they understand how their site currently works, so it therefore must be something else that’s going wrong and causing traffic and sales to drop off, something outside their site. But they’re baffled as to what that is.

We remain in a depressed economy. Rather than go to specialty stores or make as many impulse purchases, people are going online and looking not only for the best price, but the best shopping experience. Visitors don’t want to have to guess how your site works, if it’s secure and if you’ll share their information with third parties. They also don’t want a confusing navigation or search function that brings up everything they weren’t looking for before finding what they did want. By the time that happens, they’ll go elsewhere out of frustration.

If you have a low number of visitors on your site with an equally low number of conversions, then we need to take a serious look at why. And if your site has a much larger number of visitors, yet a disturbingly low number of conversions, again, we need to look at why. Where are these people going? And if we can determine what your competitors are doing different from you, we’ll have a solid baseline to start from.

First and foremost, you want people coming to your site. You want their experience on your site to be a positive one, even a memorable one. If they don’t buy something the first time because they’re just browsing, then we need to find a way to get them to bookmark it and stick in their mind for when they are ready to make that purchase. And if your existing customers like what they see in terms of change and the fact you’re making an effort on their behalf, they may be inclined to try another product you’re selling.

Plan ahead. Redesigning a site doesn’t have to be overly expensive, but it is an investment and part of that investment also means thinking ahead. You may only be offering 20 products now, but you may be adding another 20 products in the future if things go well. Make sure you take this into consideration during the redesign. Keep the site ready for expansion.

Finally, let’s not forget ongoing maintenance. You can’t simply re-launch a site and not set a budget aside to make changes as it matures. You’ll learn things, your customers will suggest things and that feedback needs to find its way onto your site. Fortunately, a little monthly maintenance may go a long way in not having to do yet another redesign due to lost sales.

Think ahead. Plan. And while you’re at it, talk to me. I can help.

True or False?

True. Videos have names and descriptions just like anything else. While a number of sites have videos directly inserted into them, many others pull the feed from YouTube. And if you use YouTube with any regularity, you’ll see that there’s a whole section for description where you can insert your keywords etc and also provide links to your home site. If you interest someone enough with your video and they can find it easily enough, then chances are they’ll be finding your website, too. Best of all, people will be leaving you feedback on YouTube and you’ll have a chance at interacting with them. It’s a win/win!

We also offer Social Media services to our clients.

There are, however, still a few naysayers out there who claim that businesses entering the world of social media has done nothing—or at least very little—to boost sales or brand recognition. I’ve had some fairly serious conversations and playful banter with one person in particular about it and neither of us seems to be budging. In light of that and in an effort to expand our look beyond our own office, I thought I throw it out there to all of you.

Have you noticed a difference using Twitter? What kind of a difference? How often do you tweet and are you consistent? How about Facebook? Are your posts constant hard sales or are you developing interaction with your fans? What kind of interaction?

See, these are all questions worth exploring because who knows what 2011 is going to bring? There will always be the next new social media site, the next form of paging or tweeting, the next big search engine and the next call to arms in terms of advertising. It happens at a breakneck speed, so it’s important to look at what we’ve learned, file it all under lessons learned and approach the future with a pro-active action plan instead of setting ourselves up for failure.

So, how about it? What have your experiences been with social media?

Lastly, I want to get you involved. Take a minute to read about the folks in our organization, what our contributions are going to be and think about how you can help. There will be a comment box at the bottom of the blog post, so please be sure to chime in on how you’re going to make a difference in 2011.

Be safe and enjoy!

Dwight

What am I thankful for?
I am grateful to have my health and the love of those close to me. I’m thankful for the rewarding friendships in my personal life and in business. I am also grateful that our company has weathered and grown during this economic downturn over the past few years.

What are my goals for 2011? How will my community benefit?
Making a difference in someone’s life every day can become an afterthought or simply forgotten after the second week of January. I am going to make it my goal to enrich someone’s life every single day in 2011, even if it’s just thanking them for their service or wishing them a great day–and meaning it. I am also looking into getting our company involved in our community through volunteering each quarter in 2011. We have given large discounts in the past or even given away our work for free and we will continue to contribute to positive causes.

My personal goal is to be healthier (a lifelong goal), get more exercise and activity, spend less, save more and work on our new ecommerce site.

Dean

What am I thankful for?
This year I am thankful for growth. Growth of myself as a person, growth of my family (I’m getting married in June) and last, but certainly not least, the growth of our company. 2010 has been a very hectic, very busy year, but we are twice as big and twice as good as we were a year ago. I’m really looking forward to a great 2011 for me, my family and my extended family at TM.

What are my goals for 2011? How will my community benefit?
In 2011, I’m committed to getting my wife and daughter involved in charitable work so that we can give back to people who are less fortunate than us. Right now we’re looking at participating at the community farm or Habitat for Humanity. To the web community, it’s my goal in 2011 to continue to educate the masses about online success, how the web works, establishing a good business presence and why most of them are doing it all wrong…one of my missions in life.

Eric

What am I thankful for?
Being able to do what I love, what I am passionate about, what makes me insanely furious and at the same time gives me a profound sense of accomplishment, for a living. If I were in a different career field, I can honestly say I would still be doing what I do, only for fun.

What are my goals for 2011? How will my community benefit?
For 2011 and beyond, I plan to benefit the worldwide open source software community. I’m not sure exactly which projects I want to contribute to or what I want to contribute to them exactly, but that’s what I want to do.

Craig

What am I thankful for?
I am thankful for a happy and healthy wife who supports me in everything I do. Her family has been extremely gracious in accepting me into their family and allowing me to steal away their eldest daughter.

What are my goals for 2011? How will my community benefit?
We plan on donating to a charity that is close to our heart, NF2, since one of our closest friends is afflicted with this disease. We are hopeful a cure can be found in the near future because this is a terrible disease that has robbed our friend Jessica of her hearing. I am also hoping to be able to free up additional time in my life to stop and enjoy things more. I want to travel and see more of the world and experience different countries with my wife.

Matt

What am I thankful for?
One thing I’m thankful for is all the great designers and developers who share their experience and ideas online through social media, conferences, books, and their personal sites. They’re indirectly teaching thousands by investing their time into things that aren’t making them a significant amount of money in return.

What are my goals for 2011? How will my community benefit?
I plan to invest more time into open source projects over the course of the next year and to follow their lead by sharing my experience wherever possible.

Seth

What am I thankful for?
I’m thankful for my family, especially my wife and all of the little things that she does for me.

What are my goals for 2011? How will my community benefit?
I plan on continuing to strengthen our relationship and learn to be a better husband to help her out as much as she helps me. I am also currently involved with the Young Men’s organization for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I regularly help out with the youth in the area, try to help them become better members of the community and help them prioritize their lives with the things that matter most, specifically, the relationship with their Savior and families. I plan on continuing to help them throughout 2011.

Ryan

What you are thankful for?
I am deeply thankful for my close family and friends without whom I would unquestionably not be where I am today. It’s their support and encouragement that have provided me the means and motivation to strive for more in life.

What are my goals for 2011? How will my community benefit?
My aim in 2011 will be to pursue more charitable endeavors, such as donations and volunteering for local charities. As I have witnessed members of my own family being aided by the community, I feel compelled to invest myself back into these organizations. I do this so that I may assist in ensuring that others, who are genuinely in need, may receive the help that they sincerely deserve.

Tyler

What am I thankful for?
Family. It may seem cliche, but it’s the truth. Nothing has helped me through the tough times more than they have. In addition, I’m thankful for the home I live in, the friends I hold close, and my opportunity to have a solid full-time job. I live life trying not to take any of these things for granted.

What are my goals for 2011? How will my community benefit?
With 2011 coming quickly, I’ve decided that I want to make a bigger push to make my own personal impact on the community around me. Going out of my way to volunteer, offering my services as a designer to non-profits, some type of “give-back” to a community that has always treated me well. On top of that, I’d like to make sure that I visit extended family more, and re-kindle distant relations with relatives of mine who don’t live close by, and even the ones that do. By accomplishing this, I intend to have a very successful year ahead.

Kris

What am I thankful for?
I’m thankful to continue having a close, healthy relationship with my parents, especially since there have been some health issues during the past year that won’t be getting any better. I also live near enough to them and my father-in-law to get either place quickly if they need me. I’d be remiss, too, if I didn’t mention being thankful for the support of my partner, who has never made me feel alone or unloved, and who has become a consistent muse in my writing career. As for my friends both in the US and around the world, I’m thankful that they’ve kept me grounded and aware that there is more going on in life than in my own little sphere of existence.

What are my goals for 2011? How will my community benefit?
My main goal is to try and have a better understanding of Alzheimer’s. I need to know how I can adapt to the changes my father is undergoing so that I can continue to be the son he has come to expect and rely on while also helping my mother cope. Another goal is to finish and publish my next novel while continuing to promote my recent release. The community of readers who have supported each of my books has been extraordinarily gracious and kind, so I want to make sure I continue to meet their expectations. Finally, I plan on keeping my sense of humor. It’s served me well and seems to annoy just the right caliber of people who I don’t mind verbally jabbing.

HIV is a human disease.  This means that contrary to what you may or may not have heard, it can infect anyone.  And while there are lists detailing ways HIV is spread, a huge factor in its increase is a lack of education on the subject.  Fortunately, when it comes to education and programs if you live in southeast Michigan, there’s the Michigan AIDS Coalition.

The Michigan AIDS Coalition (MAC) exists today as a merger between the Michigan AIDS Fund and the Midwest AIDS Prevention Project, thereby creating a combined 30 years of HIV/AIDS advocacy, education and outreach experience.  Between the two MAC offices–one in Ferndale and the other in Detroit–the organization offers HIV Testing, counseling, education programs, advocacy, bolstering self-esteem, sensitivity training, W.A.G.S. (a program that assists people with HIV/AIDS in caring for their pets) and a great deal more.

These programs all come with a price, however, and as MAC’s CEO, Helen Hicks, points out, the current economic conditions haven’t helped.  All non-profit organizations have taken a hit over the past several years, so donations continue to be needed and welcomed.  For more information about all that MAC has to offer, to donate or read Helen’s Blog, check out the Michigan AIDS Coalition’s site.

A National Look

We then decided to expand our search from a local standpoint and take a look at the sites that are out there on a national level and, as we did with National Breast Awareness Month, see what features of them we liked and what we thought could use a little attention.

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (http://www.cdc.gov/)

This is probably one of the most comprehensive sites out there.  It’s information-heavy, embraces social media, offers podcasts, e-mail updates, a site-map, how to link to the site, versions of the site in nine languages and then some term translations in additional languages.  The master navigation at the top is helpful if you already know what you’re looking for and there’s a notification at the bottom telling you the last time the site was updated.  Some real effort went into this one.  The only things we thought could use some finesse is how busy the pages tend to look and feel.  There’s so much information that it feels a little overwhelming, but that’s really a small complaint considering what the site is offering.  It might be nice, too, if there was an area with recent updates or current additions/news items.

AIDS.org (http://www.aids.org/)

Not nearly as information-heavy as the CDCs site, this one looks to still be in its online infancy.  Fortunately, it’s easy on the eyes, easy to navigate, there are recent headlines, posts and a detailed site map.  There’s a search feature and while we like to see those, it really doesn’t come back with much after putting in simple single keyword searches.  Complicating the search feature is an ad that pops up if you run your cursor over it and covers the search box, making it a hassle to get to.  Furthermore, clicking on the “Contact Us” link at the bottom of the page gives you a prompt to open up an application versus clicking on the “Contact Us” at the top in the “About Us” navigation, which actually takes you to a contact page.  So, some good information, but the site still has some bugs and doesn’t feel like it’s been around very long.

The Body (http://www.thebody.com/)

This is a site that claims to be the complete HIV/AIDS resource and you know what?  We’re not going to argue.  Like the CDC’s site, this one is a little overwhelming to look at, but the navigation is user friendly, the main information topics you’re probably looking for is right there at your fingertips and there’s a wonderful selection of blogs, which keeps the site relevant and most likely keeps folks coming back.  There’s a search function that yield solid results from the site, a video series, the ability to sign up for e-mail updates, contests, an extensive forum, the site in Spanish and the ability to contact the site or ask an expert a question that may not be addressed.  The only minor thing we’d suggest is a different color scheme.  The site is meant to be an uplifting one, yet the darker color used tends to bring things down to a sobering tone.  Okay, we’d also like to see them embrace social media.  How about a Facebook page?  Why aren’t they tweeting?  Despite those areas that could use some improvement, of the three national sites we’ve looked at, this is the one we were most impressed with.

AIDS is an epidemic, but it doesn’t mean somebody’s life automatically ends after being diagnosed as HIV+.  The first thing we can hope for is prevention of future cases, which starts with education and these sites, including the local Michigan AIDS Coalition site, offer information that can help with this.  Beyond that, we can donate money to increase funding for research and one day, hopefully, a cure and even our time to those suffering from it.  Please join us at TM as we kick off recognizing National AIDS Awareness Month.

Yes, those are a special breed of shoppers, but there’s also a special midpoint breed of shoppers. These are the people who get up at 3am, drink their coffee, bundle up and head out to line up behind the folks who camped there the entire night just so they’d be ahead of those of us who slept in from our dessert-induced hibernation. And again, we thought it was quite amusing…until I became one of those people.

I tried a new way of shopping last year. An easier way. A more civilized way. The alarm went off at 4am—my wife and I allowed ourselves an extra hour of sleep—then we reached over, picked our laptops up, turned them on and proceeded to order all the items we wanted from various stores whose ads we’d read and for the prices we wanted, all to be picked up later in the day. We clicked and clicked, compared prices with each other and then clicked some more until we finally clicked ourselves into a shopper’s exhaustion, put our laptops down and went back to bed. And then we spent the afternoon driving around to various locations, breezing past the long lines until arriving at the pick-up counter and walking out without breaking into a sweat.

Is there a lesson in here for all of you website owners out there? Absolutely! It’s called the beauty of e-commerce software (link to e-commerce section of TM site) where there’s no need for your customers to leave the comfort of their home—or sometimes their bed—to go shopping. Businesses can take advantage of this kind of software by making their products available for purchase online, aka your site. Perhaps you have a brick and mortar store or you want to open an online retail site; this can all be done with e-commerce software. Best of all, we can help you with it.

TM’s e-commerce software, what we call the TM Shopping Cart, is a perfect option for companies and individuals looking to sell products online. TM has the capabilities of tailoring our software to meet the specific needs of your online business. Adding e-commerce to your site is a perfect way to increase sales and build upon your customer database. And with the approaching Black Friday cyber wars and holiday rush, why hesitate? You literally can have your whipped cream and eat it, too!

Give us a shout and let’s talk turkey…or e-commerce.

Welcome to National Adoption Month, November, 2010.

There are an estimated 115,000 children waiting to be adopted in the United States alone. Fortunately, this number has decreased over the years from—for example—133,000 in 2002. Whether it continues on a decline depends on several factors, one of them being if people are willing to open their hearts and homes to a child in need.

People sometimes leap before they look, though, or fail to consider the implications of a major decision like adoption. And it is a major decision. Do you have time for a child? Can you financially care for that child? Will your spouse and/or children accept an adopted child? Those are just the basic questions without getting into the age of the child, if the child has been emotionally damaged or even physically abused. And there are considerations beyond even these.

If you are considering adoption as an option for your household, you’ll probably want a starting point. Take guidelines for instance. They vary from state to state, so Adopt Us Kids (www.AdoptUsKids.org) has a page (http://www.adoptuskids.org/resourceCenter/rrtPackets/chooseState.aspx) with links to each state for the appropriate guidelines. For those of you in Michigan, a place you may want to utilize when looking into adoption is the Michigan Adoption Resource Exchange (http://www.mare.org/). The site features easy-to-find information on where to begin, finding an adoption agency, resources, registries, publications and helpful forms.

And, yes, there are even support groups available.

In the end, though, adoption may not be for everyone. The process of adopting can seem like a daunting journey, but for those who set their minds and hearts on it, the trip is ultimately worthwhile. Please join us at TM in recognizing National Adoption Month.

I’m your Trademark Productions host, Dwight Zahringer and this is our fourth and final SEO nightmare presented to you in the October tradition of a 4-part TM Halloween extravaganza blog. I’ll be taking you through the terrifying journey some of our clients and potential clients have presented to us, hoping we might steer you through a minefield of possessed mausoleums and graves, past the tall spiked gates and into open waiting arms of high search engine rankings.

There are those rare clients who come to us and want a site built, only there"s some question as to the intellectual property involved in what’s being added to the site. More specifically, the name of the site that they want. Though I really can’t go into specifics about our clients in this respect, I can say that looking to buy domain names that are three or four letters isn’t a good idea. Not only have most people snatched them up to sell for a profit, but it’s just not the greatest business sense. And you really have to be careful with your choice of names before you buy your domains anyway.

Look what happened earlier this year when Chicago teen Lauren McClusky started a music benefit consisting of high school and college bands to benefit the local Special Olympics. She called it McFest (after her last name) and upon registering the event, which had raised $30,000 at that point, was challenged by McDonald’s for trademark violation. It seems that anybody who uses ‘Mc’ anything would be in violation. It’s a good thing so few people in the world have a name starting with those two letters. Imagine the trouble she’d be in if she created a site and started drawing attention to it before McDonald’s objected.

It’s always a good idea to do a little research for your product or business when you’re starting out. Or, if you’ve been around for a long time and established, make sure you won’t be stepping on the fins of a bigger fish looking out to see if anybody’s infringing on their trademark. As a wise Jedi master once said, “There’s always a bigger fish.”

Hmm. Are McDonald’s fish patties really made of fish?

We’ve actually been blogging recently about social media and using SEO keywords in status updates, online profiles and in blogs. Why? Because if you’re looking to get your business to move up in the search engine rankings, it never hurts to use keywords that relate to your business in both the recent status update (which will hopefully appear somewhere in your profile), plus include a link to your site or your blog where you have those same keywords.

Now, keywords in blogs? Sure. You’re keeping up on the latest trends and advancements in your industry, right? Well, you want to interest potential customers in order to keep them coming back and if they’re following the trends, so should you. It might even hurt to try and start a few of these trends, which will definitely keep your potential customers hanging around. And if you’re really lucky, they’ll start sending links to your blogs (and site) out, which now creates backlinks.

Talk about a win-win situation. And it all starts with your blog…and SEO keywords…and social media profiles and updates.

I’m your Trademark Productions host, Dwight Zahringer and this is our third SEO nightmare presented to you in the October tradition of a 4-part TM Halloween extravaganza blog. I’ll be taking you through the terrifying journey some of our clients and potential clients have presented to us, hoping we might tear through the ceiling boards and shed some sunlight on the search engine vampires robbing you of your website’s lifeblood; rankings!

One of the things I’m known for around the Trademark Productions office is my use of analogies. Think of it as… Oops. See? Like Britney Spears, I almost did it again. In the case of this blog, it’s our clients who tend to do it and it’s usually to themselves. We just get caught up in the mystery and like those famous darn meddling kids, help solve it.

Now, imagine the fun and adventure of having your website built and launched! Imagine the surprise, wonder and amazement as your business takes off! Imagine it comes time to make some changes and you’ve decided to part ways with the company that’s been hosting you. Imagine finding out that in your haste to conquer the internet with your product or service that you had the hosting company or developer register your business domain for you! And now they own it. And you don’t.

Or perhaps the hosting company went out of business. Maybe the developer moved on to bigger and better things, only he or she neglected to leave a forwarding address. Either way, like Elvira, it’s a bust.

Yes, we’ve had this situation creep up before and no, it’s not pleasant. As the owner of your business, you want to continue owning every aspect of it, including the electronic version of it. Think of it as an author writing a book. The book still has to be registered with the Library of Congress. Now, would you let a publisher register it for you, essentially giving them control and ownership of your work? Absolutely not. Same here.

Also keep in mind that companies start up and go out of business at an alarming rate these days. There’s always a possibility that, over time, the company that built your site may not be able to take you to the next level and beyond. Anything can happen and sometimes anything does. Look at Miss Cleo. Do you think if she was really psychic that she wouldn’t have been able to see her own problems coming at her like a masked maniac on Friday the… I’m doing it again, aren’t I?

Own your business. Own your domain. Don’t be like… Another analogy? It’s a sickness, isn’t it?

While we never stated that we were hired by Park West in any capacity, we were approached by them for consultation and proposed work.  However, they decided to go in a different direction and we parted ways amicably.  We apologize if there was any confusion about this point.

We also retract our use of information garnered from the ArtDaily.org article titled “Park West Gallery Proved By Lawsuit Loss to Be Selling Fake Dali Prints,” seen as defamatory by Park West.

The blog has been removed and we hope this resolves the issue.

A: True. It’s going to take some time and effort, though. You’ll want to take advantage of some free tools that monitor social media in order to see where your brand is converting sales as well as your competitors’. Also, what are the top sites driving folks to your site? Consider, too, social sites you already have a presence in, but that aren’t driving as much traffic as you’d hoped for and aren’t showing up on the social monitoring tools. Once you’ve got the information, use something like Double Click Ad Planner to target domains that your visitors frequent. And now that you know where to put direct your advertising budget, you can plan accordingly, monitor the results and adjust as necessary.

I’m your Trademark Productions host, Dwight Zahringer and this is our second SEO nightmare presented to you in the October tradition of a 4-part TM Halloween extravaganza blog. I’ll be taking you through the terrifying journey some of our clients and potential clients have presented to us, hoping we might offer a high-powered flashlight to illuminate their way through the deadly labyrinth of search engine dungeons and back up into the light.

We’ve got a horrific tale for you today about creeping internet tendrils, things that go bump in the night and knock your site’s rankings right down into the realm straight out of a Stephen King novel. It’s a fairly simple problem, though, and common scenario. The difficulty arises in not realizing the simplicity of it or how to fix it.

Potential clients have approached TM because they started off with a fairly rudimentary website and eventually hired someone fairly inexpensive to rebuild and re-launch it. Fair enough. But like in Pet Semetary, if you don’t try to raise the dead the right way and in the right place with the right knowhow, dead is still dead. It’s all in the details.

Where our potential client ran into trouble is right after their site was re-launched and their rankings started to take a dive. SEO became non-existent because the old site no longer existed, so they went down. Way down, like a lead zombie in a vat of quicksand kind of down…only the quick quicksand, not the slow kind. And like all horror stories, panic ensued when an explanation wasn’t forthcoming.

The cure? It’s called a 301 redirect. Nothing from the client’s old site was transferred to the new one, which means that anything and everything their old site ranked for in the search engines was now dead in the water since it had nothing new to go to. The 301 redirect takes all of your old links and points (or redirects) them to the new site, thus allowing you to keep your rankings. People can still find you and the information is still relevant, making it the best of both worlds.

It just takes the knowhow to…well, know what to do, know that it needs to be done and know how to slay the evil beast before you’re swallowed into oblivion. This is why the TM team carries very large, very knowledgeable swords around with us. And a pen since it usually helps if we take notes, too.

So, see? Some SEO horrors do have a happy ending. That is…until the sequel. 302 Redirect Maniacs, here we come!

I’m probably showing my age here a little, but when I was in grade school, our lunches consisted of sandwiches—somewhat fairly dry sandwiches at that—a piece of fruit and milk. Granted, it wasn’t organic milk, but then it wasn’t pop either—or soda for those of you who refuse to conform to calling it what we do, which it actually is. And it was a treat when we had pizza day once a month or once every two months. Now? It seems items like pizza and other “treat” foods of the past have become the current norm as opposed to healthier choices, making it all the more ironic when we hear things like “National School Lunch Week.”

But what exactly is National School Lunch Week? Good luck finding an answer to that one. Google results don’t really offer much insight, essentially making us have to dig to come up with anything. One of the top items that does appear is a link to an ezine article discussing how wonderful it is we have this week so that free promotional gifts—custom coffee cups, lunch boxes, brochures and other helpful materials to inform youngsters about the importance of such an affair—can be given out. Coffee cups? To youngsters? Really? Chances are if you’ve got a kid in grade school who’s drinking coffee, he or she isn’t going to be interested in reading a brochure on healthy eating.

Another top hitter in Google results is from the School Nutrition Association (http://emporium.schoolnutrition.org/home.php?cat=278) that offers menu suggestions to bring to your school cafeteria. They include the “Say ‘Cheese’ Cheesy Steak Sandwich,” “Action-Packed Chicken Fajita Wrap” and “Reach-Your-Peak Whole-Grain Pepperoni Pizza.” Okay, I’ll give them credit for the whole-grain bit in the pizza, but the others? I’m betting the coffee will wash it all down quite nicely.

It’s actually a shame Hallmark hasn’t come out with a card celebrating one of the most vaguely described weeks of the year. It’s also not much of a stretch as to why there’s been controversy over the kinds of foods being served. Even British chef Jamie Oliver raised local ire in West Virginia when he visited the most obese city in the US for his television show (The Naked Chef), examined the lunches served in school cafeterias and made suggestions on to make them healthier. Did they like it? Not really, but the man received a TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) award for his efforts and now has the attention of Google, YouTube and Amazon. Ready for more irony? There may be more information about Oliver and those episodes than there is for National School Lunch Week.

So, what does it all mean? Let’s start with a lack of a website featuring clear, concise information about NSLW, the goals of the week and suggestions and/or links for a healthier school lunch program. This would have automatic organic SEO built right into the content and would rise right up to the top of the search engine rankings. Second, if the site caught on, imagine the links they could share with schools trying out a healthier lunch program. Finally, what if children actually had the opportunity to eat healthier? Isn’t that worth it in itself?

Food for thought, folks.

A: False. SEO is a door with many locks, though, and not every free tool out there is going to open them all. Rest assured, however, that there are tools available. Be prepared to spend time researching the tools as you come across them and familiarizing yourself with them. Something to look out for, though, are how far the term “free” goes since some of these tools will lure you in with only so much information before you’d need to invest to get the rest. Somebody made the software, so they’re going to want to make back their investment, too.

Now, there’s a perception that buying a dog for the household must be done through a private breeder. Fortunately, this is falling by the wayside a little at a time, especially during the recent recession. The National Council on Pet Population Study and Policy released results indicating that 29% of owners surrendered their dogs due to behavior problems, 29% because of the family’s housing situation, 25% citing incompatibility with the family’s lifestyle and 15% due to the family’s preparation and/or expectations. This means that there are more dogs than ever who need a good home regardless of whether or not they come from a private breeder.

The first place folks may look to find out about animal adoption or local shelters is the internet and we’ve decided to take a look at a couple of sites and see what we like about them as well as what feel should be looked at in the future for improvement.

ASPCA: The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (http://www.aspca.org/)

As the first humane organization in the Western Hemisphere, the ASPCA remains dedicated to providing prevention for the cruelty to animals in the US. There are multiple navigation areas on the site, some highlighted quite clearly and some not so much. The ones that are very visible offer dropdown menus, some of which lead to pages that lose the top navigation and others that don’t, which adds a bit of confusion. There’s wonderful information on this site and plenty of news, only it’s just a shame that it’s not presented in a way that’s easy on the eyes and equally easy to follow. One last plus are the links to Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Excellent use of social media!

American Humane Association (http://www.americanhumane.org/)

The navigation is straightforward, easy to use and the information articles are arranged in a way that’s extremely easy to follow. They also make use of social media (Facebook, Twitter and MySpace), though links are strangely absent on the main page. And where you can find the links, the icons are smaller than we expected them to be. One almost has to go out of your way to notice them. The “Donate” button at the top is nice and big, so that’s a plus, especially since they’re a non-profit organization able to exist because of donations. They also make use of a weekly blog. The one thing that stood out to us in terms of needing improvement, besides the social media bits, is the overall look of the site in terms of color. It’s very bland and uninviting.

Adopt A Pet (http://www.adoptapet.com/)

And we move on to a non-profit charity that offers free advertisements of pets in need of a home from shelters, humane societies, SPCAs, pet rescue groups and pet adoption agencies. The navigation is borderline with half of it being fairly easy to see and use and the other half tucked away on the side and not as evident. As for the main page, it feels like the one that never ends. There’s too much on it in too small a font that could have been broken down into other sections of the site. Fortunately, the blog is updated frequently, which is terrific, but there’s no real use of social media and that surprises us. It also surprises us that Purina is one of the sponsors considering the ingredients they use in their food (http://dogfoodanalysis.com/ and http://www.acreaturecomfort.com/truthaboutpetfood.htm).

Animal Shelter (http://www.animalshelter.org/)

This is a site full of good intentions. It features a database of pets searchable by criteria that helps a family find the kind of animal they’re looking for, makes use of social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, and offers various articles as well as a list of animal shelters throughout the US. What could possibly be wrong? Plenty. Let’s start with the look and feel of the site, which looks and feels as if it was designed by someone inexpensive, inexperienced or inexpensive and inexperienced. There’s too much content on the main page, an odd bit of empty space at the bottom, no Site Map, no About Us and no way knowing the last time anything has been added to it. The years listed at the bottom of the page suggest it may not have been updated since 2006, which is a little difficult to believe. But then again…

The sites above are obviously suited to large regions, mainly the US as a whole, while you’ll want to check with local organizations for information more pertinent to your location.

It’s easy to overlook the plight of animals in our current economic times since our spouses and children come first. But like those close to us, animals are looking for a family to live with and grow in, too. Dogs tend to trade love for love and have earned the nickname of ‘man’s best friend’ for a reason, so please consider opening your arms, heart and home to a dog while we celebrate Adopt-A-Shelter-Dog Month!

Now, on with the newsletter…

It’s inevitable. Folks tend to either approach TM because they need a website for a business that’s already been out there for some time and established or to re-imagine the site they currently have so that it drives customers and yields a solid return on investment. That’s business as usual. The “inevitable” part comes into the picture when you least expect it, but it’s when someone calls or walks through our door with that one phenomenal idea they feel will revolutionize the universe and make them wealthy beyond imagination…or at least beyond what they thought their previous idea would bring them.

I know. It sounds a little cynical, right? But anyone who’s been around will tell you that it happens. And having a revolutionary idea isn’t a bad thing by any means. Only it’s the ones that make you sit back and go “huh, really?” that raise an eyebrow in the maybe-this-isn’t-such-a-good-idea way.

There are some common rookie mistakes made that you may want to consider before presenting your idea.

No Research
This is the biggest problem area. We can help you realize your dream by establishing a strong online presence, but we can’t outline your entire business concept. Several potential clients come in looking to bounce their idea off of us, get advice and look for extensive free consultation, sometimes even hoping we’ll partner with them. This usually entails the expectation that we’ll perform a competitive analysis, run financials, develop multiple revenue ideas, develop marketing plans, branding, external branding and retail, as well as set up internal sales, accounting and marketing staff. This is part of what the person with the idea should be doing before ever walking through our door.

Maybe you have an idea to create a site where family and friends can log in, leave each other messages and post pictures. Your mother loves the idea! Unfortunately, MySpace and Facebook already exist, so why haven’t you taken this into account? And what will make what you’re offering better than what’s out there?

Okay, and?
Or, perhaps you’ve thought things out and you have an idea that could potentially fly, only everybody you tell it to needs it explained to them again…and again and again. Even worse, maybe they look at you with that “Okay, and?” look on their face. These aren’t good signs. Your idea must make sense. It has to grab them, not make them think too hard or ask what the big deal is.

Too Many Cooks
Or, as it’s commonly called, design by committee. This is another unpopular way of doing business that some bloggers have written about with titles like “Why Design-By-Committee Should Die!” It’s bad enough when one person doesn’t fully grasp their idea and quite another when an entire group of people don’t grasp it. Worse yet, each member wants to put their own fingerprint on the project and/or change things in progress. It’s why people turn prematurely gray. It’s also one of the few times having a dictator is a good thing.

Adding insult to injury is when there’s a turnover and several committee members are suddenly replaced. Old ideas and progress are dismissed and brand new ideas by the latest folks are brought to the forefront, thereby changing things yet again. Helpful? Not so much, especially when time and costs are wasted on both sides. This is usually when budgets are exceeded, too.

Scope Creep
Most folks don’t understand the process of how software and websites get built. Because of that, it tends to undermine the creativity of website development itself. Not a good thing. What this generally leads to is a series of changes each and every time a milestone is reached. Time, work and effort go right out the window as the client changes their mind and the project just kind of creeps along.

Think of it as walking into a store and telling the salesperson “I want a suit.” You see the item, only now you change your mind and say “I want a dark suit.” The original item goes back on the rack and a new item is brought out, prompting you to look at it and offer a little more information about what you’re really after; “I want a dark navy blue suit.” The process continues from there; “I want a dark navy blue suit in this price range,” “I want a dark navy blue suit in this price range that can be tailored” to, finally, “I want a dark navy blue suit in this price range that can be tailored and worn to a black tie event.”

How would you like to be that salesperson? Also, how much time did you both just waste? And you don’t expect to pay for that, right?

No Time, Love & Tenderness
A contributor to scope creep is also the absence of a realistic timeline. Not only are we working on your site, but chances are that people working for you will have a role in it, too. Do your people have the right knowledge for what they need to do? Do they need training? If so, that means time. Did you account for that? Many don’t. It’s about having the right people in the right place, especially since people get paid for their time. Opportunity costs and if you change things from milestone to milestone, they still get paid and you’re now paying two and three times to arrive at what could have been narrowed down and established in the first place.

You also can’t neglect that you need to consider your own time in all of this, too. You’ll have to ask yourself what you’re willing to sacrifice for your idea. What is this product really worth to you, especially since getting this up and launched may take time away from home, your family and any other projects you that you’re working on”

Finally, it’s your idea, so be prepared to not only prove yourself by being dedicated and working hard, but to also be a punching bag for naysayers. Don’t give in. You gotta know what you want, have the self-confidence to see it through and not be a negativity sponge.

Full Speed Ahead
We’ve got some creative folks here at TM and we can help your project. The more research and information you bring to the table helps all parties involved, especially since it can keep costs down. You’ve got the idea and TM will help you navigate a website blueprint or software scope to discover all the things that can turn your idea into a reality.

So, keep a few things in mind that will help you succeed:

• Do your research. Know your product, your competition and why what you’re offering is something people are going to want.
• Have a business plan.
• Having multiple opinions may help you along, but all ideas should go through one person who makes the final decision and relays that information to your SEO website company prior to starting the project.
• Embrace the details. Saying you want a suit is a little different than saying you want a dark navy blue suit in this price range that can be tailored and worn to a black tie event.
• Know what you’re willing to invest in terms of time—yours and your employees—and money. We offer our services for a fee, not for free.
• Be confident. This is your opportunity to shine!

October also represents something else, something important, something sobering and something that not everybody will be here to celebrate each year; National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. This year is a milestone since it’s also the 25^th anniversary of the organization.

In an effort to promote some awareness of the disease and also things we look for when we create and design sites here at TM, we thought we’d take a look at some current sites out there and discuss some of the features about them that we liked and some that we thought could use a little improvement.

National Breast Cancer Awareness Month (www.nbcam.org)

You’re not going to have a site more SEO-friendly than this considering the name of the site itself. This is about as comprehensive as it gets with information, news articles written about them and links to other helpful sites. Unfortunately, the pages, especially the front page, is extremely busy in that it has way too much crammed onto it, some of the links listed in “Do I Still Need My Mammogram?” go to dead pages and the “Breast Cancer in the News” section has articles dated back to December of last year, so not current. This is a site that has much to offer, but hasn’t figured out the right way to offer it to people a nice, easy to read, visitor-friendly way.

National Breast Cancer Foundation, INC (http://www.nationalbreastcancer.org/)

This information site is nicely laid out, easy to follow, easy to navigate and light on the eyes. Each section is clearly identified, the top navigation hits on the main topic areas visitors will want to look for (About Breast Cancer, Community, How to Help, About NBCF and Contact Us) while the navigation at the bottom of the page shows a breakdown of the areas up top for easy access to specific information. Each main page you click on also features navigation on the side for areas of information under the main topic. Again, it’s laid out very nicely and easy to use. Unfortunately, a search feature only appears at the bottom of the page instead at the top. If you don’t go all the way to the bottom, users may not even realize that there is one.

Susan G. Komen for the Cure (http://ww5.komen.org/)

Chances are we’ve all received requests from friends who are planning to participate in this extremely worthwhile cause. It’s been described as life-changing by those who train and then spend days walking to raise money, of which nearly $1.5 billion has been invested in the search for a cure. Again, due to the subject matter, the site almost comes pre-search engine optimized and it would be difficult not to be able to find it online. The layout of the site suffers a bit, however. There are multiple navigations, which is confusing in itself since they aren’t uniformly identified, some of them are long and cumbersome, and the font sizes and differences in font colors just add to what feels like a mishmash structure. Excellent cause, but the site needs work.

American Cancer Society (http://www.cancer.org/)

This site jumps out at you. It’s big and colorful (within reason), but its navigation leaves a bit to be desired. My tendency is to see a section to click on, then actually click on it. This site allows you to do that, but then you realize that by putting your cursor on the section you want to click on, another navigation area appears. I’d already clicked on the link, then realized another menu had started to appear, but vanished before I had a chance to really see it because I’d already clicked. Worse yet, the menu that appears doesn’t match the menu on the side of the page once it comes up. So, good information on the site, but confusing navigation.

All four of these sites have much to offer whether it’s information on breast cancer, cancer itself, ways to donate your time and money or what support is available. And because it’s also very important information, it makes it even more imperative that it’s presented in a way that’s understandable and accessible to the people looking for it. That’s the part we understand. The part they understand is the part that needs your help the most; please spread the word about National Breast Cancer Awareness Month this October and consider donating your time or money.

A: False. But it depends entirely on how you use it. First, that page would be categorized as a “Fan” page where folks click on the “Become A Fan” button. Once you’ve got that set up, you now have to go out there and grab some attention. How about an incentive for people to become a fan? How about offering your employees an incentive for any leads brought in through their Facebook pages? Beyond that, if you post regular updates, folks will check back in with you just as regularly. Those updates should be interactive, by the way. Talking at people won’t keep their attention as much as including them in on the conversation. Finally, how about offering folks a little something about your business, like upcoming projects or products, that they can’t get from any other source?

It’s also no secret that many businesses are cracking down on their employees playing the game at work. Players describe Farmville as an addiction and the United States is the top Farmville playing country (Turkey, the Philippines, the UK and Italy follow). One must acquire animals and structures, water plants, water animals, feed animals, breed animals and all to…what, exactly? Grow the farm, get points and earn cyber-money. And if the plants or animals are neglected, they die off.

I feel an analogy coming on.

Think of your website as that big, fun farm on your computer screen. And just like a farm, it needs a little TLC, only No Scrubs. Your ultimate goal is sales, right? Sales = money, only it’s real money. So, in order to achieve sales, one must plant some organic seeds—or search engine optimization (SEO) keywords—in the right fields—or site pages—and water them—aka allow the search engines to catalog them. The more strategic your keywords and their placement, the better chance that you’ll be found, which can lead to more sales, etc.

Additionally, instead of exchanging golden eggs and waiting for them to hatch, your site will offer—at least it should offer—solid, well-written content that other folks will want to link to. And the more people link to you, the more chances you’ll have to drive traffic to your site.

Now, that being said, there’s your site’s upkeep. How about a stable to keep your horses in? Or a chicken coop? Each structure has a rhyme and a reason and offers order to what could easily become chaos. That translates into an attractive, easy-to-navigate site featuring the information customers need in order to make a decision about the services or products you’re offering. No horses in the chicken coop or wells in the living room of the farmhouse, please.

Now, one of the most amazing things about Farmville is how much time people will spend on it or go back to it throughout a day. Chickens require you to check back in every four hours when they hatch…or some such thing. A web site doesn’t need nearly as much of a commitment, but it does require some monthly maintenance, otherwise your content risks getting stale. And when that happens? Lower search engine rankings, fewer sales and more time for your employees to play Farmville since they won’t have as much to do.

Farmville…SEO…

Don’t you love how our minds work?

A: True.  Utilizing Google Webmaster Tools and downloading the errors on a site can give you an idea of what users are looking for, yet can no longer find that used to be on your site.  So, by analyzing the majority of what the errors formerly point to, it may be possible to see if there’s anything on your current site with that same information.  If so, have your team set up some 301 redirects.  That way, instead of simply getting error messages, the folks still trying to find you will now be able to and they’ll also be getting the information they wanted, minus the frustration in having to search any harder for it.

How do they work? It’s like this; “promoted tweets” appear at the top of search results from the site. Anybody wishing to advertise sets their budget, makes a decision on which tweets to promote and then makes the purchase. Twitter is limiting these ads to one “promoted” or sponsored tweet per page. Well, limiting them for now. As with many other things in life, that will probably change.

Why are businesses being cautious about this new model? First and foremost, the metrics aren’t developed and the model is untested. Why pay for a link when its value hasn’t been proven? Furthermore, the auto-posting bots and other third-party applications are posting so much in lieu of people that who knows who’s really seeing live tweets anymore?

On the flipside, Twitter has over 50 million tweets served daily and these sponsored tweets will be around as long as folks retweet it. It’s like “The Ring,” only these actually will die. But no solid online marketing campaign is without its risks or learning curve. There is potential here and you can always develop your own metrics of success by measuring your Twitter results up against your other online efforts.

Where things get a bit stickier, though, is if and when Twitter starts placing paid tweets in regular tweet streams. They’re thinking about it. Euro for the bathroom, anyone?

Is a corporate buyer going to feel good about coming to you for something if it’s a business-as-usual attitude? Are they going to suggest their company keep coming back to you if they’re made to feel like an automaton with no real connection to you or your business? Probably not. Enter social media where companies have an opportunity to present a much friendlier side of themselves for the world to see, both internally and externally.

Along with the great power of social media comes…great tips. You thought I was going to say “great responsibility,” didn’t you?

1. Get motivated! Your counterparts are just as savvy as you are about the online world, how to find what they need and what about a vendor catches their eye. They use social media at home just like you do, so why not get creative and create an online community for your company and your customers?
2. Et tu, Brute? Don’t make your customers have to wonder if your products or services are any good. If they have to wonder too much, they’ll just go elsewhere and find a company that gives them that warm and fuzzy feeling. So once you have that online community, let your customers do the talking for you. If they like you, they’ll tell you. If they have suggestions for improvements, they’ll tell you that, too. Best of all, they might just help each other find new and innovative ways to utilize what you’re offering. It’s all about the interaction since customer service is marketing in itself.
3. Doctor, heal thyself. The flow of information inside a company tends to move at a somewhat sluggish pace. Why not incorporate some internal social tools similar to Twitter that allow folks working for you a consistent and speedy way of communicating and collaborating? Some tools even allow you to post blogs and videos, which can help demonstrate best practices and new training. Active, connected employees are happier than discombobulated ones waiting around for that e-mail response to arrive.
4. Rock them like a hurricane! Anybody can write a blog, many of them do and they tend to sound very similar; lots of blah blah blah. Engage your readers. Find out what they want to know. Give it to them. Include some of your customers in the blogs themselves. Some businesses are even posting webcasts featuring success story interviews with their customers.

Remember, business doesn’t have to be boring. It just has to look that way to the average non-business person to maintain the façade.

A: We get asked this all the time. Matt Cutts of Google states that they do help in some way to your overall SEO score. There are mixed reviews from many in Webmaster World and SEO Round Table. My opinion tests have confirmed that the more generic laden you can stay with keywords in your domain the better. I have seen examples of keyword laden URL’s that outrank competitors with larger, more legit back link profiles. So to answer – yes try to get popular keywords in your domain names.

Pagers were replaced by cell phones—thereby allowing instant communication almost anywhere as long as you can get a signal, cameras with film went digital—no more waiting days for pictures to be developed, books are going digital—still a hot topic and debate, and a huge majority of our friends live all over the world, connected only by social media sites. But what if somebody decided to halt using some of these advancements for a week?

Provost Eric Darr at Pennsylvania’s Harrisburg University of Science and Technology has decided to try a little experiment with the student population living on campus; a week-long social media blackout. He wants students to reflect on their experiences by writing an essay at the end of the week since he feels many of them may be taking such technology for granted.

One exception is that using e-mail is still allowed. One catch is that anybody with a smartphone is going to be able to boycott the boycott and access those sites anyway. It’ll be interesting to read a follow-up report on it and what the students learned, if anything. I wonder what we would learn, especially since businesses have infiltrated the social media networks, too.

It also makes me wonder what would happen if the boycott were a much broader one. One advantage of the digital age is being able to capture photos and video footage and then communicate them in ways that were never available before. Instead of relying solely on traditional news agencies to go out and get the stories for us, then sift through what they want to feed us, we have news sites and non-traditional news sites that make access to stories we might never hear about both instant and, at times, uncensored.

What if the digital avenue of reporting was taken away? How serious are these amateurs even being taken? Well, CNN is touting iReports, which essentially allows folks like you and me to submit both photos and video and is even offering boot camps on how to boost our technical and journalistic skills. Pretty serious, huh?

CNN also recently posted a note on getting your iReport stories seen. How? Are you ready for this? SEO, baby! They give several tips on creating normal sounding, catchy, short-yet-informative headlines, descriptions and file names that contain all the elements that potential viewers will search out and that will rank high in search engines like Google.

Now, if people just starting out in this medium are learning SEO and don’t even have a business, imagine the potential disadvantage those of you who do have businesses are in not knowing about SEO or having a site capable of ranking high in the search engines because it’s been optimized using SEO techniques.

It might just be worth that phone call.

And we’ll even provide the coffee!

A: True, it is possible and can be done with a 301 redirect, and a bit of time-consuming work. There are some efforts to consider though. Google Webmaster Central has a step-by-step outline with tips that will help you retain your site’s ranking in Google’s search results. These steps, are often overlooked and then identified when it is too late. My basic answer is to do a master 301 redirect and start to contact all the back links that matter to me and ask them to change the URL to my old site to my new site. Over time, I would probably also write some specific content and add it to the old URL so it ranks independently of my new one. Also, of course, add information on how to find my new site.

How do you do what you say you can do?
If your SEO consultant would prefer to avoid this question or isn’t particularly forthcoming in explaining their strategies, “Danger, Will Robinson!” There are some fairly unethical ways out there being used to boost ratings and those are the ones you want to avoid. For one, they can come back to harm your business instead of help it. Not a good thing. Having an electrician install an outlet so you can plug in a light is something you could probably do yourself, only—if you’re like us—you’d prefer to have a professional do it. However, running a power cord from your neighbor’s house and turning your light on that way is bound to get some unwanted attention. Same thing here with SEO. You want the light, but you want to know how you’re getting the light. See?

Do I need to supply you with anything to ensure this is a success?
Absolutely. While your SEO consultant will be busy analyzing the current state of your business, you’ll need to know how many of your resources (time, money and manpower) will be necessary to determine whether or not it’s worth it. Know where you stand and what the commitment on your end will be.

What about site accounts? Will I control the access?
Make a point to. A huge complaint businesses have is that the folks who created a business profile on various sites (the major search engines, Yellow Pages, etc.) don’t always pass along the access you need in order to take control those accounts. Would you give management control of your business to someone else? Heck no, so you need to ensure you have and keep administrative control for anything created during the SEO process.

How are spammers getting away with it?
Nothing worthwhile is ever entirely easy. Sometimes, but not often. While some search engines expect you to jump through some hoops for them, solid high rankings can actually be achieved. But yes, there are some folks out there who sell SEO results that can pay off nicely in the short run, only these somewhat questionable and fairly grey area ways of doing business really aren’t recommended since they have the potential to backfire, something you don’t want. So, a little extra time and effort to learn and play by the rules is a whole lot safer for you and your business than the quick and easy route.

Let’s talk about your clients. What’s a typical ROI (Return on Investment) for one?
Have them put their money where their mouth is. It may be down and dirty, but a SEO consultant worth his/her salt should be able to give you some sort of usable metric to go by. And if you’re not entirely sure how it relates to your business, ask. Also, beware of very generic sounding answers like “it’ll double your traffic.” Oh? Tell me more. No, really. Tell me more.

How can I know what you did worked?
While you want them to answer this question, there are ways you’ll notice, too. Have you seen an increase in e-mail requests? Has the phone been ringing more often? Has your SEO provider given you statistics from your site that show more people are finding it and clicking on it? Let them tell you how what they did for you can be measured.

How do you report progress on my site to me?
Your SEO consultant or contact should be communicating with you on a regular basis and letting you know what they’ve done, what still needs to be done, and a timeline of when it will be done. It’s your business, your investment and you want to keep up on the latest developments.

Who do I deal with when I call? You? An Administrative Assistant? Or your voicemail?
Have a designated point of contact. It can help cut through the red tape.

How far in the doghouse am I if I stop working with you?
Is your SEO consultant buying links? They shouldn’t. If so, links to your site are often controlled by the person or company you’ve hired. It would be very easy for them to threaten the removal of those links unless you’re offering up some long-term job security with them or at least an alternate deal that will make it worth their while. It’s simply best to know where you both stand on the issue before signing a contract.

How about showing me some case studies?
A company is really only as successful as they’ve made their clients. Let them give you that warm feeling that only comes when they show you who they’ve helped, how they’ve helped and the ranking that’s been achieved. Do you really want to sign on with them if they can’t?

How about a couple of references?
Real people. Real voices. None of this constantly going to voicemail thing. It’s detrimental.

Have any customers parted ways with you? Why?
It’s a PC way of putting it, but it happens since not every business has a perfect record with every customer and not every customer has a perfect record with everyone they hire. And since it happens, why not talk about it and ask what the SEO consultant has learned from the experience; good, bad or indifferent? The business you hire should be professional enough about it to admit any shortcomings without blaming or sounding entirely snarky about the other party.

Why should I go with you instead of all the other SEO companies out there?
They’re there to make an improvement for your company, no ifs, ans or buts about it. Also remember that you get what you pay for. You may want that $9.99 oil change, but do you really want that too-good-to-be-true $199 a month SEO package? The only thing worse than knowing what you’ll get for it is not knowing what you won’t. Believe me, there’s a difference. You want to know why they deserve your business? Let them tell you.

We will.

A: TRUE – That is if it’s  done properly. Writing articles is a great way to deliver more link love to your website. However, there are right and wrong ways to do this. The wrong way is to write an article and pack it with too many keywords or the same one too many times. Keyword stuffing can hurt you more than help you. Another wrong way is to submit that same article, which was written incorrectly to a lot of article based websites. This results in the article being difficult to read and understand from a human perspective. Also, the search engines can tell that you are trying to get ranked for a keyword stuffed article that is all over the place.

The proper way to utilize this strategy is to focus on a primary keyword and phrase. Then when writing the article place it just 5 times – once in the title, once in the opening sentence, once in the first paragraph, once in  the last paragraph and once in the closing sentence. You’re going to  also want to add the keyword to the resource box. Only twice in the article will I place a direct link on the target keyword to my target URL.

When your article is ready for distribution you want to use a quality service, or internal resources that can produce as many variations of your article as possible without compromising quality or readability.

A: FALSE – You will be able to maintain your ranking if you have been trained in SEO. You would need the SEO company you hired to educate you and your team on how they achieved your competitive ranking. If you aren’t fluent with SEO chances are you will lose your ranking. Why? A lot reasons come to mind, but consider this metaphor: You start a specific weight loss and exercise program. Your days are now filled with activity, sweat and tears. Your meals have changed and are now healthier. You get the proper amount of rest, water and vitamins every day. This process continue and the results progress in a positive direction each month. At 9 months you have almost reached your goal and the target is near. Then you decide to stop exercising every day. After a week you start eating at Mc Donalds once a day. You start to change your positive ways and the results you achieved are now going in a negative direction.

While this example may be a little extreme, you get the point. Once achieving a target ranking you now have to maintain that position. While the efforts may not be that extreme as it took to get you there, regular maintenance and new work is necessary. Competitive analysis is now a must. If you bump a top competitor out of #1 they are going to notice and will most likely retaliate. New competitors may come up as well. You need to be able to maintain a competitive advantage when it comes to your SEO campaign.

So no, I would not flat out fire that SEO company. I would discuss your options on how to maintain that ranking and become more proactive and reactive to changes. You may be able to take on some responsibilities and save some money.

A: FALSE. Paid links work. NOTE – That is a loaded answer and buying links comes with serious risks. Paying for links is the practice of buying a text link, or a link on an image that points back to a target website for the sole purpose of increasing your backlink profile. This helps to increase your rankings in search engines for that selected keyword or phrase. The more links you have, on an on-going basis the better. However, you need to consider these important factors:

• Research is very, very important. You want to make sure that your links come from relevant sites. If you are selling insurance then a link from a high PR weight loss blog is useless.
• If a site looks like it is selling links then stay clear. You could be penalized.
• Mix it up a little, use links on blogrolls, partner pages, friends, etc.
• Be careful to not use the same anchor text all the time for a prolonged period.
• Do not ingest too many links at once. If you get 1,000 links to your insurance site in 10 days you’d better make sure that you were featured on CNN and the NY Times. Otherwise you are creating a footprint and throwing up red flags for the Google SPAM Team to act on.
• We call it “link-humping”, or the practice of looking for links. Keep in mind it is hard work. There are a few notable services out there that can provide you a platform to research and purchase links on a monthly, yearly, etc basis. Do research and make sure that the sites you buy links on with these services are where you want to be, and monitor to make sure you do not get a negative effect.
• Don’t just buy from where your competitors buy. Do research, “hump” and find your own list of quality sites.
• Don’t be afraid to contact webmasters, site owners or managers directly and ask for a link, or offer to purchase or “donate” for a link placement. You’d be amazed.
• You can sponsor, donate or be charitable to organizations out there. I am sure they can also show thanks with a link or a logo on their site.
• Finally, monitor your success. Are the links working for the cost? Consider hard $ costs and your time as well. They need to give you a boost or they are junk. Not all links are good forever.

A: A location-based game (or location-enabled game) is one in which the game play somehow evolves and progresses via a player’s location and there actions. Thus, location-based games almost always support some kind of localization technology. For example, the use of satellite positioning technology like GPS. Also, there are the popular location-based services like Foursquare and Gowalla. “Urban gaming” or “Street Games” are typically multi-player location-based games played out on city streets and built up urban environments.

Can they be beneficial for your company to use? Yes, you just need the proper budget and planning. They can create a “digital buzz” in a specific area, which can socially expand your brand name and recognition. The key component would be for users to gain knowledge of your company and product that would direct them to experience your brand. Then you would be able to track conversion from the campaign in to potential leads or sales.

How many times have you listened to someone’s story about “…I had that idea about (insert awesome popular website company) and if I would have executed it, I would be a billionaire!”

What delusional and pathetic logic they have. Having a great idea for a new website or start-up has absolutely nothing to do with creating a company. Doing something matters, not what you think, say or plan. Do you think your idea for your company or new start-up is that valuable? Then go and try to sell it, let’s see what you get for it. Until you actually start making something, your brilliant idea is just that, an idea. The problem with ideas is that everyone has one.

Stanley Kubrick, a famous filmmaker, gave advice to aspiring filmmakers that was simple and to the point. “Get a camera and start shooting something, anything you want.” See, Kubrick knew that when you are new at something, you need to start creating. The most important step is to just “start.” You will make mistakes; you’re suppose to. It is how you learn from them that will determine how you progress towards reaching the status of “successful.”

Remember ideas are plentiful and cheap. Your original idea is negligible. How you execute is the real story teller.

If you have an idea for an internet start-up, maybe a clash of three different ideas with a twist – call us. Schedule some time to come in and discuss. We can set you on the right path, show you what needs to be accomplished, and show you how you can make revenue from your idea. Heck, we may even want to be your partner Mr./Mrs. “I have the new Ebay.”

Well it appears that the owner of Digital Point forums, Shawn Hogan (no relation to the Hulk) and along with the creator third-party developer of FileMakerPro, Brian Dunning and his brother have been indicted and charged for defrauding Ebay and CJ out of millions of dollars from a cookie-stuffing campaign. This apparently lasted from 2003-ish through 2007 and netted the trio some $20+ million in affiliate revenue.

Why is this worthy of a blog post?

The affiliate space online has been a wild ride for the past 10 years. Like IP (intellectual property) it has taken time to make real cases on utilizing a trademark or slogan in your website, or bidding on one in PPC a crime. Now there have been many trials and verdicts that lay the groundwork for what you can and cannot do in regards to IP online. Real professional online marketers know what you can and cannot do, and when you can walk a thin line.

The suit against the trio alleges numerous actions including fraud, racketeering activity under RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations), wire fraud and unauthorized access of eBay’s servers. More so it is going to layout the groundwork for affiliate marketing and “best practices” to follow.

With more and more people becoming involved in the online marketing, work-from-home, I have a blog and make money, business, etc. etc space one of the #1 sources of income is affiliate marketing. Marketing products for others on your site, in your email list, etc. for a small commission if those go and buy from you.

Furthermore these claims from the FEDs tell all of us that the normal general public is now becoming more antiquated with online marketing, affiliate marketing and web-lingo in general.

The short version is that eBay alleges that the affiliates named engaged in “cookie stuffing”, specifically generating hidden forced clicks of their Ebay affiliate links. Hidden forced clicks are when an affiliate link is invoked without a physical click by the end user. Various forms of technology and/or coding are used so that the merchant’s site is not actually seen by the end user. The alleged activities in question occurred between 2003 and mid 2007.  eBay claims measures were taken to hide the activity and that the defendants denied any wrongdoing when questioned by CJ, which at the time was still running  eBay’s program, regarding suspicious traffic.

While this case should be of significant interest to affiliates, networks and merchants, it is a civil matter. Currently the case is unresolved with the outcome pending before the courts.

Criminal Charges Filed

On June 24, 2010, two separate indictments were handed down by a grand jury in California against Shawn Hogan (pdf) and Brian Dunning (pdf) following an FBI investigation by the Cyber Crimes Department. The indictments charge Hogan and Dunning with wire fraud and criminal forfeiture. Hogan was charged with ten counts of wire fraud and Dunning with five counts of wire fraud.

On July 22, 2010, Hogan and Dunning appeared before the court. Both were released under a $100,000 property bond and surrendering their passports. Both Hogan and Dunning entered not guilty pleas. Hogan’s next court date is September 9, 2010 and Dunning’s is August 19, 2010.

According to court documents, the maximum penalty in both cases is:

• Imprisonment of 20 years
• Maximum fine of $250,000 or twice the gross gain/loss (whichever is greater)
• 3 years of supervised release
• $100 special assessment (per count)

The indictments parallel the eBay civil suit, accusing the affiliates of engaging in hidden forced clicks within the eBay affiliate program.

For years cookie stuffing techniques have been discussed and debated in the affiliate marketing world. I’ve seen a rather casual attitude taken by some regarding the practice. I’ve seen long debates about what constitutes a physical click by the end user. I’ve seen black hat techniques for cookie stuffing and hiding the behavior discussed publicly. For me, one striking point with the indictments is that the FBI and a grand jury were evidently able to grasp technical aspects of affiliate marketing and tracking, and ultimately arrived at the conclusion that the tactics were criminal in nature.

Indictment Specifics

Several interesting specifics were outlined in both of the indictments:

• Between 2006 and June 2007, Shawn Hogan (Digital Point Solutions) earned approximately $15.5 million in commissions from eBay. Hogan was eBay’s number one affiliate.
• Between 2006 and June 2007, Dunning (Kessler’s Flying Circus) earned approximately $5.3 million in commissions from eBay. Dunning was eBay’s number two affiliate.
• Hogan and Dunning are accused of generating hidden forced clicks on both their own web sites as well as sites not connected with the defendants in order to increase the number of computers storing the eBay affiliate tracking cookie.
• The legal criteria for wire fraud was established not on money (commissions) being transferred over the wires, but because of transmission of the tracking cookie between states and internationally.
• The affiliates attempted to hide the activity from eBay and CJ by not engaging in the cookie stuffing on computers located in San Jose (eBay headquarters) or Santa Barbara (CJ’s headquarters). This is geo-targeting and is readily known to be used by affiliates engaging in questionable activity. Of course, not all geo-targeting activity in nefarious.
• Both Hogan (2005) and Dunning (2006) denied any cookie stuffing behavior when questioned by CJ.
• Each individual wire fraud account is related to a particular incident on an IP address outside California (location of eBay servers) where an affiliate cookie for the defendants was set.

Implications

Hogan and Dunning face serious repercussions if found guilty of the charges handed down by the grand jury. This is in addition to a pending civil suit which potentially carries stiff penalties of its own.

Regardless of the innocence or guilt of Hogan and Dunning, the fact that the U.S. Attorney deems cookie stuffing criminal should be a wake-up call for our industry.

As Linda Buquet stated when she first talked about the case, “For the blackhatters out there that say, ‘cookie stuffing isn’t illegal and all is fair in love and affiliate marketing’ – I say you better take a very close look at this case!”

The behavior outlined by the indictment is behavior, with some minor technical variation, I witnessed only yesterday by some affiliates. Nor is it difficult to find resources on how to engage in these types of activities, whether through web pages, adware, widgets, email or any other vehicle. Maybe now that the practice has been deemed illegal, the higher stakes will deter potential abusers.

A: It is unfortunate that link building has become synonymous with Black Hat SEO. This does not mean all oversea, link builders will buy links, or place your link in sites that are shared solely in attempt to boost your PageRank. Still, in my opinion these are a waste of your time and money. Instead think about promoting your site via paid listings such as Yahoo!, a good relevant directory, or Business.com. These are great authoritative places to start with a listing and a link. From here create good content that people will have no problem linking to.

One idea is try solving a common problem in your industry and let the media know that you have a solution, for free, on your site. Encourage people to share it with the other people they know in the industry. This will help create good, relevant back links.

Also, run a keyword search for ones that you want to ranks for and see which competitor or favorite shows up. Take a look at their back link profile in Yahoo and determine a way to get a link from the same places they have links from.

Remember, anything that generates exposure for your brand or site should eventually lead to improved link popularity and search value.

A: Correct. While some reports have shown that Yahoo! may still read it, this is only when the META Keyword tag contains a word that is not included on a page, such as a misspelling.

Not long ago (a few years – that’s a long time in the SEO world), the META Keyword tag was a place where we would stuff tons of relevant, misspelled or synonymous keywords for search engines to relate our site to. Heck, some people even would place competitor names and brand names in there as well (ummmm, no, not us!). Those tactics are now obsolete for SEO purposes.

The META Keyword tag is not worth the time and effort on your brain for each page of your site anymore so forget it.

A: Yes, to an extent. The recent advances in technology and the totally awesome free tools (built by masterminds) allow you to gain a very useful insight as to what your competitors are doing online. While I will not divulge all of the secrets in our toolbox (we are available for hire at affordable prices), I will give a few away. We have spent a lot of time over the years to hone in on our techniques, only to find out that some people think it’s impossible, while others believe it’s relativity easy.

Grab a pen and paper. Ready?

There are many tools and two of my favorites (which are free) are WMTools.com and WMTips.com. The data they provide will gather enough necessary information to show the technology and marketing behind a competitors site:

• Backlinks in Google and Yahoo!
• # of pages indexed in major search engines
• Backlinks in Google blogsearch
• Backlinks on Digg and Delicious
• Indexed images on Google image search
• Current top rankings
• History of the site with historical data and cache versions
• Site load speed
• Robots.txt information

Tons of great information at your fingertips. Can you image the knowledge that you will gain by looking at this data?

A: Actually, you don’t need to all the time. Unless you are operating a news site or a blog, fresh content is not the be-all to end-all for search engines to notice you. Many e-commerce or corporate sites do well with old content. As long as it is accurate and relevant, you will be fine.

Here is another answer to the same question:

Yes, you should.  Especially if you are operating a blog or news site,  maybe it is a site for a specific breed of dogs. Then yes, you would want to add fresh content on a regular basis. The most important reason is to engage your readers. Focus on creating high-quality content that your visitors will appreciate. If you write one great page of relevant content per month, that is better than two template pieces of content per week.

While these “sales” were tagged a cute name to get people in the door, I wanted to key the phrase again for online retailers. Let’s call it “SEO in July.” No matter your product or target audience you should be deep into the planning stages of your SEO campaign for the holiday season, which is only six short months from now. This campaign should be solidified and be in the first stages of execution by August, if not the end of July.

Why you ask?

Remember, results from your SEO efforts take time.  Your competitors know this (the good ones) and are making the same plans to attack or push their major product in November and December. It is imperative to include social media tactics also for your holiday season campaign. If you can determine a game plan now you can build the headway to use social media by directing users to your target site.

If you are interested in discussing your online holiday event or other specific date in the foreseen future please give us a call. We’d love to talk. Remember another age-old saying is that “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” This saying holds true for the SEO and social media community as well.

Check it out below – you can see the little “soccer” ball button next to the fit to window button in the gray bar. Pretty cool feature in the spirit of the World Cup!

Watch The World’s Reaction to Landon Donovan’s Game Winning Goal

A: Yes. Some of the quickest ways to determine this is to:

• Determine your top 10 keywords your trying to achieve high rankings for
• Notice the competition and look to see who is out-ranking you
• Note the links that are pointing to your competitors site (check weekly if not more often to see how they are building them)
• Which page are the keywords pointing to in your competitors website?
• How long ago did that page originate (use WayBackMachine)
• Do they have a DMOZ listing?
• Any Digg or other posts?
• Do they have good on-page factors like title, content, meta, etc.?

Doing these side-by-side comparisons on a monthly basis will show you all the changes and factors that are involved with ranking changes in search engines.

Ouch, don’t bet on England.

A: Even when you have tested and refined ad variations in the past it is important that you keep testing. The online landscape changes, along with your competitors and opportunities. Your competition will keep testing themselves and how you are marketing as well.

Stay on top of what your competition is doing, their bids and campaign changes. Keep working on your keyword relevance and working to increase your CTR. This will increase your quality score, lower costs and push up your ad placement position in search results.

A: FALSE – This used to be the way to go, but it’s just not true anymore. However, if it is direct traffic that you may benefit from then this could be a good possibility. This used to be a great tactic until Google started putting up flags in their algorithm to detect expiration and renewal dates of a domain. You could privatize your name but Google will know, since they are a registrar. Google resets a dropped domain for rankings and link value.

Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land discussed this with Google’s own Matt Cutts last year: “There are some domain transfers ( e.g. genuine purchases of companies) where it can make perfect sense for links to transfer. But at the same time it wouldn’t make sense to transfer the links from an expired or effectively expired domain, for example. Google (and probably all search engines) tries to handle links appropriately for domain transfers. The sort of stuff our systems would be designed to detect would be things like someone trying to buy expired domains or buying domains just for links.”

BP has a dirty mess on their hands and a fake online Twitter account that is contributing to it. Their answer: aggressively advertise online in every search engine for the word “oil” and take consumers to the main BP corporate site. Over $10,000 is reported to being spent daily. Ouch.

If you are not utilizing social media, mobile marketing and the internet to grow your exposure and sales then please step aside. There is never a more important time than now to invest in your online presence and it has never been so affordable.

The summer months are a great time to sit and examine your efforts and we are happy to help. We can help by outlining an effective, aggressive or modest strategy for your online presence. Contact us online, on Facebook, on Twitter, or use traditional methods like an office phone to find out how our staff can increase your bottom line.

I have been in the domain, development and affiliate industry for years and I think new times are upon us. What is happening now more than ever is the disconnection from buying a domain and developing a site and/or software that needs to be marketed. It could even be the other way around where you have a site, but buy a domain that needs  to modified for the business rules for that market in order to attract an additional audience.

Here are the golden keys to the kingdom – all this takes is research, a careful plan, capital investment and execution with a continuous analysis.

Now why is it that few can rarely get this right? Let’s examine.

It takes a lot to build a popular, profitable site. If you have a great domain that people can say, spell and more importantly remember – you’re on the right track. Landing pages for organic results are just not converting the way they use to, users are becoming more internet savvy. This has led domainers to realize that they must invest money into development to have a site completely ready to rank and convert traffic over that results in revenue.

How do we value a domain or a website to see if it is really worth investing in as a whole? There are a lot of newer tools that have been developed, many free that answer our prayers. Aaron Wall’s FireFox SEO Toolbar (godsend for myself), SEMRush, SpyFu and other demographic measurements from Compete and Quantcast are great. Utilizing these, we are able to reach into a ballpark of traffic value to quantify a potential investment. Here we see more domainers and those with a great portfolio for a supportive business reaching out to developers like TM to figure out what is all involved.

As of late we have 6 large projects in house that are well funded and are hovering around the simplicity and popularity of a domain name. Some were brought to the table at first and the others were already in the client’s portfolio.

So let’s displace some of the myths involved in marketing a domain online with the development and marketing needed from my perspective. Here is my personal top 10 list of things I consider when we are approached to build out or purchase a domain:

1. Does it fit? Will the name fit? Is it right for the project or site software? Obviously without external advertising and branding some sites gain popularity. Facebook did through viral components, Mozy was through sponsorship of a famous blogger and TV commercials.
2. .Com / .Net / .Org and other tier extensions.
3. Does the domain have keywords in it? Are they relevant and easy for our product / site?
4. Search term value (what will it / has it historically yielded over time in cost per click?)
5. Exact match search term value (you sell beef and BuyBeef.com is what you bought)
6. Query diversity – are there long tail keywords that are available?
7. Type-in traffic potential
8. Ease of future development – can this easily be built out or expanded upon?
9. Monetize – is the market already packed like Herbal or is there room to take a piece of the pie?
10. Legal – is there anything to be aware of or infringement precautions we need to take?

Myth #1 – Building a company is simple!

I see it time and time again. You want to go in to business for yourself or you have a brick and mortar, which should just be taken to the web. Listen, you’re not the exception, Murphy’s Law does apply to you too. You hear the success stories about how this company was purchased by Google for $40 million and how a start-up is in the second round of funding. What you didn’t hear about was the 99 other companies that failed.

Eyes bigger than the stomach?- “I want it all – fast.”

Shopping when you are hungry? – “This all looks exciting and seems easy!”

No. You. Can’t. It’s. Not.

Myth #2 – My domain is going to draw type-in traffic!

Most domains parked at GoDaddy, Sedo, Moniker, etc do not receive more than a few visits from type-in traffic. My recommendation on the strategy here is to place specific micro sites or landing pages that can forward that traffic from a typed-in domain over to your main bread and butter site. You have to factor in the cost of the domain plus the landing page / micro site when you estimate that you’ll get 100 visitors a month, thousands if your domain is that good from type-in traffic.

Myth #3 – I got a single word domain!

So you got Beef.com? Just because it is generic does not mean it is good. You state that the word has branding capabilities, but that still does not make it an instant brand. Creating a brand is a large and costly undertaking. Almost as large as building out the site and software to run that website. Point: you need a good domain, a good plan and a good development schedule. (Funding for all usually helps tremendously as well)

Myth #4 – Buy 14 million domain names around a topic!

We come across this one a lot. I have two opinions on this. First you need to consider what is the branded terms that you want? If you want to be known for “Beef” then go and use the Beef.com domain. Remember that there will be others with the term “beef” that will be competing with you and selling the same product. Second, you need consider do you really need all the domains? This is two-part because at times I find myself contradicting myself. Yes, I’ll pay the $10/year for a domain just to have it forward over to the main domain or within the site on a specific section. I may use it in the future; money well spent. However, I will focus on the one domain as my brand and kill all the other .info, .mobi (yeah, a lot of us got screwed on these waiting for the mobile market) and maybe some .nets as well. I don’t need them, unless it is to deeply secure my marketplace by not allowing a competitor to have them. More-so see Myth #7.

I recommend going and hunting for a 3,4 or 5 letter domain. There are many available and with a small investment of a few to $10K, plus you will have a good name, good brand, usability for your consumer and advertising. Remember, they are not making any more 3,4 or 5 letter domain names. If you can get some at a reasonable cost then I advise to buy them and place them in your asset line.

Myth #5 – Buy a ton of category domain names – dominate!

There is way too much underestimating the lack of financing to develop, brand, market and grow a good category domain that comes across my desk. You can understand how to do it and believe that you can do it, but you are probably more than half underestimating the amount of work, time and $ it will take to make it happen. So if “TarjetaDeCrédito.com” becomes available and you want to buy it (means Credit Card in Spanish) think about how you will finance and set a time to plan, build, test, market, and monetize it. The whole process is an undertaking.

Myth #6 – You got an awesome domain, find a development company and do a revenue share!

We are courted on a regular basis with this question “Let’s become partners – I own the domain and you develop (vice versa) and we’ll split the revenue 50/50. No wait, I meant 60 me, 40 you.”

First of all, there is not enough time in the day. Second of all, the domain accounts for my staff in the office must be over 3,000 domains alone. We don’t have the time to develop every single domain. If we deeply had the interest we would be developing every single one of our own projects.

There isn’t enough time and there are too many good ideas and domains out there. It is too difficult to draft these rev-share agreements and the expectations out, both sides are rarely level. Start with a smaller project and build the relationship from there. Otherwise you are wasting your time and money, not to mention holding back your potential success.

Myth #7 – Buy more domains and Inter-Link Domains to grow ranking!

OK, it is not as easy as it seems and you will probably end up calling us because you got Google pissed and they deep-six’ed you. Unless you are a billion dollar company and can devote divisions of staff and $ to properly develop this out you are doing nothing more than inter-linking sites. This will do little good and could cause you to be labeled as a network, which will do you harm. This is Old SEO, stop it.

Myth #8 – Spend $$$ on the domain, Craigslist for the developer!

You spend how much money on a domain name and will not spend how much on development, branding and marketing? Not to mention the roll-out phase and ongoing enhancements.

You get what you pay for. Nuff said.

Myth #9 – No problem, I just buy my competitors name/product/model domain name and redirect!

Online infringement is real and there are many cases for even dumb attorneys to reference and follow. Trademark and Copyright infringement suits are real killers and usually (as the story goes) the one with the most money to litigate wins.

I was recently told a story by a client (Let’s call him Al) that made a lot of sense, even though how wrong it really is. Al developed a product and secured a domain name. Once launched Al found great success and started to turn a profit. Then a competitor (Let’s call Them ACME) came knocking – actually their legal team. Stating that their product name and domain was infringing on their brand mark. Al’s legal team said no, you have this secured and locked down, its a winning case. So Al called a meeting with ACME and his lawyers. Once ACME was presented with their findings and proof they agreed that yes, they could win the case proving there was no infringement.

It was at that time that the lead ACME attorney stood up, closed his briefcase and stated “Yes, you could win. But can you afford to prove that you’re the winner?”

Always do your research and use a legal team that is experienced in online IP. If you need references please contact me.

In closing….

I think you get the points made here, and before I say a lil’ too much let me finish with this simple summary:

• Do your homework. Research. Read. Hire a consultant. (like TM)
• Start in a small competitive corner of the marketplace and prove that you can make money
• Build a business model
• Allocate proper funding
• Invest in a good domain after research
• Invest in a good development & marketing firm after research
• Spend more money on engineering and good development than hype and potential
• In the end remember, there are another 99 like you trying to be the 1 that makes the successful, profitable product
• Cut your losses on a project that is heading south

Remember, You get what you pay for.

Many of these factors are not set in stone or considered the law. More so, these are factors that I, along with others, have speculated and tested as to their validity towards ranking a website. There are no official posts or documents released by a search engine that states “You have to do this and this” to rank a site. Most of this information comes from a long history of research, private conversations, trade shows and good ole’ testing.

Could you and should you take all factors into account for your site? I cannot say for sure, however I’ll start off with a few factors that should be considered to help you properly “optimize” your site to be embraced in a positive way by a search spider.

TM’s Top 5 Ranking factors

1. In-bound links to your site. Where they come from (TDL’s), frequency of newly acquired links and how long the links stay as signals to your site.
2. Link Profile Diversity. Anchor text in links, inner-site linking, topical diversity, IP diversity and backlinks, and authority within networks of sites.
3. Site Content. Proper title and meta description and other tags across the site. The actual content within the pages of your site, how often it is updated and saturation of keywords.
4. Domain. The contents of your domain, keywords included, age and how/length it is registered for.
5. Site Architecture. How the site is built in HTML, bloat and use of third party code.

While there is no one-trick pony, as Shoemoney likes to say, there are a number of factors that will contribute to your ranking success. Below are more detailed groups that are measured by the engines to determine your page ranking. Remember in the end of everything, we have seen websites that are horribly built and optimized that receive great traffic. Having good content that is frequently updated builds a strong following. Updating your site and adding relevant content is a signal that Google will answer to. The overall objective of a search engine is to provide relevant search results to an end user as quickly as possible without them having to refine their search. Doing so creates a loyal user and eventually one who will click on paid advertising.

Domain

1. Domain age. Older sites tend to rank better often because they have authority and legacy juice that follows.
2. Length of domain registration. The longer you register for the better.
3. Registration type. Privacy vs. open will make a difference.
4. Top level domain. A domain with a .com vs. a .info will rank better.
5. Geographical domain. A .com vs a .co.uk.
6. Past domain records. How many times a IP has changed.
7. Past domain owners. How often a ownership has changed.
8. Keyword in domain name.
9. Domain IP.
10. Domain IP neighbors.
11. Domain external mentions. (non-linked)
12. Geo targeting settings in Google Webmaster Tools.

Architecture

1. URL Structure:  using proper keywords in your links and auto-rewrite titles.
2. HTML Structure:  please don’t use tables or in-line styles.
3. Latent Semantic Index.
4. Use of CSS and JS.
5. Site Structure Accessibility.
6. Canonical URLs.
7. W3C compliance.

Server Side

1. Server geographic location.
2. Server up-time and accessibility.

Content

1. Content uniqueness.
2. Amount of content (html vs actual static text).
3. Content density (unlinked).
4. Pure content ratio (exclude images, html and other file weight).
5. Content topicality / timeliness.
6. Semantic information (phrase-based indexing and co-occurring phrase indicators).
7. Content flag for general category (transactional, informational, navigational).
8. Flagged keyword usage (gambling, adult, etc.).
9. Text in or surrounding images.
10. Malicious content (injected by hackers or other).
11. Keyword stuffing, repetition and variation of keywords and phrases.
12. Use of absolutely unique /new phrases.

Internal Cross-Linking

1. Number of internal links to a page.
2. Number of internal links to a page and anchor text.
3. Number of internal links to page from content (instead of navigation bar, breadcrumbs, etc).
4. Number of internal links to a page using the No-Follow attribute.

Website Signals

1. Use of a Robots.txt file.
2. Site size (individual pages and overall number of pages).
3. Site update frequency.
4. Content duplication with other pages of the site.
5. Page content reading level.
6. Page load time.
7. Page type / authority relevant to domain (about us page vs. home page).
8. Page internal popularity. Amount of internal links.
9. Page external popularity. Amount of external links.

Page Specific Signals

1. Page Title.
2. Page meta robots tag.
3. Page age.
4. Page freshness. (Frequency of edits and % of page effected ‘changed’ by page edits).
5. Content duplication on page and in conjunction to other pages in the site. (internal duplicate content)
6. Page content reading level.
7. Page load time.
8. Page authority: how many external links pointing in to specific individual pages.
9. Page external popularity: how many external links it has relevant to other pages of this site.

Keyword Usage

1. Keywords in the title of a page.
2. Keywords in the beginning of a page title.
3. Keywords in ALT Tags.
4. Keywords in external anchor text link tags.
5. Keywords in internal anchor text link tags.
6. Keywords in the anchor text of outbound links.
7. Keywords in bold and italic text.
8. Keywords in the beginning of body text.
9. Keywords in overall body text.
10. Keyword synonyms relating to page content keywords
11. Keywords in file names (.html .bmp .jpg .gif .etc).
12. Keywords in URL names.
13. Randomness use of keywords in relevancy to site content.
14. Use and abuse of keywords.

Outbound Links

1. Number of outbound links per page.
2. Number of outbound links per domain.
3. Quality of pages the site links in to.
4. Relevancy of outbound links.
5. Links to bad neighborhoods.
6. Links to 404 pages
7. Links to SEO Agencies.
8. Hot linked images to external sites.
9. Hot linked images to internal site pages.

Back Link Profile

1. Relevancy of sites linking in.
2. Relevancy of sites linking in to specific pages.
3. Quality of sites linking in.
4. Quality of Site pages linking in to specific pages.
5. Back links within networks of sites.
6. Co-citations (which sites have similar back link sources).
7. Link profile diversity:
   • Anchor text
   • IP
   • TDL’s
   • Geography
   • Types of sites linking in (Directories, blogs, etc.)
   • Link placements and types (anchor text vs. link images)
8. Authority links (WSJ, EDU’s, GOV)
9. Reciprocal link ratio.
10. Social Media links.
11. Backlink trends and patterns
12. Wiki and DMOZ citations and links; age.
13. Historical backlink profile.
14. Social bookmarking links; age.

Separate Backlink Factors

1. Authority of TDL’s (.com vs .edu vs. .gov)
2. Authority of domain linking in.
3. Authority of page linking in.
4. Anchor of link.
5. Location of link (content body in text vs footer).
6. Title attribute.

Visitor Profile

1. Number of visitors.
2. Demographic of visitors.
3. Bounce rate.
4. Return ratio.
5. Visitor trends and patterns.
6. How often certain results are clicked vs. others.

Penalties, Filters and Manipulation

1. Keyword over usage.
2. Paid link flag.
3. Link seller flag.
4. Spam records.
5. Cloaking.
6. Hidden text.
7. Duplicate content.
8. History for domain.
9. History for owner.
10. Hacker attack records.
11. 301 flags: double re-directs/re-direct loops, or re-directs ending in 404 error.

Misc. Additional Factors

1. Domain registration with Google Webmaster Tools.
2. Domain notice in news sites.
3. Domain notice in Blog search, other serach sites (search.twitter.com etc.).
4. Domain notice in AdWords / AdCenter.
5. Domain notice in Analytics.
6. Business name / brand name external mentions.

First thing first, is your website achieving the goal of attracting more visitors and leads?

• The reason you are redesigning is to impact your business to increase sales and revenue.
• Attracting more visitors and leads should be the focus of the redesign.
• Don’t worry about what shade of green to use. Spend more time worrying about how you will improve your internet marketing results.

Don’t fix something that is not broken.

• You’ve spent a lot of time building your current website to accommodate your customers.
• These accommodations were made to help your customers find you on the internet.
• Find out what aspects are working and then secure them during your redesign.

Maintain ongoing content that attracts visitors to your website.

• Most visitors are going to be attracted to your site by the content that is on your site.
• While design is important, the more valuable content your website offers the more visitors will come to visit.
• It is important to build a strategy to continuously add content to your website.

Include the essential elements to building traffic to your website.

• Most business websites should include a blog. Blogs are a great way to add ongoing content to bring more visitors to your site. Also, this is a great vehicle to converse and get to you know your visitors better.
• Make your content available to other sites with an RSS feed. With an RSS feed you can have your content pulled from your page and automatically sent to other websites and people, which increases your reach.
• To ensure you are getting value out of your traffic it is important to have landing pages. Your landing pages are what are going to capture your leads and convert them to sales.
• Include SEO in your design process. SEO will allow prospective customers to find your website through the search engines, which is very important if you want to increase traffic.

Redesigning your website can directly help increase traffic and sales. However, understanding all the aspects that go into a redesign can be troubling. TM can surely help you out, feel free to contact us.

What about the local self-proclaimed expert (who just became that recently since they learned about SEO a few short months ago) that tells you how it has never been a better time to create a powerful online presence for your company or organization, but you must use their “system.”

They tell you to search some obscure phrase like “Walking Blue Dogs in Portland” to show that they are ranked #1. Maybe they even said to search for their name to see all the Google results for their complete name, middle included so you can “ohhhh and ahhhh” over how they dominate search results.

What is painfully unclear to them is that the competition for their name is minimal. No one wants to be them, or rank for their name, since they live in obscurity. The only thing larger in their life is, well, their ego.

Fact of the matter is that you should have no problem ranking for your name. Here are a few common sense tips on how to do it, for free.

#1 Can you purchase your name as a domain name? Yes? Great! Google loves keywords in domain names. They have about 200+ ranking factors in their algorithm and the domain name and keywords contained sits in the top 20.

#2 So your name is Tom Smith and someone has your name registered? No problem, go for Thomas or with a dash between the first and last name. Google see’s a dash as a space and will conjoin or separate the words for ranking purposes. Don’t want the dash? Re-purpose your name as Thomas and start using that in your marketing and in 3rd person in your materials and online. Signature link to your website included.

#3 When posting blogs, or commenting on others use your name and link that to your new site.

#4 Claim your Google Business listing, Yahoo! and Bing as well. Make sure to use your name.

#5 Take a browse and free search on your name at http://www.knowem.com. This will search about the top 100 social networks out there and see if your profile name is available. Snatch them up!

#6 Facebook, Twitter and StumbleUpon – go get your name or a variation of it. LinkedIn too (you should be here already)

Once you start using your name in many places, and it links back to your site you should start to see search results in the top 10, if not top 5 or 3 for your given name.

As an extra SEO tip that the “other guy” didn’t tell you, make sure to not always link just to your home page. Spread that “link juice” around to your internal pages of importance as well. Try another category page, or an important blog post. That way Google crawls and indexes other pages beside your home page. We don’t want everyone just showing up at the home page right?

Lastly “link juice” is the value of the keywords and anchor text that carries your website link from another site. Google uses and takes consideration of the “words” that you use to help rate and rank pages and conjoin relevance to keyword phrases in their search results.

That other guy think “link juice” is a new metabolic energy drink that replenishes electrolytes after a 10k run. And he thinks it probably has too much sugar too.

In closing, to prove how easy it is to rank for your name or an obscure term try search for the example that I used earlier. Walking Blue Dogs in Portland search in Google yields what result?

Right, it’s such a hard thing to do that you need to pay to learn this.

Sorry “other marketing guy”.

Not Good

Studies have shown that companies that invest in traditional or online marketing during a recession saw growth while those who cut their budgets saw a decrease in sales. Without the proper funds, resources, expertise, and focus, companies can turn to outsourced marketing to handle their marketing needs.

Companies can utilize outsourced marketing as full-service marketing department for a cost that is often less than a full-time employee. There is a cost-saving measure as marketing services continue to get more intricate in order to adapt to the economic environment. More and more companies are taking their marketing campaigns to the internet. The internet offers a plethora of marketing opportunities for companies. Establishing and maintaining an online marketing campaign in house doesn’t make sense for many companies when they can utilize an outsourced marketing firm. An outsourced marketing firm is going to have a better understanding and specialize in utilizing the internet for marketing initiatives. Chances have it they are going to be cost-effective and help increase your revenue while saving your business money.

A report assembled by the Brown-Wilson Group, “The Black Book of Outsourcing”, states that outsourcing is predicted to exceed the $3.5 billion mark in 2012, representing a 41% annual growth rate from 2008. Outsourced marketing allows companies to eliminate employee overhead and have a clear focus on developing their branding, advertising, and PR. An outsourced marketing agency can then translate all of these aspects onto the internet. A full-service outsourced online marketing agency will provide:

• Online marketing strategy and delivery
• Branding and positioning
• Web sites and blogs
• Search engine optimization (SEO)

Companies need to first figure out where they need help and then search for an outsourced marketing agency that specialize in those areas. With more and more people utilizing the internet for their inquiries it is imperative for companies to establish an Internet presence. Perhaps you only want to launch an online marketing campaign, but aren’t positive what it entails. If this is the case an outsourced online marketing agency is a great choice when you are looking for the best results on the Internet. Asking questions and finding the right answers is one of the best ways in finding an outsourced marketing partner. When you do find the right partner the flexibility and cost-effectiveness of outsourcing can provide your company with a reliable and efficient alternative to an in-house marketing staff.

If you are interested in online marketing for your business, Trademark Productions can help you with all of your needs. Trademark Productions is established and highly experienced in all aspects of internet marketing from search engine optimization (SEO), consulting and training, to website design and development. For further information on how we can improve your online marketing please feel free to contact us.

Testing can save you time and money.

If you are thinking about building a site that gives away a free e-book some simple testing could go a long way and it could only cost a few hundred dollars. If you want to launch a blog in a specific marketplace you would benefit a ton before hand by researching and connecting with bloggers before your launch. While this seems like common sense you would be surprised on how many people overlook these simple research methods.

Know what your customers are looking for.

An older man cares about losing weight and feeling better about himself. A twenty-something young man wants to look good so he can attract the opposite sex. The same product could have an entirely different appeal and meaning to consumers depending on the age group.

A lot of time you can figure this out by doing a simple survey. We use specific software here for TM, but other services like SurveyMonkey will suffice. Also, reading between the lines when you speak with customers is imperative. What I have learned is that people will be honest with you most of the time and tell you why at twenty years old they really want to get in to shape. However there is also probably an underlying motivating factor that is similar, which will push them in to action. This factor is usually an irrational reason, but as a potential sale this is what you are looking for.

Finding this irrational reason is not easy but it is worth the research. Knowing it can help you connect with your customers internal ideals and make selling to them much easier.

Speak your customer’s language.

Since I’m using weight loss as an example we will continue on this. If you are selling your product promising six-pack abs to a woman it probably has a very small audience. Like the 1% that compete in national bodybuilding contents. You need to take a look at the covers of women fitness magazines and browse the articles. See how those authors are speaking to their demographic.

The women fitness magazines will use terms like “lose belly fat” while a men’s magazine will state “get rock-hard six-pack abs”.

These are things that just a few hours of research can tell you. And it’s the difference between a profitable project and one that does nothing but keep you wondering “what went wrong?”.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

In hindsight whether you’re launching a new company website, selling an e-book or selling your own product and services, you need to make sure you do your research. Studying and understanding everything you can about your potential customers allows you to directly position your message with them. Even if you cannot afford a full study a few simple hours of research in blogs, forums and a fast survey can do you wonders when launching your next site or campaign.

Algorithms will change. The Florida Update of 2003, Big Daddy in 2005 and a few of significance in between. Ranking updates are not always a bad thing. There are only 10 results by default on a search engine ranking page. People move up, people move down. This is what SEO is all about.

So how can you make sure that you take full benefit of the Caffeine update? You need to understand the changes coming and how Caffeine will work.

Caffeine Content

Caffeine is used to give you a sharper focus and speed, keep you alert. Search results will be served up faster since Google is rewriting their indexing system to crawl websites faster, index with better efficiency and serve up results more quickly. Fresh content will play a major role since Google loves to serve up the latest and greatest to their users. Old, outdated content will be readily purged.

Caffeine = Link Juice

Nothing better than a fresh-squeezed cup of OJ in the morning. Google feels that you should be refreshed every time you search. What our tests are showing is that links still play a major part in helping your rankings. Caffeine does not appear to be changing the criteria of off-page factors, rather on-page factors of a site. This is still good news. SEO is still very alive.

In order for your back links to be more effective you should consider directing them towards pages on your site that load faster, have clean well-structured code, can accommodate a flatter crawl structure and has a higher percentage of targeted, relevant content. If you site has a fair amount of pages with re-purposed content or redundant template content, Caffeine will not like you.

Got the Caffeine Jitters?

Yes, this is a big change for everyone – Google included. You will invariably see a fluctuation both positive and negative in your organic search rankings. Your changes will rely in part on how well you adhere to guidelines and recommendations outlined by Big Brother. This will set you apart from your competition. Understanding is half the battle and will allow you to make effective and appropriate changes. Be proactive and reactive.

Get the Help You Need

A well defined analysis of where you are at and what needs to happen can make all the difference. Is your site ready for Caffeine? Have you been affected already? Chances are we can help! We are more than happy to make an initial assessment to your site and give you some tips to help you along your way. It’s easy to contact TM or sign-up for one of our fresh, organic, no preservatives training courses at the new TM Web Design and SEO School. Classes are hands-on and weekly in Royal Oak, MI, just outside Detroit.

Today the internet is a must for any business large or small. Search Engines such as Google, Yahoo! and Bing provide numerous opportunities for us to gain more visitors, leads, calls and sales. In the past twelve months Social Media has been a large focus in the media. Google has announced the largest update to the algorithm since 2005 called Caffeine. With so many factors that change daily, how are we as marketers able to quickly adapt to the online marketplace for us and our clients?

In this session I will outline many components that help you embrace what the search engines want, how to stay on top of new search engine marketing (SEM) strategies and how to gather intelligence on what competitors are doing.

This meeting is open to members, students and the public. I hope to see you there, or at any of our other sessions and training classes at the TM Web School in Royal Oak, MI.

More information and tickets for the American Marketers Event is available at http://amadetroit.com.

The United States economy has really put a hold on corporate spending, with estimates near 15% in overall ad spending there are signs of a slight recovery towards the end of the year. So far, the holidays for our clients, and the chatter we hear from others are reporting stable to little dip over last year. Well last year was not all that hot so I’m not sure if that is half full or empty.

Online Search and Development

Google still dominates search uses, with some 65% of all consumers, with Yahoo! in 2nd place at 18%; Bing comes in at just under 10%. Ask and AOL make up the difference. Microsoft, David (Bing) to combat Goliath (Google,) announced a partnership with Yahoo! that solidified in December. Bing will start to supply the search results for Yahoo! in 2010 and combine advertising forces too, I am sure. This should be an interesting race to grab my, and other agency, ad dollars for online marketing. (I was never a big fan of the ultra-slow Yahoo Search Marketing platform and archaic ad approval speed.) In other news Time Warner completed a spinoff of AOL, not that anyone really cared.

Getting Mobile, Getting Local

We have new smart phones, the Apple iPhone turns three years old and Google Android is becoming more popular. Heated mobile debates are still running rapid (should we all get rid of the .mobi domains we all invested in?) However, clean fast browsing on your mobile device is a sign that things are only going to get better. Smart phones are now offering new areas for agencies, small businesses and marketers to reach. Local advertising from Google and their push to small advertisers are showing positive results. This December they even announced their testing of QR Codes for phones, which are bar codes that you don’t need to print.

Speaking of Google, they are hot-to-trot with Android, their open source operating system for phones. So, no more over-priced iPhone app development, numerous revisions and waiting period to release on iTunes. They are also testing out some cool stuff with search by voice, search by sight (Google Goggles which is pretty cool too) and search by location or product. I had the opportunity to play with the new Google phone over the holiday break and it is cool. It was officially launched at CES last week in Las Vegas.

Personalized Search

While customized search results for you are not anything new, in December Google announced that they are personalizing results for all users. A small cookie keeps your history data for 180 days. For this reason, it is my opinion that search engine ranking reports are dead. They don’t matter anymore (not that I ever said they did for a long time, it’s all about a combined effort of your rankings and conversion on-site) and SEO’s should be optimizing for a target audience. This would include social strategies, focused keyword strategies, fresh quality content, better site usability and using analytics to its maximum capacity for user/site intelligence.

Real-Time Searching

Twitter, Twitter-Twitter. I’m bored of it now, but that should not sway your decision to get your company involved. I was tired of this word “Twitter” after my PubCon conference this past November; tons of sessions on marketing and gaining followers. And a good reason this new social media tool should not go unnoticed is that Google, Yahoo! And Bing all added social search components to their engines. Search.twitter.com is a daily stop for me fishing for leads, engaging others in conversations and seeing what the competition is doing (three great tips there!). Twitter also showed us that there is a new “spam” outlet to abuse by all. Herbal Viagra anyone?

Cloud Formations

Cloud computing is taking the world by storm, and for good reason. Expanded storage space, easier remote access and improved collaboration are strong points for the change. Using clouds for your file hosting of your website could improve speed performance which Google has claimed to like. Privacy and security are still a bit of a concern for the adoption. Twitter employees got hacked and a bit of their financial statements were leaked. Not good. However, this can be combated with a strong password and accessibility policy in your organization. Overall I say “reach for the sky and grab a cloud in 2010.”

What Twenty-Ten Holds

Google Caffeine is rolling out as a new search engine. Minimal differences will be apparent to the average user, but will show results faster, more accurate and more comprehensive. I am sure another update will follow the first quarter as well. SEO this year should be fun and interesting as I am sure more and more revenue-lacking, traditional advertising agencies will be becoming SEO experts. It has been a hot word for a while now, so they will be behind and of course give us a bad name.

True ROI, in terms of bottom-line numbers reported in annual reports and quarterly statements, will continue to elude the usability profession. Wake up please; website usability is a huge factor in your online campaign’s success.

Twitter will roll out a new advertising platform. It’s been in the works for a bit under the covers (shhhhh I was not supposed to say). Ad.ly and SponsoredTweets.com have been monetizing Twitter for a few months and I am sure we will see more sponsored conversations. I’m convinced it can work when executed properly. Also look for Facebook and Twitter to become strong challengers to Google.

Speaking of Social Media… I think we will see some real case studies and strategies outlined for social media success. Bottom line is to be genuine and get in the conversation and help people. Stop selling stuff. Let it happen naturally.

Expensive keywords will plague our industry all year. With the integration of Bing and Yahoo! to take place, (can we please do away with Yahoo Search Marketing please? I never liked the new version) there will be a new wave of over-inflated per-click pricing as the two giants try to level things out. Seems to be happening every 2-3 years now anyways. Also, expect paid search to go multi-channel, and the online to offline conversion and vice versa will become a factor.

Two words: Google phone (or Nexus One). Game changer and new revenue stream for the big G. People will be talking about this all year. Did someone say “iPhone Killer.”

Start-up 2010: We will see more people, regular “Joe” individuals, go into an online business. From home, following an idea or hobby they have perfected, more and more individuals will start a business and it will be an online business. Ford offering early buy-outs again in January plus an overall ailing economy and lack of job growth will encourage people with more time on their hands to take a stab at their own business. My opinion is to go for it, and remember we are here to help – even at the early planning stages.

And lastly…Links. Links and more links. Back links are still essential to help you achieve better rankings. It’s a simple formula tried and tested. Write great content that people like, comment on and publish often. Create a great tool and give it away. Do a study and release a white paper. These tactics produce quality content that Google loves, and if people love it too, they will link to it naturally.

Have a great Twenty-Ten!

This has a large factor on how your staff or agency optimizes your code. Some of the “What You See Is What You Get” (WYSIWYG) web editors such as Dreamweaver or FrontPage (people still use these?) could mask the amount of bloat they place in your code slowing down the load time. Translation: This could hurt your rankings.

So how does your site speed stack up against the rest of the web? Google Webmaster Tools can help you out with this. So can TM. Google also launched a FireFox plugin called Page Speed that, by golly, checks the load time of your website pages. Some of the other noted (*cough* marketing) benefits are:

• Keep your website users engaged

• Reduce bandwidth and hosting fees
• Improve the web!

In the month of September, Chitika found that 20% of all Facebook users visited the website four or more times per week, and are considered to be loyal users. While the loyal traffic of Facebook was compared to that of Twitter, Bing, Digg, Google, Yahoo, all major traffic sources, there are certain reasons why the social networking website is leading the way. WebProNews  writer, Chris Crum, is more than aware of how Facebook is used to create a brand following.

“When a Facebook user frequently checks for status updates, he/she is likely to see new posts made from Facebook Pages he/she is subscribed to.This means creating a Facebook page can have a great effect on page owners. Making readers aware of the page is key as well. Luckily, Facebook has a widget called the Fan box that you can put on your site, which can lead new visitors directly to your Facebook page. Facebook has also just updated another important widget – the share button. Now it will provide a live count of shares, as well as analytical information. You can find out how people are sharing and engaging with your content, and gain further insight into how your stuff is doing with the Facebook community (and adjust your strategy accordingly).”

Companies, like that of Budweiser, have discovered the benefits of branding through social media and networking, and are reaping the rewards through a very strong and large fan base. Because Budweiser wanted to use Facebook as an outlet to gain a following, they had clear-cut objectives with what they wanted to accomplish while a part of the popular social networking and media website. 1. Create brand awareness through a strong fan base and social channel opt-ins, 2. Incentivize users to engage with the brand on a regular basis, and 3. Convert new customers and drive increase in sales.

Each company and business has their own demographic they want to reach, and methods on how they want to utilize social media into their own plans. If your company wants to use social media as an avenue and way to broadcast your brand effectively, Metro Detroit’s Trademark Productions is here to show you how a website like Facebook can help get the brand loyalty you want and deserve.

Great Tips I learned on Links:

Internal On-Page Links – Footer the same on every page means Google will not give a larger ranking for those links in your site.  Get random from page to page on your footer and play up the changes in anchor text. Footerlinks are almost borderline detrimental. They used to help a ton, not so much anymore.

Unique Content – need to have this on every page of your site. This is almost a no brainier.

Spread the Juice! – Make sure that you place inbound links to various pages of your site. Different categories, different pages should get links from other sites. Not everything should just be your homepage. Need a suggestion? Follow the layout of a newspaper. Not everyone wants the homepage of the latest breaking news. There are different sections and even one for “sports.” That makes sense and speak to specific audiences that all want “news”, just some want specific news.

Link building is ongoing – You know your competitors and it is important to watch the ones that are beating you. Now reverse engineer your competitors backlinking strategy. Use tools for this analysis like Majestic SEO 0r the SEO Toolbar

Blog Reviews – Buying blog reviews and links can cause a cycle that has a short term advantage and also a long term problem.

Value of Neighbor Links - make sure that were you get links from have relevant neighbor links. If you are an online store for Holiday Wrapping Paper and get links from sites that place you in the sidebar with camping gear, long-term health insurance and car wax, then you need to consider that those neighbors may be de-valuing your link juice effectiveness.

Spread the love – focus on keywords but don’t sell yourself short on just 5, 10 or 15 keywords for anchortext in backlinks.

Need to know your backlinks or competitors backlinks? Go to Yahoo! and type in the search bar “linkdomain:sitedomain.com -site:yoursitedomain.com”

#1 Check your content – A lot of sites we look at these days don’t use the right keywords. Automated feeds sometimes will not give the right keywords or skip the long-tail keywords. Make sure you are target the right keywords.

#2 Mining your site search – look through the search and see what people are actually looking for.

#3 Creating some good content – learning centers and buyers guides are great resources for visitors and can gain powerful, natural backlinks.

#4 Develop a blog – its not that hard to do, be active and tie in with social media.

#5 Unique product descriptions – don’t use the canned manufactures description. Put time and effort in here and create unique product descriptions.

#6 Semantics – use web standards. CSS, DIV, H1, H2, H3 – make the pages slimmer and easy to load.

#7 Be wary of View State – for those of you using .NET sites make your IT or developers aware of this. Push it to the bottom of the page.

#8 Fix the internal links – make the site easy to use and “visitor friendly.” use keywords in your categories, URL’s should be clean and easy to read. Rewrite your URL’s – it’s 2009 and your missing the boat.

#9 Beware of filtered navigation. You don’t want a garbled mess. Don’t have tons of reputation pages that can be filtered out with Robots.txt.

#10 What to do with discontinued products? Use a 301 or a 302, maybe a 404? Make sure you have a plan for these and remember that it is a bad practice to have a lot of 404′s.

#11 Mini sites and more – maybe consider a small site where you can get a great domain with the right keywords? Check out http://www.dealerKeyTags.com and see how this functions as a landing page site that ranks well in organic search. A mini site can also be used for a comparison site such as http://www.livechatcomparision.com where they hired an outside company to do a comparison of there services against competition. S long as it is true and facts then you are ok and have the ability to gain relevance for your competitors name.

#12 Tie-in your traditional campaigns to your online campaigns – if you are doing traditional media make sure that when someone watches, hears or see’s your commercial or ad that they can go to a search engine, search the “keywords” and make sure you show up. Not just your competitors.

#13 Test and Test – never stop testing.

#14 Tie in your social media with your site – Make sure your Facebook, Twitter, Blog, etc. are all branded the same and contain references to each other. If your visitors touch-point

#15 Live like your customers – try to take a run through your site like a customer and see what they see. Drive like they drive.

Huh?

Let me clarify. Google does not use the keyword meta tag, or meta description to influence their search results of a said website over another. They will, however, in certain situations use the meta description tag for a snippet in a search result. (if it is good we are told)

This was a response in numerous legal cases where it was argued that a defendant was using the plaintiff’s name, trademarked keyword or phrase in their meta tags to rank, or have relevance for them in a search result. Many have tried to cite Google saying that these tags played an effect in the ranking of a website over another. Not true, at least in regards to Google.

Google uses over two hundred signals in their web search rankings, but the keywords meta tag is not currently one of them, and they don’t believe it will be.

In regards to using a competitor’s name or trademarked / copyright in your meta tags? I’d stay far away from that as possible. We have consulted attorney’s over the past few years in regards to infringement cases. They are never cheap and it’s easy to see where the infringement happens online.

If you need help with your website optimization, or consulting involving an online trademark or copyright infringement feel free to contact us.

There are a large number of online resources available to help explain how to measure social media ROI. Generally most people agree on what strategies work, but breakdown the information in different formats and explanations. In Mark Hayward’s article, “Measuring Social Media ROI – Does size matter?” he explains how the size of your company does not determine the success of your social media campaign. Large and small companies alike can use these strategies and achieve their desired results.

A blog post by Jamie Lee Wallace titled “Social Media Measurement It’s like being a great bartender,” compares bar tending to social media measurement.

“A good bartender earns repeat visitors by remembering the names and drinks of the regulars, engaging new visitors in friendly discussion and sharing news and insight about the local scene. It’s not all about how many sales you can make in an hour. There is definitely an intangible “return on chatter” that helps create an image or brand for the bar,” states Wallace.

It is important to realize the difference between Impact and ROI. Impact depends more on whether or not relationships have improved, if messages were communicated the way you wanted them to and if you achieved the type of exposure you wanted. ROI depends more on if your sales or revenue increased, did the right people show up and if your audience changed.

The qualitative benefits of social media support the goal of financial impact or ROI. It is important to focus on what the data tells us and use that to the best of our ability to manage a highly integrated campaign that is not just about “social media,” but about delivering a great message and using smart marketing techniques to do that.

An article in B-to-B magazine titled “You CAN Measure Social Media ROI,” by Paul Gillin pinpoints the best ways to measure ROI and achieve the best results.

1. Focus Gillin suggests choosing 5 metrics to focus on.  Narrow down your metrics to the ones you think are most important for your business and go from there. Start off with well-defined business goals and ways to analyze the impact. Breakdown the benefits, goals and outcomes you want to obtain.

a.    GOAL – What do you want social media to do for your business?
b.    PLAN How will the goals be achieved?
c.    IMPLEMENT & EXECUTE Put your plan into action.
d.    MEASURE What are the measurable results?

i.    How are people hearing about my business? One way to you can track visitors is to ask them how they found out about you.
ii.    Which of my efforts are bringing the most traffic (blogs, forums, etc)
iii.    Am I drawing the right people? Are people satisfied with my site once they get here?
iv.    Are we closing a sale?

2. Know What Works Everyone on marketing team should know your 5 most productive referring web sites. A majority of your marketing efforts should go towards those sites.

3. Understand Influence Is it better to get a retweet from someone who may send 20 to your site as opposed to someone like Guy Kawasaki, who can send over 1,000 people to your website? The answer may seem obvious. Of course Kawasaki may be able to drive more traffic to your site then you at the moment, but over time if your friend can achieve enough referrals and can manage to have them stick around, then they might be more influential then you think. It is important to track visitor paths to see how people get to your site, if they stayed, bought something and if they left, where did they go?

4. Be Unique The link you use on Twitter should be different than the one you use on Facebook. Know the source of every click and watch where people go.

5. It’s not just about your site Important conversations about your site could be happening on other websites. It’s all about community relations and establishing your brand and start people talking.

6. Coax conversations back to your site to measure the results Entice people to actually go to your site. Figure out a way to draw people to your site besides “click here.” What is going to set you a part from the competition?

7. Monitor the Competition The tools you use to track your progress can also be used to track your competitors. It is important to know what your competitors are doing and determine what is or is not working for them to help determine your own strategy.

8. Net Promoter Score or any big-picture metric -  you might consider using this type of metric to keep track of potential customers. One question provides the best predictor of customer loyalty for the vast majority of businesses: How likely is it that you would recommend (Company/Product X) to a friend or colleague? Using a 0 to 10 scale, you can calculate your Net Promoter Score (NPS) by taking the percentage of Promoters, and subtracting the percentage of Detractors.

9. Time Successful programs may take 1 to 2 years before showing solid results, so if you are looking for a quick fix for your brand, then maybe this not the route you should be following.

Social media has become a great way to expand your business opportunities. It is not only about using the different outlets that are available, but about discovering what strategies work best for you, which ones are not working and to constantly analyze everything you’ve done to see if it’s on the right track. It is not an easy task, but definitely something worthwhile that if done correctly can have a tremendous impact for your business.

1.    Start off by first examining your Meta tags. This includes the Title and Description tags. It is important to make sure that every page on your site has not only unique content, but also Title and Description tags that reflect the page. This is one of the most critical areas that search engines look over. Your tags should include keywords and geo-specific information. This is very easy to do if you have not done this already and it does not take a long time.

2.    Perform your own searches. If you are selling costumes then simply plug in your keyword(s) (costumes) and search on a global and geo- specific scale to examine backlinks that you and your competitors are using. You can search for a free backlink checker that will show you a list of sites that your competitors are linked to. It is important to check this because you want to stay current with your competitors and ensure that you are on the right track.

3.    Verify your links to make sure there are not any problems or “broken links”. You can use a free online program to help you out. Simply go to a search engine and look for a free link checker to verify that everything is running correctly.

4.    Google Analytics is a very simple tool to use that can give you very valuable information about why people are visiting your site, what keywords they are using to get there, how they were referred to your site, how long they viewed your site and more. All you are required to do is sign-up and paste a unique code into your HTML that will instantly track everything for you. With this information you can easily figure out what keywords people are using to find your site and tweak your website to target specific markets. The best part is that this service is FREE for you to use.

5.    Alexa is another tool that helps to monitor traffic levels of your website. It is a database of information about sites that includes statistics, related links and more.  You can download the Alexa toolbar and quickly monitor your results. Find ways to encourage visitors to your site to help boost your ranking.

Overall, these are simple tips that if you utilize correctly can deliver great results for your company or client you are representing. Keep in mind that nothing is guaranteed, but if you apply these techniques to your marketing strategy you will see improvements.

If you’re in need of some SEO help, contact us today.

A lot of people have suspected that Google is crawling JavaScript for some time but due to the random nature of it nobody has done extensive testing to prove either way. Testing this sort of thing is a waste of time because Google has different crawling rules for different sites and whatever is true today probably won’t be true tomorrow.

The changes were revealed by Vanessa Fox and are based around the way Google handles non-standard web links.

Googlebot is now able to construct much of the page and can access the onClick event contained in most tags. For now, if the onClick event calls a function that then constructs the URL, Googlebot can only interpret it if the function is part of the page (rather than in an external script).

Some examples of code that Googlebot can now execute include:

• <div onclick="document.location.href='http://foo.com/'">
• <tr onclick="myfunction('index.html')"><a href="#" onclick="myfunction()">new page</a>
• <a href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="window.open('welcome.html')">open new window</a>

These links pass both anchor text and PageRank.

This is welcome news from Google, even if it changes things a bit. With an algorithm built on links there is no reason Google should count some links and discount others just because of the way they are implemented. From a users point of view if you can click on a link then it’s a real link and that’s how Google should see them too.

This change does bring about some interesting issues and I wonder how many sites will suddenly see thousands of new pages being indexed or a massive boost in rankings as links that previously didn’t count are suddenly used by Google.

Google would be wise to make a big announcement regarding this change otherwise webmasters could be tricked into violating Google’s link selling guidelines by offering JavaScript links which actually pass PageRank.

Article originally posted on BlogStorm

Now, isn’t online trademark, copyright and litigation issues fun? Who really knows the answers?

Trademark Productions was retained for this case as a material witness and has been called in for others as well as technical software and SEO experts. This case in particular is very interesting and is still being played out.

Another court has ruled that a websites’ use of a competitor’s mark in meta tags can create a “likelihood of confusion” sufficient to support a trademark infringement claim under the Lanham Act. In Deltek, Inc., v. Iuvo Systems, Inc.  Software company Deltek alleged that competitor Iuvo had, among other things, infringed upon Deltek’s trademarks by using them in the meta tags of the iuvosystems.com website. Deltek sought a preliminary injunction against this and other uses of Deltek’s marks on Iuvo’s site. A federal court in Virginia granted Deltek’s motion, finding that Iuvo’s “use of Deltek’s trademarks as meta tags may … create a likelihood of confusion.” This case indicates that caution should be used when considering the use of a competitor’s mark in a website meta tag.

So if this is to be used as an example, it is my suggestion to be careful in how you tag your website code for optimization purposes. It is easy enough for an SEO Firm like ours to pick out meta data on a website and show where you could be misleading “internet traffic and search engines” to your website by using competitors trademarked terms.

I was inspired by a friend, Jeremy Schoemaker to write this post. He recently had a rant and rave that resonated with me. More so I was approached be a competitor’s employee recently that was very unethical, willing to divulge their secrets and even offered to help bring over their clients to us. On a level of 1-10 their sales ability may be 30%, their technical knowledge was the same but their cocky Mr. Know-it-all level was pressing a 9. Plus they wanted to make $100,000 and only in the field for 2 years. Under 30, fresh from college and ready to eat the world. Gotta love the cesspool of web design and SEO.

We do receive applications from people in the “agency” industry, who claim to know web marketing and SEO. Also recent college graduates who’s parents have lead them to believe that the world will take care of you and make sure that you always have a wallet full of 50′s.They seem to feel that their previous, inflated agency job making a “phat 60″ was the norm. Their $70,000 bachelors degree was their ticket to paradise – the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory “golden ticket.”

When applying some will even be super cocky and tell you everything that you are doing wrong with your business. They tell you they can recreate “the Google” and have won major awards, are a magnet at the bar and prefer to travel for work to exotic places on my expense. They even recite major industry sources like AdWeek, Search Engine News and “The Google” to tell me what I am doing wrong for our clients. And of course they have little to ZERO real world experience.

I used to just smile, shake my head and throw their email or resume away. However in recent months with the continued frequency I actually feel bad for them. So I decided to write them an open letter.

Dear Recent College Graduate or Web Design Super-SEO Guru,

Congratulations on receiving your college degree. I am sure your parents have worked long hours and sacrificed a ton to allow you to waste their money.

I am sure that you are very talented for such a young age. Your grandparents must be very proud and think you are then next best thing to painkillers and McDonald’s morning coffee. However you are about to get a rude awakening.

You need to realize that any idiot can:

• be taught to sell anything
• use Dreamweaver or FrontPage
• use Photoshop or Illustrator
• learn to admin a server
• write title tags and meta tags
• start a Google AdWords campaign
• affiliate marketing

However there are fewer and fewer people on earth that have the above skills and these too:

• have a positive work ethic
• can finish what they start
• understand promises, commitments and deadlines
• can be trusted
• can follow directions

Technical ability can only get you so far. Most technical people will only ever do what they need to to get by- and these people have very little marketability.

If you just graduated college, you have a work ethic and can finish what you start. But now the real work starts. Don’t be afraid to learn more and get some real world experience before you flash your degree around.

Also, FYI- many people in our industry have minimum to little schooling aside from the school of hard knocks.

Best of Luck!

Dwight

Time. Get listed again, and again, and again in Google.

Google Google Google. While a majority of your traffic probably does come from Google it is not the only place that you should be focusing your marketing efforts on. Clients ask us all the time about ways to help drive traffic to your website, and help you with SEO at the same time. Not every company or individual can afford to spend thousands of dollars each month on advertising. So you need to find some useful cost-effective ways to promote.

I have compiled a running list and figured it was a good “tip sheet” to offer our readers.

Social Bookmarking
These can be great for getting links and direct traffic. Use Digg, Mixx, StumbleUpon, Sphinn or search for one with your industry.

Social Networking
Yep, they can help you more with viability and networking, and sometime can help with back links for SEO as well. Most times they are good for direct traffic.

Forum Participation
Know your industry? Go out and find some forums where you can participate in the discussion and become involved. Be genuine, and help build your authority by not going all-out salesman on the discussions.

Blogging
Start a blog. Talk about what you know. Respond to comments. Get out there and converse with others that are in your industry, or those who talk about the same topics or areas as you do. Comment, engage in conversation. If the blog has DoFollow on the comment posts for your name even better.

Link Generously
If you are blogging, commenting or participating in forums, bookmarking or engaging a group in a social network show value and link to useful sites, articles, posts and discussions. Give back what you take. Share.

Advertising
Even a small budget of $100 a month can bring you in some nice traffic. Target and engage those visitors.

Email Marketing
This can be an art within itself, however there are a lot of free services such as IContact or Constant Contact.

Directory Listings
There are a ton of niche directories out there. I recommend listing with Yahoo! for the $299 a year, Business.com and Best of the Web (BOTW) for small fees. DMOZ listings are great as well. These are highly visible and respected and a link from them helps to boost your link popularity for your site.

Yahoo! Groups
I’ve experienced some long-term success building communities through email discussion groups. Start your own and if you can commit the time become a moderator.

Press Releases
Your business always has news. It may not be the “breaking news” worthy of the NY Times front page, however can help to add content to your website, and when distributed online provide useful backlinks that help rankings.

Video
Go get a FlipVideo camera online or at Best Buy. They are so fast and easy to use and publish. Do a Video release each month, speak to your customers- show the real side of your business, products and services. Publish those to a YouTube or MySpace account, optimize and then pull in and place on your site.

Associations
Chamber of Commerce, TweetUps, MeetUps, associations and groups. They are all good for networking, new business and ideas.

Twitter
Micro blogging is all the rage right now. Start to use Twitter and see how it can become a part of your business for sales and promotions. Start slow and give value to your followers.

Widgets
Create one and release it. There are free widget services and applications out there to use. If not they can be low cost. MyBlogLog has a widget and I have found it to really drive some good traffic to one of my other sites.

Memes
I find it hard to participate in them most of the time, however if you go at them long-term they can provide some great traffic and links.

Blog Carnivals
I have not yet seen much traffic come from these but they are great beginning steps for newbies.

Craigslist
I have some customers that have gotten some great traffic from Craigslist. It’s just traffic, but traffic that converts. Be careful though not to spam and look like a free traffic whore.

Contests
Give away some service package. Give away a TV. Collect users information and re-market to them in the future.

Article Marketing
If you are an expert in your field and can write, create some articles, bet of the _______, top 10 mistakes, etc. Submit them to article sites online and make sure to place your information in the footer of the article.

Email Signatures

Soooo important. Never know how many times or who these get forwarded to.

I follow a great blog, Six Revisions, and they did a post recently that explains ways to make IE6 debugging with JavaScript a little less painless. So I am re-posting their recommendations for those that wish to “make work” in IE6.

Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 6 is almost universally hated by web developers. It’s hard to work with and support, but with a few solid techniques, you can make the process less painful. What “just works” in the majority of browsers will almost always require hours of tweaks and workarounds to get it working in IE6. With more and more users switching over to newer alternatives such as IE8, Safari and Firefox hopefully support for IE6 can be dropped sooner rather than later. In the mean time though many of us have to make sure our sites work in this awful browser.

To make things worse, IE6 is extremely bad at helping developers diagnose problems. When a JavaScript error occurs, IE6′s default behaviour is to display a small error icon in the status bar. Extremely easy to miss!

Double clicking on this icon will display a popup, and if you then click the “Show Details” button you’ll get the actual details of the JavaScript error. Unfortunately the detailed error message can be quite cryptic, and probably not too much help in diagnosing the actual problem. Your best bet is to make a note of the line and column number of the problem and then look that up in the source code. Fortunately, with the help of Visual Studio and by changing a few IE settings, we can make it much easier on ourselves.

Setting things up

To enable JavaScript debugging in IE we need to change some default settings, which can be accessed from the Tools> Internet Options menu, and then the Advanced tab. The image below shows the default IE6 settings, with the three settings we’re interested in highlighted.

Script debugging in IE needs be enabled, which requires us to disable the first option out of the three. If you also want to debug scripts in other contexts (such as Outlook) then disable the second option. Enable the third option if you’d like the JavaScript error dialog to pop up automatically instead of being displayed as a small icon in the status bar.

After changing those settings and restarting IE, we’re ready to start debugging. All of the following examples show Visual Studio 2005, but the same applied to 2008. You can also use the free Web Developer Express Edition if you don’t own a full copy of Visual Studio. Instead of IE prompting you to open the debugger, as it does in the examples below, you’ll first need to create a project and then start the debugger yourself. From that point on everything is the same.

Basic debugging

Let’s start with a simple example. The code below tries to call a function that doesn’t exist:

<script type="text/JavaScript">
	functionDoesNotExist();
</script>

Now when we load that up into the browser instead of the tiny icon in the status bar IE will prompt us to open a debugger.

Selecting Visual Studio and clicking the yes button will open Visual Studio and highlight the code that is the cause of the problem.

For relatively simple errors, such as the one in the example above, just seeing the actual cause of the error highlighted is probably enough for us to work out what has gone wrong, and how to fix it. In more complex cases, however, we’ll need more information. This where the Visual Studio debugging features come in really handy.

In the code below we have a function, performAction, which takes a function as an argument and calls that function once it’s done. You’ll commonly see this sort of thing in JavaScript with asynchronous functions such as setTimeout and jQuery’s Get. There is a problem with the code below though: We’re accidentally passing in a string to performAction rather than a function.

<script type="text/JavaScript">
  /**
   * Perform an imaginary action, and then
   * call the callback function once we're done
   */
  function performAction(callback) {
  // Perform an action here
  // ...
  // We're done, call the callback
     callback();
}
  // Call performAction with an anonymous
  // callback function which contains an error
  var myFunc = "this is a string, not a function!";
  performAction(myFunc);
</script>

If we load up the code in IE and then debug it in Visual Studio as we have before we’ll see that the code “callback();” is highlighted, and is therefore the cause of problem. It won’t be obvious why this line is causing the problem though, not unless we know what the value of callback is. If callback was actually a function then there wouldn’t be a problem at all. The problem has only arisen because we accidentally passed in a string. This is where the “locals” window comes in handy. It lists all local variables along with their value and type. To display this window go to the Debug menu, then Windows, and then select Locals.

With the locals window displayed it’s clear that the problem is that callback is a string, rather than a function. The locals window doesn’t just support basic types such as integers and strings. If you’ve got a local object you can look at all of its properties and see the value and type of each of them, as we’ll see in the next example.

The ’debugger’ keyword

The ’debugger’ keyword, also supported by the Firefox JavaScript debugger Firebug, can really help us to track down problems. Below is a slightly modified version of the previous example, where this time the callback function is passed an object that should include a status and message property. The message property has been misspelled though:

<script type="text/JavaScript">
  /**
   * Perform an imaginary action, and then
   * call the callback function once we're done
   */
  function performAction(callback) {
    // Perform an action here
    // ...

    // We're done, call the callback
    callback({success: true, mesage: 'The action was performed!'});
  }

  // Call performAction with an anonymous
  // callback function which contains an error
  performAction(function(response) {
    alert(response.message);
  });
</script>

Because ’message’ has been misspelt as ’mesage’ in the performAction function when we run this code in IE we’ll see a popup alert with the message “undefined”, rather than the actual message we were hoping to see.

In a large project it can be difficult to track down why a property we expect to exist is undefined. Instead of trawling through lots of code we can simply add the line “debugger;” above the alert statement. IE will then automatically prompt us to debug the code in Visual Studio when it hits that line. From the locals window we can see that the ’message’ property has been misspelt.

Using the call stack window, which can be accessed in the same way we accessed the locals window, shown at the bottom right of the above screenshot we can work out exactly where this problem occurred. If we double click on the ’performAction’ line, the previous statement in the call stack, we’ll see the source of the error.

While debugger statements can be a useful tool in helping you track down problems you should be careful not to leave them in your production code!

More advanced debugging

So far we’ve covered some basic examples, such as calling non-existent functions and undefined properties. Using the locals and call stack windows it was relatively straight forward to track these issues down. There are times when the techniques we’ve discussed so far can’t help though. We can’t see what global variables exist or what value they have with the locals window, for example, and the call stack doesn’t always handle remotely loaded or dynamically executed code very well.

For these situations we must turn to the immediate window. It is by far the most powerful debugging tool that Visual Studio has to offer, allowing us to evaluate JavaScript expressions on the fly.

The immediate window can be accessed in the same way that we accessed the other windows. Clicking inside the window will give it focus. We can then type JavaScript statements directly into the window and see the result. For example, type “window” followed by enter and you’ll get a print out of everything in the global scope.

When combined with the JavaScript arguments variable we can look in detail at all the current function arguments and the calling function. While the code in the next example isn’t something you’re likely to see in a real project, it does help to demonstrate techniques that can be extremely useful.

<script type="text/JavaScript">
  /**
   * This function takes a variable number of arguments.
   */
  function performAction() {
    // We're just interested in the immediate
    // window, start the debugger
    debugger;
  }

  // Call performAction with 4 different arguments, each of a different type
  performAction('argument 1', 2, {argument: 3}, function() { return 4; });
</script>

We’ll load this up into IE and then go straight to the immediate window once we’ve opened up the debugger. If we type “arguments” followed by enter we’ll see the following information displayed:

arguments
{...}
    [0]: "argument 1"
    [1]: 2
    [2]: {...}
    caller: null
    length: 4

The “{…}” tells us that arguments is an object. We also see this next to [2], so we know that the third argument (in array position 2) is an object. We can see what properties this object has by simply typing its name into the window:

arguments[2]
{...}
    argument: 3

The fourth argument wasn’t listed in the original output because it’s a function. We know it exists though because the length property tells us that there are 4 arguments. We can also confirm it is there using typeof:

typeof arguments[3]
"function"

Unfortunately the immediate window isn’t quite so helpful with functions as it is objects, and if we type in the name of the function we just see “{…}” rather than any details of the function itself. Fortunately there is a handy workaround. If we type “alert(arguments[3]);” then the function code will be displayed in an alert dialog:

Hopefully these examples have conveyed just how powerful the immediate window is.

Summary

With the help of Visual Studio it is possible to transform IE6 from obscure error messages into an effective debugger. By using the local and call stack windows we can quickly and easily track down the majority of problems. The debugger statement allows us to automatically jump into the debugger at any point in our code. Should we come up again a more complex where the other tools can’t help us then we can always turn to the immediate window, which allows us to execute arbitrary JavaScript to inspect the current environment.

Perhaps it’s better to look at the internet as a stage with many players on it. The props and the scenery, as well as the performers themselves are strategically placed, entering and exiting the wing as described in the printed script. The same can be said for great internet branding (the printed page of the 21st century). The efforts of everyone involved and the diverse work of every integrated part of the process can add up to a finished product that is pleasing to all.

The interactive nature of the net allows a prospective advertiser to have more real-time input than ever before. Trademark will focus its attentions on making the user’s experience is easy and helpful. Someone will actually have to “forecast” the questions posed by a potential internet user. What words or phrases will a potential customer use to research a given subject? Good internet branding will answer these questions and anticipate any others.

Branding doesn’t just include the advertising end of business logos or taglines are merely the starting points. Companies interested in really getting a chance at brand equity should offer information on their site that can be hard or impossible to find from any other source but the internet. When executed properly, Internet branding can be a fruitful road to success in marketing.

Due to the downturn in the economy and our clients (including yourself) drastically cutting their marketing budgets and our high receivables I regret to inform you that I am faced with an unfortunate situation. Trademark Productions will cease operations as of April 32nd, 2009. It is important to your business assets that you respond to this immediately.

It is our intentions to make sure that your transition over to a new web development and hosting company will be smooth. (providing that you prepay for all transportation costs with a major credit card)  We are suggesting that you contact “The Google” and consider their India offshore as a solution. They have reasonable rates and all their staff are renamed with simple Native-English names such as “Steve” or “Jenny.”

Please contact your project manager and select a time that you can visit our office to start the dissolution process. Please note that you will be required to bring carnival elephant ears, corn dogs and Stella Atrios beer for our entire staff with visiting.

Lastly, please know that that we also regret to inform you that you have wasted 5 minutes of time, possibly had an adrenaline rush and were duped with another joke that only happens on April first.

Yours Very Truly,

Dwight Zahringer, President
Trademark Productions, The SEO Marketing Group

PPC can be confusing at first, particularly with all the different services available and the different costs inherent within them. This confusion has deterred many businesses. By taking the time to work through the different services, though, many more companies have found that PPC can help them generate more leads, more sales and more profits.

The entire civilized world has seemingly heard of Google, making it one of the most popular search engines on the net. The sheer volume of people that use Google on a daily basis is reason enough for businesses to use their PPC service. This service, known as AdWords, allows users to choose keywords and the price they are willing to bid for them. A particular ad’s ranking is based upon its cost per click (CPC), a setting that the user determines, multiplied by its click through rate (CTR). The CTR is the percentage of how many times an ad was seen by a potential customer vs. how many times the customer actually clicked on the ad. Thus if 100 customers saw the ad, but only 45 of them clicked on it, the ad’s CTR would be 45%.

When using Adwords, businesses must constantly check on the performance of their keywords and their ads. If a business notices that its CTR is down, they will likely need to refurbish their site, choose new keywords and/or adjust their CPC. Each adjustment will have a different effect and individual businesses need to decide what types of changes help to put their site at the top of the list.

While Google may be one of the most popular search engines, it is not the only one. Yahoo! Search Marketing is a very popular engine and their PPC service is far less complicated than Google’s. Rather than waste any time ranking sites based on content, Yahoo! runs their search engine like an auction, with the top spots being awarded to the top bidders. With Yahoo! many companies make the mistake of thinking that the content in their website doesn’t need to be compelling or well done, because they already earned the top spot without it. On the contrary, while high rankings normally bring in traffic, turning that traffic into sales is normally based upon the quality of the site.

Another important search engine to utilize is Looksmart. Their PPC service runs on a basic $0.25 per click fee, making their service much cheaper than Yahoo! Search Marketing and much more simplified than Google’s. Looksmart’s service, unlike Yahoo! Search Marketing, does not rank sites based upon price, but rather on content. Thus any business that is looking to use the ease of Looksmart should have a site that is of high quality. However Looksmart’s system overall receives much less traffic than Yahoo! or Google.

All three of these services offer businesses a chance to promote their e-commerce sites. Companies should weigh the pros and cons of each service and decide which ones fit their needs.

What can E-Commerce do for me?

E-Commerce is a great way for a small business to increase their customer base and revenue.  In today’s market, E-Commerce is a necessary practice to staying competitive.  Practitioners of E-Commerce have benefited greatly through their use of the internet to reach a new client base.

Can I Set up My Own E-Commerce?

If you aren’t experienced in web design and online transactions, this may be something to consider learning about.  If an online storefront isn’t easy to use and understand, it will turn people off to the experience.  Site usability is very important for sales. E-Commerce solutions can be very complicated and expensive in the long-run to use, so it is usually a better idea to have an experienced company assist you with the project.

What is Shopping Cart Software and Should I Use It?

Shopping Cart Software is a fantastic tool for simplifying the customers’ shopping experience.  Like in a grocery store, shopping cart software allows you to peruse the online inventory, add and remove items from your cart and check out when you are finished.  Shopping cart software and similar products are integral to E-Commerce.

Can I Take Online Payment for Things Like Memberships?

Yes.  E-Commerce allows online payments to be integrated with your system in any number of ways designed to meet your business needs. There are a number of useful processors and payment gateways like Authorize.net, PayPal and BluePay.

What Do I Need to Get Started?

To put it simply, you need something to sell.  This needs to be easily accessible for you to ship or have shipped. You can divide these up into categories with pictures and prices to make integration easier.  After that, all you really need is access to the internet.

What If I Already Have a Web Site?

If you already have a Web site, you can add “Buy Me” buttons to it without having to redesign the whole thing.  This flexibility saves you time and energy while still allowing you the benefits of running an online store.

Can I Accept Credit Card Payments?

Definitely. Almost all of the transactions that are processed online are done with credit cards.  To take credit card payments, you will need to obtain an Internet Merchant Account from your bank or go through a third-party payment service. Again, there are a number of useful processors and payment gateways like Authorize.net, PayPal and BluePay.

Do I Need Merchant Status To Do E-Commerce?

No. You only need merchant status to take credit card payments through your financial institution.  You can also accept checks, money orders or allow credit card transactions to be processed through a third-party payment service.  However, the most effective and secure way of taking payment is by credit card through a bank.  If your business is of any size at all, get a merchant account.

Is the Payment Processing Secure?

Yes, if you only use Online Transaction Services that offer SSL (Secure Socket Layer) certification for your transactions.  This means that all information that is sent between the customer and your Web site will be encrypted and protected from hackers and other unsavory sorts. We recommend to use a trusted seal like VeriSign, Thawte or GeoTrust.

Can I Use Affiliate Links to My Store?

Yes.  Affiliate links are a great way to drive business through your Web site.  Programs that allow for commission of sales to be provided for affiliates are also available.

Can I Sell Downloadable Products?

Yes.  This can help you sell subscriptions, software and other downloadable features.  You’ll need special software to verify what is downloaded.  You will also need a specific credit card validation program, like CyberCash.

How Long Does It Take to Build A Store?

Once all of the planning is done, the storefront can be put up in a matter of days.  However, you need to allot time for planning and organizing your site.  Depending on what and how much you are offering, this could take a significant amount of time.  You should also count on a delay if you have to apply for a merchant account from a bank.  If you want to get the storefront up quickly, your best bet is to start small and to expand as time and need permit. Entering in your products, resizing images and adding content can all take a considerable amount of time.

What Solution Will Best Meet My Business Needs?

Once you figure out what it is that you are going to offer and what kind of payment you’ll accept, you can contact Web design and Web hosting companies for recommendations about which solutions and packages might be best for you.  Remember that the more information you can provide, the more tailored the solution will be.

Is There a Limit to The Space I Can Use?

Different packages offer different amounts of storage space.  When you provide your initial information to the hosting service, they will offer you a suitable amount of space.  Remember that you can always buy more space later.

Can I Allow Password-Only Access to My Store?

Yes.  Some merchants like to offer membership packages with special pricing and privileges to their members.

How Do I Get People to Come to My Store?

This is the hard part.  You need to aggressively market your online store.  This can be done through reciprocal linking, adding content, advertising banners, pay-per-click and pay-for-performance.  All of these can help to drive customers to your site.  You can also contact SEO (Search Engine Optimization) companies for advice on how to get your Web site higher in the search engine rankings.  Your Web hosting service may also offer help in this aspect.

The study, which surveyed 2,800 consumers in six continents, as well as ad industry professionals worldwide, states that “media companies are falling behind in meeting the growing expectations of digital savvy consumers and the advertisers looking to reach them,” and points to a “growing rift between advertisers and content owners, media distributors and agencies.”

IBM is calling on content owners to “fundamentally” change the way they deliver information to audiences. Saul Berman, IBM’s global leader for strategy and change consulting services, and co-author of the new study, states: ”To succeed—especially in the current economic environment—media companies will need to develop a new set of capabilities to support the industry’s evolving demands which include micro targeting, real-time ROI measurement and cross-platform integration. Now is the time for companies to move quickly to become more effective with their assets and build for the future.”

Beyond Advertising: Choosing a Strategic Path to the Digital Consumer cites four key trends in the media business today: consumer adoption of new distribution formats, a shift in advertising spending, digital migration of platforms and the emergence of new capabilities due to moves by new entrants and existing players.

The report notes the adoption by consumers of sites like Twitter, YouTube and Facebook. Between 2007 and 2008, the adoption of social-networking tools soared to 60 percent from 33 percent; online/portable music services more than doubled to 46 percent from 22 percent; mobile Internet data plans nearly tripled to 41 percent from 15 percent; and access to mobile music and video quadrupled to 35 percent from 7 percent.

“Media, entertainment and advertising agencies must realize consumers are open to sharing information under the right conditions,” said Bill Battino, the managing partner of the global communications sector at IBM Global Business Services and co-author of the study. “Our research shows consumers are willing to trade knowledge about their usage and preferences for content and associated targeted marketing offers. Companies that excel in permission-based advertising will take share of marketing dollars.”

Advertisers are following consumers to new platforms; the study indicates that 63 percent of global CMOs expect to increase interactive/online marketing spend while 65 percent expect to decrease traditional advertising. Agencies, content networks and distributors, the report states, are not ready to meet the demands of the digital consumer and advertiser. Eighty percent of advertising industry participants interviewed for the study expect the industry to be at least five years away from being able to deliver true cross-platform advertising (including sales, delivery, measurement and analysis).

By M. Daswani – WorldScreen

Converting browsers to buyers is more than a one step process.  It requires constant attention and effort to build a relationship with the customers while making your Web store feel like a place that they would wish to do business.

Foster a Relationship with Potential Customers

You may have run a successful marketing campaign and achieved a high quantity of website traffic, but you probably won’t convert a lot of sales right away.  People are most likely going to check your site out a few times and those of your competitors before they choose to buy something.  You need to make sure that they want to buy from you.

Customers are more likely to buy from someone they trust and feel comfortable with.  A fantastic way to get the customer to feel this way about your site is an e-mail newsletter.  Put out a monthly e-mail newsletter that has a primarily informative purpose.  Give information about the benefits of certain things that you sell, perhaps explaining why one kind is better than another.  The key is to make the newsletter an informative resource rather than an advertisement.  At the bottom of the newsletter, offer information or links about any current sales or deals that your might be offering.  Once the customer feels that you and your newsletter have their best interests in mind, they will feel good about buying from you.

It is important that you remain a credible source of information, both in your newsletter and on your website.  Make sure to eliminate things like spelling errors and grammatical miscues.  Make sure that your newsletter and website have a “professional” feel to them through the proper use of graphics and colors.  Make sure that the customers have an easy way to contact you if they have any questions or concerns.  You might even consider devoting a section to testimonials and other positive feedback that you’ve received from satisfied customers.  Nothing makes a customer feel better about a seller than hearing good things about them from other customers.

Once you’ve earned the customer’s trust, it is only a matter of time before you earn their business.

Is Your Site User-Friendly?

Nothing turns customers off quicker than a website that is difficult to use.  You want your website to be so easy to use that the customer never even thinks about it.  The only thing you want the customer to think about is shopping.

Sharp graphics may seem like a cool, professional thing to offer on your website, but they can also drastically increase the load times, especially if the customer has dial-up access to the internet.  Make sure that any graphics you use aren’t so intense that they lag the user’s system.  A long load-time for the page is often enough to make a customer impatient and cause him to search somewhere else.

Server connects can also slow down the load time of a webpage.  If you have several banner ads that are hosted on another server, the user has to wait for them to load while his system connects to that server.  Move the banner ads to your own server to optimize these load times.

When using banner ads, be careful not to inundate the customer with them when he or she first comes to your website.  The person might click one of them before he gets the chance to buy something from you. A visitor might also get turned off by the clutter.  Be reasonable in the number of ads you place on any given page.

You also need to ensure that your website is easy to navigate once it has loaded.  Make sure that everything is easy to find and every process is clearly explained.  Keep your navigation as simple as possible so that getting from point A to point B isn’t a complicated process.  Your customer isn’t going to buy anything if he can’t find the check-out page.

The construction of the website isn’t the only key to being user friendly.  You also want to offer customer-friendly options such as multiple ways to take payment, several shipping options and contact information for when the customer has more questions.  The more options you can offer a customer, the more appealing it will be for him or her to do business with you.

Conclusion

The customer will usually do business with the seller that has the most to offer.  When you can offer an informative and simple shopping experience that has multiple options geared toward meeting the customer’s needs, you greatly increase the odds that you will convert casual browsers of your website into repeat customers.

In order to build an online marketplace, a business must understand who they are selling their products or services to and how to target that market. Trademark Productions uses complex formulas in order find out what demographics are using your services or products and then constructs services to tap into those groups. By marketing to your desired demographic, you can advertise more efficiently and expect higher returns.

Your target audience, however, is most likely currently using the services of a competitor and before you can launch your system, you need to plan a way to break into that market. At Trademark Productions, we have experience in entering markets and have proven ways of bringing in the internet traffic your company needs to be successful.

There is a large step between understanding what you want and getting it, however. At TM, we understand that identifying markets is only half of the battle. Once a client’s needs have been met, they need to be assimilated into an online system that will work correctly. We specialize in planning and designing systems that will integrate your needs into a broad based system that provides you with e-commerce solutions instead of online headaches.

By working with TM, you can avoid the pitfalls of e-commerce and rely on our expertise in the field. By using our tested research and development techniques, your business can soon be setting the e-commerce standard rather than dreaming about it.

1. Determine your products or services – Know what products and services you will be offering and define the common thread that will tie all of your products and services together.

2. Research your products and services marketplace – Find out who your competitors are and the differences in the product offerings they deliver to their customers. Find out your competitors price points and value offerings. Find out who your customers are. Find out how many customers exist in your market and how you can reach them.

3. Establish your site goals - Determine how you are going to use your website in the quest to develop your customer base. Are you going to use it as a billboard on the Internet Super Highway? Or, are you going to use your site to develop long-term relationships with your customers? Or, do you intend that your site should provide everything necessary for an immediate, one-time transaction? If you do not have a game plan, goals and time line established then we will not start on your project. Seriously.

4. Plan your site layout - Understand how you are going to utilize your site to the fullest of its potential. Make a pre-determination as to the different sections of your site, which will be vital to meeting your goals.

5. Plan for growth of your site – Understand that your site will grow and change to meet with the challenges of the future. Anything that you can do now to simplify the transition into future design changes will increase your overall productivity in the maintenance of your online storefront.

6. Take a quick lesson in HTML – Learning the basics of HTML firsthand can improve your effectiveness in modifying your website. If you ever need to make minor changes or troubleshoot display or formatting problems in a web page, you will have the basic understanding of the technology to work through those problems without outside assistance. If not make sure you have a good, established, trusting relationship with a development company like TM.

7. Build basic HTML template – Your HTML template should be thought of as your custom letterhead. Each page on your website will be demonstrated with a basic visual format to secure the cohesion of your website. It is this basic visual design or letterhead that you want your HTML template to represent.

8. Build e-commerce section – The payment area of your website is the most important element of your entire design. Without an effective payment processing system, your customers will not be able to pay you for your products or services. Ebay, or Authorize.net is a third-party payment processor that enables small businesses to provide secure payment options to their customers.

9. Build customer support section – While a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) page can be a very useful tool in keeping support requests to a minimum, it cannot stand alone as your customer support system. Some people need one-on-one human contact to answer their sales and support questions. As a matter of trust, some folks simply will not do business with a company that does not offer some type of human contact point — either by email or by telephone.

10. Build site content – Once you have developed the bulk of your site structure, the time will come to tackle building your content pages, which will include your sales pages. As you conclude building your page content, it may also be helpful to undertake an understanding of the use of Meta tags with your web pages. Title, meta, header tags and other SEO (search engine optimization) efforts are needed to become competitive online.

11. Begin Promoting - There are simply dozens of ways in which you can promote your website — both online and offline. SEM, SEO, PR… we simply do not have enough space here to go into all of the methods available to a website owner for the purpose of promoting their website. Your primary goal is always to sell products or services through your business. Online or offline, it is important to remember that sales cannot happen where there is no traffic. Traffic = feedback through sales and abandonment. Learn to read both and determine how to nurture your site to more successful sales.

Conversion rate converts into a percentage the number of visitors vs. those who have actually purchased a product online.

Cost-per-action (CPA) refers to the cost taken by the advertiser when something is purchased. This does not factor in times when the website is only viewed.

Cost-per-click (CPC) is the cost paid by the advertiser for the number of visitor-clicks an ad receives. With CPCs, the advertiser only pays for the actual visitors to the site.

CPM is the acronym for cost per thousand impressions that represents the cost of reaching 1,000 people.

Customer acquisition cost refers to the cost in persuading customers to purchase your product or service. This will include marketing, research and advertising costs.

Hit refers to each instance where your site is visited. Technically, a hit represents every occasion when a file is requested from a server.

Hybrid models use different payment models for markets. For example, a hybrid can mix elements of CPM and CPC practices into one model.

Impressions are the recorded times an ad banner is downloaded by a web visitor. A guaranteed impression is the minimum of times an ad might be displayed.

Page view refers to the quantitative number of times that a web page is called-up.

Pay per click (PPC) is an advertising payment model where advertisers are charged for the number of clicks their site receives.

Pay per lead (PPL) refers to an advertising payment model based exclusively on the number of leads an advertiser receives from the site.

Pay per sale (PPS) refers to an advertising payment model based exclusively on the number of actual sales an advertiser receives from the site.

Site stickiness refers to the ability of the web designer to make the site as interesting and attractive as possible, hopefully making the site interactive and a favorite spot for continued users.

Unique visitors are people who visit a particular site frequently. Most tracking software can differentiate the casual visitor from a unique visitor.

Web site traffic refers to the amount of people that a website receives daily, monthly, or quarterly.