Blog

Business Case for Mobile Websites

Mon, 21 May 2012 17:39:00 GMT

Websites for a Mobile Experience

If you're a small business owner or a Director of Marketing for a small to medium sized company and you're wondering why your website isn't delivering the leads or traffic that your competitors seem to be getting - it may be because of their optimized mobile websites

Mobile is the New Normal

Why go mobile you might ask? There are a number of reasons. Primarily, numerous studies have shown that mobile smartphone use continues to rise. For example, users currently spend more time on Facebook's mobile site than it's desktop site. Secondly, increased user engagement and sales are coupled with this increased mobile usage. Clearly, the data supports mobile websites as a business success factor.

But I can access my regular website on my mobile phone - why do I need a separate site? Probably the simplest answer is size. There is more screen real estate on a normal computer than a mobile phone. Potential clients won't be spending a lot of time reading or browsing your site on their phones. They may however, want to call or locate your office or submit their email so you can schedule an appointment with them. The functionality of mobile websites should be designed with a focus on common mobile activities - a click to call button, a mobile locator, and basic company information are particularly useful.

Mobile is Revenue

Think of your ideal customer. Think of that customer in the airport on her iPhone visiting your website. What will your site portray to this prospective customer? Will your site be easy to navigate and provide her with quick, useful information about your company? More importantly, will it capture her lead information and allow her to easily call one of your company's regional offices? Or, will she just be visiting a copy of your desktop website on her iPhone and be forced to needlessly scroll while searching for company contact information? Does your classic desktop website even have the ability to capture mobile leads? Ultimately, does your mobile website represent your brand in the best possible way? And, would your mobile website help or hinder a potential sale?

Mobile Websites - Best Practices

As mentioned earlier - size is an important issue for mobile websites. Here are some other useful tips to consider when building your mobile website:

Eliminate unnecessary scrolling or navigation through multiple layers of content
Assure that landing pages are designed to accepted mobile standards to facilitate the capturing of quality leads
Don't make a mobile reader have to zoom in or zoom out to read your website
Design mobile-only calls to action - your regular website calls to action will likely be to large for your mobile website
Build your mobile site on a mobile content management system for easy maintenance and updating

Getting Started With Mobile

Good mobile websites start with an understanding your mobile user. Log into Google Analytics and review your mobile statistics. This data will provide an initial understanding of what works and what doesn't work for your mobile users. You can then begin to map out your initial mobile website strategy as part of your overall web marketing strategy.

Want to learn more about this or see a real example in action? Contact us for a mobile website demo as it would relate directly to your business situation.

Martketing to Affluent Men Online

Mon, 21 May 2012 16:00:00 GMT

Looking for Affluent Men Online

Desiring interaction with affluent men is not just for single women on dating sites! Marketers are recognizing that men like to shop online. Although women still influence the majority of buying decisions, men are enjoying the freedom to shop anywhere, anytime on their computer and mobile devices. This sure beats shopping with your wife/girlfriend and having to hold a purse at the mall while you wait and wait and wait!

I personally can vouch for the trend of men shopping online by even observing my two kids. My 15 year old son shops on line 90% to my 17 year old daughter's 10% (or less). (This does not include iTune purchases.) This may indicate future equality across the sexes for marketers' attention.

Men shop online with mobile devices

Marketing Charts published data from a iProspect study that indicated an overwhelming preference among affluent males (70%) to research and buy online as opposed to researching online and purchasing in store, provides unique opportunities for advertisers to capitalize on this audience’s behaviors. And while the majority of purchases are still made on PCs, the affluent male is doing more and more research on mobile devices, making a multi-channel approach necessary. Some details:

The vast majority (91%) access a PC at least once daily, while 77% have a mobile smartphone and 50% own a tablet.
Engagement with these devices is high across the board – almost 100% of survey respondents report using their PCs and mobile smartphones at least daily and 85% reporting daily use of tablets.
When an affluent male has daily access to tablet, he is 32% more likely to have made a purchase via the device.
In terms of visibility, 71% have seen ads on a PC while one in three has seen ads on a mobile phone or tablet.

What Marketers Should Do to Reach Affluent Men

This trend trickles down beyond luxury brands and products so all marketers should take note. Your first priority is to have a highly functional MOBILE website. Viewing your company website on a mobile device can be very frustrating for users and limits conversion and engagement opportunity. From there the focus is on content and visibility as with all your marketing channels.

If you are curious or new help reaching the affluent market or mobilizing your online presence, contact a digital marketing agency for a consultation. We are here to help and can assess and prioritize a strategy based on your business goals and budget.

What I Learned About Improving Email Subject Lines

Thu, 17 May 2012 15:40:00 GMT

Avoiding the “Delete”

Email marketing is getting harder. By nature, human behavior looks first to sort out the junk whether it’s email or printed mail. We quickly delete or toss “junk mail” without opening it whether it be digital or printed.

Next we segregate the important from the somewhat interesting. For email, the interesting may get left in the inbox unopened with good intention on returning to read as other more urgent matters go on top and distract us from good intention. That “somewhat interesting” subject email gets lost in the clutter never to be read.

Email Subjects that Convert

In a short instance, your email subject line has to do a big job. It must get attention and convert attention to interest and action by standing out from all the clutter flying through the reader’s inbox.

How can your email be irresistible so it gets read and further action is taken?

The best techniques for email subject lines were revealed by Marketing Experiments webinar today. The marketing experiments they share with us digital marketing consultants and Internet experts is so valuable. Here are a few points summarized:

1. Is the email subject line clear?

It must take zero effort to understand and comprehend the point. . A couple examples of good lines were:

Does our landing page pass the test?

Learn 3 tips that made 10,000 landing pages more successful

2. Is the email subject precise?

Instead of arbitrary meaning like “better way” or “leading method”, try one that guarantees a more factual content than opinion like using “scientific” as in this example :

A scientific way to improve your email conversion.

3. Is it concise?

Simply, don’t use more words than are necessary to make the point.

4. Is it relevant, urgent and important?

Get relevant to target’s problem or desire and add a time-sensitive element so they don’t wait to click through to your message. Keep the focus on these on the landing page too as you move them down toward action.

5. Does the subject communicate exclusivity?

Does your subject line have an “only-factor”? This can be done by using numbers or even a respected brand name or a trusted event/source to elevate exclusivity.

7 Steps to make your offer irresistible

WebMD.com top 10 super foods for heart health

CEO seminar on leadership – bonus ends at 4pm.

6. Is the subject credible?

Is the promise your subject makes believable or is it too gimmicky or salesy? The tone should be appropriate. Make sure the value to the reader is specific.

Take the test and determine your body age.

Email subject line wisdom

The most basic take-aways in this lesson is:

Your competition in email marketing is other email subject lines.

Avoid words without meaning.

Keep testing and measuring!

Incremental improvements at each point in your marketing machine are sure to add up to digital marketing success. Sometimes it may take an outside eye to help you see these simple opportunities. Reach out to us or another expert who can help you optimize your digital marketing efforts.

Thought Sequence for Website Copywriting: Use a story-based framework

Wed, 16 May 2012 15:15:00 GMT

Sequencing Copy for Maximum Conversion

Whether its online copywriting or offline, don’t “sell” on your pages. Rather tell a story to get significantly better results. This method is referenced from Marketing Experiments. The case study showed 200%+ conversion improvement using this sequencing process…just by changing the copy.

Tell a story. People respond to stories.

Each part of the conversion process is tied to the ideal story progression. It’s a process of transitions from set up to confrontation & rising action to climax then resolution. The following will help to outline the structure for your own writing.

1. THE HEADLINE - setup

The “story” might start with your paid ad, for example, that sets up the promise leading them on the next step to your landing page.

Start with the “why” they may be on your page, what is driving them to look and confirm that in the title and text.

Action/goal:

a. Attention grabbing headline that will resonate with the target audience

b. Get them to click through or read on to the next paragraph

2. THE SUPPORTING PARAGRAPH/S - confrontation, rising action intensifies

On your landing page, continue emphasizing the pain/problem you can solve with your very specific value as unique solution. Several transitions can occur on the landing page. Keep clarity to the viewer’s level of understanding.

First paragraph (do NOT skip this):

a. Where am I

b. What can I do here

c. Why should I do it

Body paragraph/s: (Intensify with these elements now)

Proof (data)

Benefits (before features)

Features (only AFTER benefits)

Incentives (offer)

Urgency (today, save $200)

All of these can appeal to the external and internal motivators

Example: Boss wants you to gain/solve xyz (external) vs. advance your career by gaining experience leveraging the Internet for lead generation (internal)

3. CALL TO ACTION - resolution, climax

The Call to Action is the request for physical action or interaction by the reader. It can encourage a phone call, a form completion, view a video, add-to-cart and so on.

The Call-to-Action (CTA) must:

Be VISIBLE

Apply VALUE

Encourage IMMEDIACY

COME IN THE RIGHT TIME IN THOUGHT SEQUENCE

Call to action is presented such as “Add to cart”, “complete the form”. But use text in the action buttons that reassure that their action will deliver on the value promise. Do not put “submit” or “click here”; instead use words to further the promise. (Ex: “to receive info…”, “Learn the xyz”, “Get the product to improve your life”, etc….)

Getting started

This is easy and it’s not easy. As with most things, the hardest part is getting started. With practice and ongoing experimentation with your web copy writing, the data (analytics) will prove the results of structuring your content for clarity and connection to what the viewer wants. In doing so, in the right sequence, you will get what you want.

We are uniquely able to help you evaluate and take action on the breadth of factors influencing conversion: Web design, website development, Internet marketing, driving traffic, conversion tactics, applying business intelligence through data.

We are here to help you achieve great things online. As for copywriting services:

1. We can write for you or help guide you (or your designated writers) to ensure you have the greatest opportunity for conversion success with your text & graphics.

2. We can technically SEO (search engine optimization) your copy so it will gain better visibility on Google and other search engines.

3. We can strategize a plan for content topics and delivery channels for strong “inbound” marketing.

WSI Local Ad Works PPC (pay per click) Search Engine Advertising – Now with Advanced Conversion Features

Tue, 01 May 2012 14:29:00 GMT

Two features to boost PPC results.

1. Dynamic Landing Pages for your PPC campaigns!

In order to improve the performance of your PPC campaigns, WSI Local Ad Works now has the ability to dynamically route a potential customer from your PPC ad to the most appropriate page on your website based on the actual search phrase (keywords) used by the searcher. We do this by employing some of the same algorithms used by the search engines to determine the most relevant page for a specific search term.

By way of example, if someone is searching for an 'orthodontist in dallas’, clicking on your ad would take the searcher to the page on your site describing the dentist's orthodontic services. If, on the other hand, someone is searching for a 'teeth whitening center in dallas’, we would take the searcher to the page describing the dentist's cosmetic dentistry services.

If you choose to do this, we will route customers to different pages on your website based on the keyword term. In many cases, this may be the landing page you specify when we set up your campaign. The options remains to direct all searchers to the landing page you have specified, regardless of search term.

2. Keyword Highlighting:

This feature will highlight all occurrences of words used in the search query that appear on the page. This makes it easier for the searcher to quickly see the relevance of your page to the search term they used. For example, if the visitor searched for "SCUBA lessons Dallas" and clicked on your site, all instances of "SCUBA", "LESSONS", and "DALLAS" will be highlighted on your site.

You have 2 options as to how much highlighting you would like displayed on your site.

1) Entry Page Only - This option means that the search terms will only be highlighted on the first page the visitor hits, and all subsequent pages will not be highlighted.

2) All - will keep highlighting on for all pages that are part of your site.

Strategy and Wire Framing Your Designs for Maximum Conversion

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 20:47:00 GMT

A wireframe is the foundational starting point of where to start thinking about how a web page is going to convert the customer from a visit into a prospect to generate revenue. It is often surprising to hear how little emphasis is put on creating a visual wireframe of a web page before thinking about the creative design.

The Concept

Would you build a house without having blue prints? I certainly hope not. The same applies when thinking about how you are going to build a web page. A wireframe is essentially your blue print for designing a page and formulating the ‘flow’ of your customers on the page.

The Goal

The goal of any web page is to convert visitors into customers. The first step in the process is to think about the customers goal of the page.

The clearest way to achieve your page’s objective is to clearly define 3 answers for your customer.

1.) Where am I?

2.) What can I do here?

3.) Why should I do it?

Next start thinking about what the customer’s primary objective is. Is it to have the customer call a phone number? Purchase a product? Sign up for a demo? If you haven’t defined what your customer needs to do what makes you think they know what to do?

The Strategy

The strategy of wire framing the layout of the site comes directly from the goals you have defined above. For instance if you know the primary goal is to have your customer signup for a free demonstration then every call to action on the page needs to lead the customer to this conclusion. If designing a landing page for one specific product avoid having more than 1 call to action if possible.

Rule of thumb is you have about 7 seconds to capture the attention of a visitor. If they have too many options and too many things to think about they will bounce off the page. Keeping one clear goal in mind for the visitor to accomplish will result in much higher conversion rates.

The How

One of the best free wire framing tools I have found online is www.Cacoo.com which offers free membership for creating professional looking wireframes and allows easy sharing options.

Once a clear strategy has been defined and a wireframe of the layout has been created it can easily be passed on to the creative team to make look elegant and beautiful.

WSI EFusion July Enhancements

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 13:53:00 GMT

If you haven't had a chance yet to learn about WSI's amazing Online Business console, WSI EFusion, I suggest you take a look at a quick demo here.

WSI EFusion is an amazing platform to enhance any online business and help you keep track of your leads, manage your own website, create custom modules, and much much more to help increase your internet marketing strategy.

July 2011 Enhancements

Modules within Modules

WSI EFusion has many different modules built-in including Blogs, Photo Galleries, Webforms, Custom Web App modules, and many others. Now we are bringing the ability to include a module within a different module. IE. the ability to include a photo gallery within a blog post, or insert ANY module into a Web App. This will allow for extreme customization of the tools built into WSI EFusion. We have also include a Module Manager into the WYZYWYG for easy access to add in modules.

Device Specific Templates

We continue to help enhance the ability to provide the best access to your website no matter what device your site is being viewed on whether it's a desktop/laptop, smart phone, or a tablet. WSI EFusion now includes a two extra versions of every sitewide template, one for smart phones and one for tablets. When EFusion detects what device you are on, you have the ability to have a mobile version of your site and tablet version of your site to direct them too. This will greatly enhance the user experience of your website.

SEO Friendly URLs for Web Apps

One of the most powerful tools of WSI EFusion is the ability to create your own custom web app. Web Apps are extremely powerful and let you create custom modules for your website with no additional programming charges. We are now excited to say that WSI EFusion has the ability to have a custom SEO friendly URL. For instance: http://www.yoursite.com/webapp-name/webapp-item-name This will let you have complete control of the URL. Let's say you use a Web App for a real estate website for homes located in Dallas Texas. Your Web App for each home can now be http://www.yoursite.com/Dallas-Texas/Homes-In-Plano and this can be modified however you see fit!

July 2011 release

The new update will be taking place on July 6th, 2011 at 11:00AM CST. The deployment time will take a few hours, but there will be no major disruptions to service during this time.

We'll keep you posted!

Upcoming Webinar July 7th, 2011

Fri, 24 Jun 2011 17:21:00 GMT

Consumer behavior is changing and social media enables companies to keep right up-to-date with their clients' requirements as well as allow satisfied clients to spread the word about their products and services. Social media advertising can be a great asset in the business world for lead generation, brand recognition and real time market research, but it is important that your campaigns are run in an effective manner. Knowing and understanding how these techniques augment communication and provide new ways to build trust in your products and services by enhancing your online reputation is critical to your social media success. In our upcoming webinar "Integrate Social Media with Your Sales Process: 6 Steps to Fill Up Your Sales Funnel" will cover the following topics:

How social media is enhancing the process of relationship selling
Why it is important to embrace social techniques to enhance your sales process
Six steps that should be employed to create an effective online sales process that will convert browsers into buyers

These six steps should be employed to create an effective online sales process that will convert browsers into buyers. Registration details are below:

Topic: Integrate Social Media with Your Sales Process: 6 Steps to Fill Up Your Sales Funnel
Date: Thursday, July 7, 2011 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM EDT
Register: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/453756160

Top Social Media Sites

Fri, 24 Jun 2011 15:33:00 GMT

Understanding Social Media strategy is important but if you don’t know where to apply this understanding then it won’t be useful to your company. There are tons of Social Media Networking sites available for any and everyone to join and it can be over whelming when trying to figure out which ones are applicable to you.

Focus.com created a list of the top 50 social sites every business needs to have a presence on. In this post we only list the first 3 in each category.

Social Bookmarking Sites
Reddit: Upload stories and articles on reddit to drive traffic to your site or blog. Submit items often so that you'll gain a more loyal following and increase your presence on the site.
Digg: Digg has a huge following online because of its optimum usability. Visitors can submit and browse articles in categories like technology, business, entertainment, sports and more.
Del.icio.us: Social bookmark your way to better business with sites like del.icio.us, which invite users to organize and publicize interesting items through tagging and networking.

Professional-Networking Sites
LinkedIn: LinkedIn is a popular networking site where alumni, business associates, recent graduates and other professionals connect online.
Ecademy: Ecademy prides itself on "connecting business people" through its online network, blog and message-board chats, as well as its premier BlackStar membership program, which awards exclusive benefits.
Focus: Focus is a business destination where business professionals can help each other with their purchase and other business decisions by accessing research and peer expertise. Most importantly, Focus provides open, quality information for all businesses that is freely available, easily accessible, and community powered

General Social Media Sites
Wikipedia: Besides creating your own business reference page on Wikipedia, you can connect with other users on Wikipedia's Community Portal and at the village pump, where you'll find conscientious professionals enthusiastic about news, business, research and more.
Newsvine: Feature top employees by uploading their articles, studies or other news-related items to this site. A free account will also get you your own column and access to the Newsvine community.
43 Things: This site bills itself as "the world's most popular online goal setting community." By publicizing your company's goals and ambitions, you'll gain a following of customers, investors and promoters who cheer you on as you achieve success.

Job Sites
CareerBuilder.com: Reach millions of candidates by posting jobs on this must-visit site.
The Wall Street Journal's CareerJournal: The Wall Street Journal's CareerJournal attracts well-educated professionals who are at the top of their game. Post a job or search résumés here.
CollegeRecruiter.com: If your firm wants to hire promising entry-level employees, check CollegeRecuriter.com for candidates with college degrees.

Most companies know of the top three social sites Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, but others can be equally, if not more effective for your business based on what you are wanting to accomplish. It’s important to know your goals of using social media for your brand before just jumping in, with that understanding you will be able to pick the right social platforms for maximum results. Still confused? Contact your WSI Consultant today to get your questions answered.

Do You Have a Mobile Marketing Strategy?

Thu, 03 Nov 2011 16:21:00 GMT

Just like everything else these days online marketing is going mobile. As smart phones become cheaper and more popular, people are finding themselves using their phones and tablets more and more to do their internet searching. Especially when searching for things locally. How many times have you needed to find a restaurant and pulled your phone out to search for directions?

Mobile Phone Usage is Exploding

According to CISCO mobile phone usage is going to DOUBLE by 2012 and TRIPLE by 2013. Sounds like a mobile marketing strategy needs to be developed now.

Have you ever Googled something on your phone and seen different search results then Googling on a PC? That's because Google knows your on a mobile device and wants to deliver the best results for you on the go. Thus they emphasize and rank higher those sites that are mobile friendly and have higher 'mobile ranking' because of Google Places, Local Reviews, etc.

A websites mobile traffic is averaging around 10%, but from personal experience I have seen mobile traffic double during holidays and high traffic times because people are using their phones while on the go as they travel. That's 20% of your traffic, or 1 out of every 5 people vising your site. You might think "Well but 4 out of 5 people still visit us on a computer, so do we really need a mobile strategy?" Remember it's 20%. If you grew your annual revenue by 20% would that be a pretty big deal? I think we all can say yes.

Creating a Mobile Marketing Strategy

Even before we get to the mobile marketing aspects of things, you first need to make sure your website is 'Mobile Friendly'. What we typically see is a 'watered down' version of a website when visiting a mobile website because people want to quickly aspect the most important things to them. This typically leans toward your contact information, directions, phone number, email address etc. People want these things fast, so when thinking about your mobile website keep in mind people will be accessing your site from a phone or tablet for fast information.

So don't use large images, videos, flash etc. Straight forward HTML and CSS can easily get people to what they are looking for on your site.

Start by creating a sitemap of your mobile site, just like you would your regular website. Except ask yourself what would I want to access on my website in 2 minutes or less if I were coming here for quick information?

Now this doesn't mean to exclude critical aspects of your website, but keep in mind your traffic is coming from a smaller screen and wanting the information more quickly.

Optimizing Your Mobile Website

Your mobile website can be optimized like any other site by using good practices of keyword friendly Meta Tags, Title Tags, and SEO friendly URLs. But more importantly to be found on a mobile search is how many LOCAL sites you are listed in. Remember, Google is ranking you based on it being a local search 99% of the time. The more prominent you are on local review sites will be a great improvement towards your mobile SEO rankings. A good place to start would be Google Places, Yelp, Yellow Pages, Super Pages, Four Square, etc.

Your Mobile Marketing Strategy

If you are unsure how to start your mobile marketing plan, feel free to contact us today for a free consultation review of your internet marketing strategy. You can also read our White Paper regarding mobile phone metrics here.

Using Social Media to Interact With Your Clients

Wed, 15 Jun 2011 19:12:00 GMT

Marketing on Social Media sites is one of the most effective ways to market your products and services to your customers. Considering that Facebook alone has 500 million users; this should show you the importance of having a social media marketing strategy in place for your company. What may be surprising to some is that people actually enjoy interacting with companies and brands because it makes them have sense of control. If a customer can go online and comment about good or bad service (And typically bad) then they feel like they have a voice about your company's services and products.

Establishing a Goal

The first steps you should take when it comes to social media is establishing the goals for your company's online marketing strategy. Are you selling products directly to clients? Focused on managing your brand identity online? Using Social Media to reach new business? Or using Social Media to retain current business?

These are all important questions to consider when setting up your social media goals.

Don't Sell on Social Media

Most people do not want to login to Facebook or Twitter just to see blatant advertisements thrown in their face. After all it's THEIR account and they CHOOSE to follow you. The can easily choose not to.

The best approach is to interact with your fans and followers about your product and let the users take control. If you have a new widget you want to advertise, then ask people about your product. Don't just advertise it and leave it alone. The best way to approach this is by using an interactive tool such as Facebook polls to see what your customers like. For instance when you use a Facebook Poll to introduce a new product, you should create a webpage or video about your product and link to it from your Facebook Poll. This not only informs the user of your new widget, but also lets them interact back with you with opinions about it and allows for some nice feedback and data collection.

Creating Unique Content

One of the most important aspects of your social media strategy is to include content that your audience wants to see. Photos and Videos are key to achieving good results. After all, people join Facebook and Twitter to share their own photos so why not as a brand or company share yours and directly talk to your audience about your content. Never assume just because you post a comment, photo, or video that someone is goign to interact with you. Best approach is to directly interact with them by talking to your audience and asking them questions about what they like.

Building Your Online Community

What's the point of your social media strategy if no one is following you on Twitter or liking your page on Facebook? You can't just create some social media entities and hope people find you. You need to go to them.

Step 1 - Setting Up Social Media Properties

First step of course to create user accounts and pages on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, etc.

You more than likely already have traffic on your website and/or blog, so the most common sense approach is to link to your Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc. properties from your website and blog. Easiest way to do so is add some 'icons' or 'badges' to your site and link to your social media pages. Click here to download a few we have collected. You can also include these badges and link directly in your Outlook signature.

And I highly suggest using a widget like AddThis to add sharing tools to each of your blog posts (Take a look at the bottom of this post!).

Step 2

Have your company 'follow' and 'friend' your Facebook and Twitter accounts.

Start creating content on Facebook and using #hastags on Twitter. Hashtags (a 'tag' or 'topic' about your Tweets, but with a # in front) lets other users find content based upon trending topics and keywords. This will let users stumble across your content.

Social Media Strategy Webinar

Next month on July 7th 12:00PM CST, WSI will be having a free informational webinar regarding Social Media Strategies for your business and brand. Click here to contact us, or here to sign up for the free webinar.

Digital Marketing Agency? Really?

Tue, 27 Sep 2011 03:34:00 GMT

How so-called digital marketing agencies deliver creativity but fall short on reality.

Okay, so I’m doing a little surfing to see what companies are doing marketing in some of the target industries we’re expanded into and I happen upon a couple agencies that claim strength in digital marketing. Hmmm….really?

The guilty will remain anonymous but, in the 2 cases I’ll rant about here, this is what I find:

“Wait while our site loads, it will be worth it”. That, by itself, is so funny I must wait. Wait..waiting…wait…. Poof…a pretty picture and a navigation “structure” that is so confusing I’m not sure what to click to find their services. This is an agency that is working for large retail brand of beauty products and promotes a state’s visitor and entertainment bureau among other significant sized clients. It really made my brain hurt to look at their own site.

Another agency site that focuses on health care digital marketing opens with a Flash image rotation with one little molecule looking symbol that says “drag me” when you hover over it. Okay, weird. Clicking the little nodules on the symbol brings up a portion of the content on top of the big rotating picture. Then the content comes up over the image and is in 4 columns. You must scroll down separately for each column’s content…thus FOUR scroll bars on the one page. I could scream… “What? Are you kidding me?” Keep those scalpels away from me.

My thought is that these agencies sell their clients outrageously costly, yet “creative” websites that don’t deliver beyond a gee whiz impression.
I cannot believe that a true business objective was ever at the forefront when sites like these are created. When there is frustration, there is friction in the conversion process. Digital marketing allows such great opportunity to eliminate friction. Why create it just to be creative?

The Most Creative Websites Lose

Some of the most creative sites do win awards for creativity from other “creative” people or organizations. But the real award should come from a client who’s increased sales by 20% or expanded into new markets without adding resources or added valuable customer service features that reduce client turnover or doubled lead generation without increasing marketing budget…and so on. Digital marketing should focus more on making the client a winner!

Problem Solvers Win.

Keeping a balance between creativity and results is important. But, if you are in a profit-focused business, face it, beauty doesn’t make payroll!
Don’t get me wrong. Creating a great visitor experience on a website does include the first impression and a look and feel that reflects the image of your target audience. But, it is more about making it easy for your visitor to quickly see how you can solve their problem or fulfill their need and take action in the fewest clicks.

A real digital marketing agency will help you strategize how digital can further the overall marketing objectives of your business before getting creative with your website, search engine optimization, social media efforts or mobile visibility. In addition, a real digital marketing agency will put analytics in place to ensure your business objectives are being delivered through this medium and the data is actionable to constantly improve results. Last I checked, Google Analytics didn’t have a Key Performance Indicator called “website awards”. LOL.

It makes me happy to know we provide real digital marketing services that deliver great results to our local, regional and national clients. You can take that to the bank!

Using Multiple Sitemaps for Better Indexing and Analysis

Thu, 09 Jun 2011 16:41:00 GMT

One of the most common mistakes we come across in regards to Search Engine Optimization (SEO), is that most sites contain only one sitemap. Your sitemap is used for search engines to identify pages across your site, which greatly enhances crawl rates and indexing of your website. The more pages you have indexed, the more likely your content is to be found in search engines. Thus why not use multiple site maps to separate out content on your site?

The Why

Now lots of people say "Oh well my site isn't large enough for multiple sitemaps." But doesn't your site have a blog? Might your blog need a separate sitemap? Or sitemap for a section of articles or resources?

One of the biggest reasons for separating these out, is so that you now exactly how many pages in each section of your site are indexed. It would of course be a lot easier if big'ol mean Google would just tell you within Webmaster Tools. But hey they're not. So it makes sense to break your site down into multiple sitemaps so you can easily see what on your website is indexing and what is not.

You can see above that by separating out the sitemaps that we know 98% of our blogs have been indexed by Google. If these weren't separated how we would know? How do you know if your blog is indexed?

The How

Creating Sitemaps is pretty easy, I recommend the XML sitemap generator over at www.xml-sitemaps.com. For simple sites I recommend at least separating out your blog separately from your main site. If you have a separate section for articles, I would do one for it as well.

For larger more complex sites, for instance an e-commerce site with hundreds of product pages, you might have a sitemap for each primary category and possibly subcategories. That's for you to decide.

The Results

With this practice, not only is it easier to analyze your websites indexing, but your website will more than likely have more indexed pages and index new pages faster.

The same holds true with Yahoo Site Explorer and Bing Toolbox. Each allows for submission of multiple sitemaps of your website. Note that Bing Toolbox is at least nice enough to actually show you the indexed pages in the Index > Index Explorer section, but don't expect them to automatically start indexing a separate Blog Sitemap. I recommend that you monitor this section and physically look to see what is being indexed. You can manually submit your URLs since they allow for 50 direct URL submissions a month or 10 per day.

Facebook Part 2: Must Haves for your Fan Page

Fri, 27 May 2011 16:19:00 GMT

A Facebook Static page

A Facebook Static page adds advanced functionality to your Page using the Facebook Static FBML application. This application will add a box to your Page in which you can render HTML or FBML (Facebook Markup Language) for enhanced Page customization. It will also allow you to create a landing page so your Fans can get a custom message from you before they can navigate through the rest of you Page. The FBML application is only for Facebook Fan Pages, not personal or group pages. You can use this application to set your company’s page apart from your competition. Adding a static page can be a do-it-yourself project if you have some knowledge of HTML.

A detailed Information page

A detailed information page is critical for the success of your company’s Fan page for obvious reasons. When people go to your page, they want to know who you are before they “like” you. It is critical that all the information be complete. A complete page includes your company logo, location and hours or operation (if applicable), a description of who you are and what you do, and other pertinent information about your company. If you are unsure what to put here, use the information from your company website so there is some consistency with your brand.

Facebook is a social platform. So, don’t forget that beyond the technical components, your focus is to engage with your fans. Post pictures, reply to comments, and stay active with them. This will help fuel the fire for your fans to stay active also, which makes a happy camp fire!

Facebook Part 1: Vanity URL

Tue, 24 May 2011 18:51:00 GMT

A Facebook fan page is a way for businesses to connect to current and potential customers, and engage in conversation related to your business. To set up a Fan page and get your own vanity URL like facebook.com/yourbusiness you must start the process with a standard Facebook URL until you have 25 “likes.” Once you have 25 people who “like” your page you are now eligible to create a customizable URL that fits your business. Congrats!

Getting to the 25 “likes” should take you a week or less; just email everyone in your organization and tell them to like the page. If your organization is smaller than 25 then reach out and email people in your personal network. You can invite people to “like” your page through Facebook or through your normal email client, either way let the people in your network know you have created a new page and start engaging in conversation with them.

A Fan page is great for businesses because Facebook Pages are not subject to a fan limit and can automatically accept fan requests, unlike a personal profile which has to manage friend request. Every time someone becomes a fan, comments, clicks the “like” link, or shares your post, it shows up in that fan’s news feed for all their friends to see. So “viral” is built in which should increase your “likes” as long as your posting regularly which should be included in your company's social media marketing strategy.

Not sure what to post, or how to get started? Contact your WSI consultant to get started with your Facebook Fan page today!

Content Curation: The new Social Media Wave?

Tue, 24 May 2011 18:43:00 GMT

Creating, finding and sharing compelling content can prove to your customer that your business knows its jurisdiction, is a thought leader in its field and wants to help them keep current on important developments. Businesses are placing a greater emphasis on content marketing’s ability to add value for current and potential clients.

Because we are surrounded and bombarded with content from social media, it hasn’t made life easier on content production. According to Facebook, 30 billion pieces of content (web links, news blogs etc) are shared each month on the social network, with no sign of slowing down. This can be overwhelming for your business because you want to make sure your content is being seen.

In an article on emarketer.com it quotes:
“Content curation is not a low-touch activity, and according to HiveFire the greatest challenges are creating content that is original and compelling, and finding the time to do so. It was much less of a challenge to find quality content from third parties, but still, nearly half of marketers reported that was difficult as well”.http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1008327

Right now it seems that content curation, and curation platforms are going to be an area of growth on the web because it’s easier to search for good content and share it then to create it. One of the single most valuable roles you can play in this uproar of content is to be the one who lends sanity to finding and sharing only the best of the best.

LinkedIn’s successful IPO validates Social Media as Investment

Fri, 20 May 2011 21:42:00 GMT

LinkedIn went public and its stock has gone nuts. Is this further evidence that beside the application for online connections and internet marketing, the site is valuable to investors? LinkedIn’s social interaction tends to be more business-minded and conversations tend to stay within boundaries of professional networking as opposed to the casual and more personal exchanges of the broader well known Facebook.

LinkedIn may be just the first of social media IPOs. Watch for others to follow in the next year or so. Here are some other potential IPOs to watch for in this sector.

Facebook – social networking website where friends, coworkers, corporate brands can stay connected.
Zynga - develops browser-based games that work both stand-alone and as application widgets on social networking websites such as Facebook and MySpace.
Groupon – “deal-of-the-day” site that email coupons and discount offers. 35 million registered users.
Pandora - personalized internet radio service that helps you find new music based on your old and current favorites.
Kayak - website and mobile apps enable you to easily compare hundreds of travel sites at once.
Yelp - connecting people with local businesses more than 50 million people visit Yelp per month
Rovio - digital gaming best known for its game Angry Birds for smartphones.
Zillow - find and share vital information about homes, real estate and mortgages. Personally, I used this site last year as one data point when selling my mom’s home “by owner” helping us get $10k OVER what a realtor wanted to list the house for.

Social Media is a wide landscape of professional and personal online information and knowledge sharing. It is basically leveraging technology to do what people do and have done from the beginning. People like to share ideas, learn, teach, make referrals, ask for opinions, brag, snoop, etc….

The best investment, is to engage a social media strategy to improve your business. As social media marketing experts we help businesses secure their brand name within the most popular social media web properties and help set and implement strategies for purposefully using these powerful venues to grow business value. For mid-sized and larger companies, our Social Media Kit is a useful template for setting internal policy and social media marketing tactics. Contact us for more information or to request the kit.

Vote for Best SEO Cartoon Caption

Wed, 11 May 2011 21:33:00 GMT

Which caption do you like for this search engine optimization cartoon? Tell us which one you like best or comment with your own creative option. (G- or PG-rated only, please).

Caption Options

No need for tricks or such desperate measures with WSI.
Gertrude complains, “And if that don’t work, I’m gonna call WSI”
George decides it's time to outsource digital marketing to WSI.
******ADD YOUR OWN CREATIVE CAPTION ******

We welcome all silly or serious comments and suggestions. SEO is serious business but that doesn’t mean we all can’t lighten up now and then. The winning caption will be used on our printed postcard…maybe!

Add your caption as a comment to this post!

Internet Marketing like a Sports Team

Fri, 06 May 2011 16:29:00 GMT

Keep Your Focus on the Goals & Perfect Your Fundamentals

Why don’t more business owners attack their Internet marketing with the focus and strategy of the top coached sports teams? Whether your wish is to promote a sports website or to gain visibility in Google Search for your new law firm, all tactics you apply should be targeted on winning the game. The “win” for a business might be number of leads generated; percent of online sales growth; cost savings through digital automation.

Eye off the Ball
Many companies haven’t defined the “win”. So how can you rally your team (employees, suppliers, customers) to get on board and enthusiastically fight together in an effort to win? You, the business owner, must provide the vision and the expectation. You must exploit your strengths and your competitors’ weakness.

Internet Marketing Institute published a fantastic article furthering this analogy.
http://www.ppcsummit.com/newsletter/internet-marketing/why-you-need-to-run-your-marketing-team-like-a-sports-team/

Internet as a Game Changer

The Internet has equaled the playing field, so to speak for small business. But, like in sports, the strong and smart will survive. The game of online marketing, however has rules that are ever changing. Consider working with a “coaching staff” of experts at WSI web SMART to ensure your fundaments are in place; you have a great understanding of your competitors; you have a plan for strategic maneuvers; you have your focus on the goal and measurements in place.

WSI supports businesses that want to win at online marketing and are willing to work as a team to ensure goals are achieved. Internet marketing is a sport and a game worth winning.

Mobile Ads for Airtime

Fri, 06 May 2011 16:50:00 GMT

Would your attitude about internet marketing interruptions change if you were paid every time you viewed a commercial or mobile advertisement?

One creative company has made a business out of exchanging ads for airtime. With mobile phone airtime minutes being as (or more) valuable as currency, people will be actively willing to watch mobile ads in exchange for adding airtime. The human ties to mobile communication are astounding. In developing countries, people spend 10% of their annual income on purchased airtime.

There are other humanitarian benefits weaved into this company’s mobile application. Here are some highlights from a recent Mashable post:

Advertisers and marketers looking for a way to survey consumers or run branded campaigns in developing countries are limited in their abilities to reach these audiences. Txteagle seeks to change that and boasts a database of more than 2.1 billion prepaid mobile subscribers across 220 operators in 80 countries. It can use the mobile phone to serve as conduit between advertiser and consumer. The startup uses airtime compensation to sugarcoat its survey and campaign solicitation attempts. Txteagle founder Nathan Eagle says this is because airtime is equivalent to — if not greater than — cash in these countries. Ten percent of an individual’s annual income in emerging markets is spent on purchasing prepaid airtime, Eagle says.

Reference blog: http://mashable.com/2011/04/13/txteagle/

The opportunities for new business creation and creative marketing for old brand companies is only limited by imagination. Come to WSI to learn about what is happening with mobile marketing and advertising. This is not just for big business. There are some turnkey tools to get you started even if you are a small company seeking to reach mobile users in your neighborhood.

WSI Internet Consultants, with our local and global presence, are in tune with emerging opportunities in the mobile space and can help you evaluate it as a marketing option. Go to our site for our latest white paper on Mobile Marketing.

Customizing Your eFusion Blog

Fri, 29 Apr 2011 17:24:00 GMT

So you have your eFusion blog setup and posted your first blog, but you think to yourself “Wow this looks a little boring”. The best part about eFusion blogs (well any part of eFusion really) is that you can customize virtually anything you can think of. This can be really useful when you need to highly customize something for search engine optimization.

But to jazz up our blog, we thought we would introduce adding a picture, website, and phone number to each of our authors. I think this greatly enhances the blog and adds a personal touch to the readers, and all with very minimal coding involved.

Step 1

The first thing you need to do is login to the Admin section of your eFusion website (yourdomain.com/admin) and then go to ‘Admin > More Customization Options’ and then choose ‘Blog Layouts’

From here you can customize each type of blog layout that you have. The one we are most concerned with is “Blog Post List Layout”. This the overall layout of your blog, the view in which you have a list of ALL of your blog posts. From here you will see the WYZYWYG with the generic blog information (Title, Author Name, Date, Post, etc.)

Step 2

The main thing we are trying to do is have eFusion load an image that is ‘dynamic’ so that it pulls the right picture for the right author. Well since each author has their own name, that will be used as our unique identifier. In screen shot you see that we already have a tag for {tag_blogpostauthor}. This dynamically pulls the name for that author. So it makes sense to reason that we can upload an image BlogAuthor.jpg and have their image be unique to each author.

Step 3

So we need to go in HTML view add the line of code: <img alt="Blog Author" src="/images/authors/{tag_blogpostauthor}.jpg" />

Remember that your image path can be whatever you need it to be, as long as you use {tag_blogpostauthor}.jpg as the actual name of the image. And of course you can style the image however you feel necessary. The best place to put this is just under:

<div class="post-details"> {tag_blogpostauthor} - {tag_blogpostdate} </div>

If you don’t have much coding experience, I suggest using something along these lines:

<div style="float: left; padding-right: 15px; padding-bottom: 10px; width: 148px;"><img alt="" src="/images/authors/{tag_blogpostauthor}.jpg" />

You will need to set your own padding or margins as you see fit as well as the width for the image. Just remember you can always edit /StyleSheets/ModuleStyleSheets.css, if you need to change up how the default blog classes are handled.

While you’re in there feel free to add a phone number or anything else you’d like to use for your Blog Author mini profile.

P.S. You should definitely add a “Share this” widget to the end of each blog post. So while your editing the Blog Post List Layout, copy and paste this at the end of your layout:

Just make sure to change out wsiwebsmart.com do yourdomain.com

Enjoy!

Google Video Tech Help: Helping Mom & Dad use the computer.

Wed, 23 Mar 2011 19:59:00 GMT

How To Videos – The next best thing to being there

Our friends at Google have introduced a fun website that helps “kids” help parents use their computer. This is a great site to share short “how to” videos for some of the most common and simple tasks that can stump a new computer user. What seems simple to those of us who use technology regularly can be intimidating to older family members. This site allows you to email reference videos on the topic in question so you don’t have to be there in person. www.TeachParentsTech.org

Short Videos, Big Help

As Internet Consultants, we at WSI help businesses clients develop videos of all types that help them communicate messages or instructions to their audience. Multimedia communication can be more personal and engaging and can be more effective is less time than the written word. Just like the Google site referenced, any business can provide something of relevance to help their visitors. Consider a “how to” or a “helpful tip” or “product in use” demo video. Creating these can be fast and affordable. Contact us for a brainstorm of ideas that can impact your business.

Trends in Online Video Use

Online video use is growing quickly for both personal and business related use. Like other content online, this is driven by the fact that it puts the control into the user’s hand. Information and entertainment are accessible on the users terms. This holds true to even Television shows in which almost half (46%) of viewers ages 18 to 34 watch television shows on their computer. The benefit driving the trend is convenience and time flexibility for finding and consuming the content. The same is true for business related marketing content. Useful and helpful video content will trump advertising and sales pitches. So, marketers much be creative in getting message across to target consumers. A Video strategy should be implemented sooner than later.

Question to Ponder:

If a “picture is worth a thousand words”, how much is a video worth? As for the Google site, the helpful videos that open the power of the Internet to our loved ones is priceless.

P.S. Dear Mom, the “on” button is on the right.

Social Media “Rules of Engagement”

Wed, 16 Mar 2011 16:27:00 GMT

Networking is a long term relationship building activity. We like to trust in the people we buy from. Traditionally networking is face to face. Your elevator speech (60 seconds) for example, is a very brief opportunity at a networking event, where you are the focus of attention.Social media groups such as Facebook, blogs, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube are great examples of how to take your offline networking online.

Here you must understand the “rules of engagement,” you must always be seen as professional and authentic. This can be a difficult balance to achieve online, when everything is written down or recorded for playback because online you are open to public scrutiny. It is important, therefore, to teach yourself and your staff the importance of acting responsibly online so as not to engage in any controversy. Your WSI Consultant can help you with this.

LinkedIn is the professionals’ choice of social media, and is something that you should consider using in your business if you do not already do so. LinkedIn is a great place where you can show case your testimonials, add videos, share files and so much more. There are huge benefits for uploading videos to video sharing websites like YouTube, and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is one of them. Keywords play an important part in any SEO campaign, and YouTube is no different. Once you have your video you can embed this onto your website for additional benefits. A video on your website will:

Increase the length of time a visitor spends on your page
Generate feedback and comments which could be useful in your business
Help with conversion from visitor to paying customer

Furthermore, here are some advantages to networking online:

Time – travelling to and from an event can take up time in your day that could be used for working on or in your business.
Costs – networking groups often charge a fee. Online networking is generally free, and there are no traveling expenses to be incurred.
Fear – some people are a little nervous about meeting people for the first time, and online networking eliminates that totally.
Speed – this is different to time in that you may be able to respond fairly quickly to a question online, because you are more likely to have all your resources at hand.

For further reading on this topic more Click here.

Contact WSI today and start effectively building your online relationships.

The Vote’s in on Your Business. Are you a winner or loser?

Tue, 02 Nov 2010 20:34:00 GMT

Voting at the Polls may be today, but consumer voting for/against your business occurs daily (and nightly) online. Pay attention business owners, or be defeated.

Online Marketing can be a lot like today’s nasty political campaigns.

Competitors want to beat you (for position in search engines)
Opponents are willing to spin the truth (post bad reviews)
The more visibility and “voice” they control (online) the more you disappear
The public is busy and highly influenced by negative opinions (real or not)
If you are not active in the process, don’t whine about the results!

Do you know how your constituents’ (customer/prospects) opinions of you are being influenced beyond your control by reviews and comments online? Do you have a plan actively working right now that promotes an accurate and positive reputation about your business?

Why Should You Care Now? What is the Influence of Online Reviews?

Data shows that 92% of people read reviews and of those, 89% are influence to buy (or NOT to buy) because of them. That is huge. (Request the article summarizing this data in more detail.)

Take Control and the Truth will Save You.

Ok, a little melodramatic, but if you are not controlling the truthful reputation of your business online, you are vulnerable to losing business due to a single poor or bad review. No business is perfect and everyone has to do right to customers who’ve not had the best experience. But if one customer bad experience gets posted in a local review site….ouch, it is likely to be syndicated across the Internet for all to see over and over again.

Reviews: Good, Real….and Real Good!

The same is true for positive reviews. So, actively promoting the acquisition and syndication of good reviews is a critical element in the mix of your online marketing.

What is the Best Approach for Small Business?

There are several ways to go about this. Some can be costly and time consuming. WSI recommends small business clients use tools! Why do things manually when you can do it better by leveraging technology and achieve greater results?

WSI has a new solution available that will help you take control by proactively working your online reviews. Our system will help you:

Get High Quality Reviews
Broadcast Reviews in a controlled manner
Publish your reviews on your site and social media sites

Real Results:

Positive reviews can drive a 20% gain in on site conversions (or more)!
Ask for a demo and case studies for businesses similar to your.

Customer Lobby, WSI’s latest addition to the WSI eMarketplace.
Call toll free 866-216-4256 or in Dallas metro 972-208-0926

Be warned, Local competition is going Online in a big way

Fri, 29 Oct 2010 17:15:00 GMT

30% increase in Local Online advertising. Is your business adapting?

The shift to online is not surprising to us as Internet Marketing Consultants. We see clients moving their ad and marketing efforts online due to the speed, control and tracking benefits. Some are making the move faster than others, but all are finding some or all of these to be true from their online marketing:

Your prospects initiate the sales process through online search
Your prospect is more informed when contacting you and closer to “buy”
You minimize waste in total advertising cost
You lower your per-lead acquisition cost
You get instant tracking and flexibility and business insight
You improve profits with affordable, low or no upfront cost possible

Kind of sounds like the perfect sales person, right? So it is…or can be if done right.

Advertisers can be frustrated with cost and performance of traditional advertising. How wasteful is it?
We did a study with one of our contractor client’s print directory ad by tracking and recording phone calls it delivered. It was proved they got more calls from companies wanting to sell THEM something than they did from prospects looking to buy the product they were marketing. 100% to zero! That’s horrible!

Most situations are not that drastic, and maybe you are finding some success with traditional marketing. We don’t suggest going 100% digital. But times, and channels, are changing so we recommend you consider shifting some of your ad spend before the end of the year or for next year and test it out. The data will speak loud and clear.

WSI’s unique position is that we can craft an online marketing mix that is custom fit to your needs. Businesses are overwhelmed with sales pitches and claims about digital marketing from businesses that focus on just one element or a cookie-cutter package. You might be over sold or undersold. Either way is a set up for failure.

If you need help, we can help you select some of the best options available and recommend a success template based on our experience with similar companies and set up the analytics that will undeniably prove return-on-investment.

Digital marketing is for Local Businesses wanting to stay in business…..like YOUR business! Call for a chat today.

Expose Yourself

Fri, 29 Oct 2010 17:10:00 GMT

When is Exposing Yourself in Public a Good Thing?

Now, behave yourself. What I am referring to is the urgent need for small business to get with it when it comes to Social Media in order to gain additional visibility into your business offerings and activities….and secure company branding.

Will Exposure Make Me More Popular?

In the case of Social Media it certainly will get you more attention. But, like any “new” thing some think the jury is still out on the effort vs. rewards balance of working the Face Book, Linked In, Twitter and other popular tools and websites for promoting themselves or their business.

Just like in real life, some have to work harder or more creatively at being popular. Easy or hard, we at WSI coach businesses in this process and, yes, you can be popular amongst like-minded niche market. And doing so will pay off.

The Me Focusing on the You.

You have some sort of goal or objective that you want to get out of it, but it will never be successful unless you focus your actions towards delivering valuable content that is impactful to them. For business, this can be an important announcement, tips that help your audience or even humor, to name a few approaches to messaging within Social Media.

I think one of the top-level goals for business and Social Media is to remain “front of mind” with your connections without being “in your face”. The goal for Social Media is rarely a direct sale. It is the constant “courting” of the relationship - the “getting to know you” and “are we meant for each other” or “let’s hang out…and introduce me to your friends” kind of thing.

Don’t be Annoying or You Will get Dumped

Find a balance of ongoing communication that doesn’t drive them to “un-friend” or unsubscribe your connection to them. Ouch. …The modern “break up”!

What do the Experts and Data Say About Social Media Right Now?

I like to refer to eMarketer because they give nice charts. A picture is worth a thousand words. And since no one would read a thousand words on line anyway, here’s the data they share by way of American Express OPEN survey.

What You Must Do Now!

Whether you buy into the mass rush to Social Media or not, you must take steps to secure your brand name online. If you don’t your competitors or others may register your company name as their own.
It used to be the only thing a business had to secure was a domain name (www.YOURNAME.com) that matched their company name or product brand.

Who’s in Control of Your Social Exposure?

Social Media sites now make the brand protection issue much more complex.
WSI is ahead of the trend on helping our customers secure a company brand across tens and hundreds of social media sites. It is too affordable to let your company be at risk of your name being “high-jacked”. Allow us educate you and assist. Because you should be in control of how you choose to expose yourself and monitor what others are saying about you online.

The Power of Web Apps in WSI E-Fusion

Fri, 15 Oct 2010 00:23:00 GMT

One of the most beneficial features in the WSI E-Fusion platform is its capability to create custom web apps. Most people are unfamiliar with web apps in eFusion and even regular users sometimes shy away from using them though, although I am completely unaware as to why.

Essentially a ‘web app’ is nothing more than a completely custom module or component (some of which cost hundreds of dollars on other website platforms). Maybe your website needs a custom car search module or hotel finder. Well, rather than trying to hunt down a pre-programmed module on an unfriendly website platform, a web app can be created in literally minutes.

A web app eliminates the need for database programming and puts you totally in control. For instance looking at the screen shot here you can see that to create a web app you simply need to enter a name, choose any ‘front end’ options that would allow users on your website to create web app items and simply click next.

This next screen lets you create any type of ‘field’ you can think of to be in your web app: Drop downs, radio buttons, check boxes, lists, etc.

The last thing to do is to create the ‘template’ in which the web app is displayed. Maybe you want your description on the left, your image on the right, and check boxes below that. Easy enough with the WYZYZWYG or simple HTML/CSS. Take a look at GoAccommodations which has built their entire hotel search out of Web Apps without the need to pay a single programmer. http://www.goaccommodation.com.au/

Web Apps also have a completely customizable front end search for your users to find exactly what they are looking for. Web apps can even make simple things easier, for instance our testimonial page is a simple web app with two fields: 1 for the testimonial and 1 for the Client and location. Rather than manually updating an HTML page every time we do great work and get a testimonial, we simply fill in 2 fields and our page is updated dynamically and formatted by the Web Apps template.

Latest Tips to Know Before You Send that Email Blast

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 16:08:00 GMT

Improve your digital and email marketing success by taking into account these facts.

These points are taken from a recent article on research done by MailerMailer and based on 900 million email marketing messages.

Because open rates are falling over the years, you much do what you can to get the most out of your efforts. So, keep in mind these tips as you work your next email marketing campaign.

Images in emails: 33% of people reading emails have images “turned off”. If using images, make sure the message is not in the image. Your message should be in text.
When to send? Surprisingly, open rates and click through rate were highest on the weekend. Is this due to people “catching up on email” when they should be weekending? I’m guilty.
Get Personal. Use recipient’s name in body of text but NOT in subject line.
Bounce rate is highest with less frequent emails. Yes, sending email message 1x/mo or more is better. Bounce rate scales down with the frequency of mailing. Maybe because you get “unsubscribes” more quickly, leaving you with a list that really cares.

Every situation has its exceptions. The point is…measure and experiment with your email marketing. Want to know more about email marketing tactics? Download our white paper and use it as a tool and apply some of the suggestions.

Get Blogging

Wed, 22 Sep 2010 14:20:00 GMT

Not convinced that blogging should be mixed into your marketing mix?

The trend numbers speak for themselves and our customers have found quick benefits by applying strategic blogging. So can you.

Let’s face it, you will have to do it for self preservation at some point anyway, so businesses should jump on board now rather than try to catch up later.

E-Marketer reports the steady growth in the chart below.

Content Marketing

The reason why blogging is important is because consumers going online are first looking to consume content, educate themselves about a topic of interest and then take action based on an informed decision. Blogs are subject rich content. They are especially helpful for marketers wanting to gain visibility for “long-tail” keywords.

How to plan your blog topics

Of course you can just blog away with no specific purpose. Sometimes this can be effective in driving traffic as many relevant keywords come naturally in your text as you write about a subject you know well. But, if your have a more purposeful marketing objective, strategizing and planning your blog topics and technically optimizing them with each post is much more powerful at getting results.

Ideas for planning your blog topics:

Assign different employees or departments a number of post. This gives a different perspective from experts within your company that will appeal to the different information needs of your prospects and customers.
What are the most common questions asked from you customers? Frequently asked questions make for great blog post because people ask questions right in the search engine query box. Expand on existing FAQs within blog posts.
Repurpose your own or others content. This is one of the more common methods for online businesses in the most aggressive and competitive keyword spaces. Commenting on other content in unique ways is fast and a bit easier.

Get help from an Internet Consultant who can perform in depth keyword research which will reveal actual “units of demand” for keywords relevant to content you can supply. So get blogging, because someone is wanting your knowledge and perspective.

Blog

Business Case for Mobile Websites

Websites for a Mobile Experience

Mobile Websites - Best Practices

Getting Started With Mobile

Martketing to Affluent Men Online

Looking for Affluent Men Online

Men shop online with mobile devices

What Marketers Should Do to Reach Affluent Men

What I Learned About Improving Email Subject Lines

Avoiding the “Delete”

Email Subjects that Convert

1. Is the email subject line clear?

2. Is the email subject precise?

3. Is it concise?

4. Is it relevant, urgent and important?

5. Does the subject communicate exclusivity?

6. Is the subject credible?

Email subject line wisdom

Thought Sequence for Website Copywriting: Use a story-based framework

Sequencing Copy for Maximum Conversion

Tell a story. People respond to stories.

1. THE HEADLINE - setup

2. THE SUPPORTING PARAGRAPH/S - confrontation, rising action intensifies

3. CALL TO ACTION - resolution, climax

Getting started

WSI Local Ad Works PPC (pay per click) Search Engine Advertising – Now with Advanced Conversion Features

Two features to boost PPC results.

1. Dynamic Landing Pages for your PPC campaigns!

2. Keyword Highlighting:

Strategy and Wire Framing Your Designs for Maximum Conversion

The Concept

The Goal

The Strategy

The How

WSI EFusion July Enhancements

July 2011 Enhancements

Modules within Modules

Device Specific Templates

SEO Friendly URLs for Web Apps

July 2011 release

Upcoming Webinar July 7th, 2011

Top Social Media Sites

Do You Have a Mobile Marketing Strategy?

Mobile Phone Usage is Exploding

Creating a Mobile Marketing Strategy

Optimizing Your Mobile Website

Your Mobile Marketing Strategy

Using Social Media to Interact With Your Clients

Establishing a Goal

Don't Sell on Social Media

Creating Unique Content

Building Your Online Community

Step 1 - Setting Up Social Media Properties

Step 2

Social Media Strategy Webinar

Digital Marketing Agency? Really?

How so-called digital marketing agencies deliver creativity but fall short on reality.

Using Multiple Sitemaps for Better Indexing and Analysis

The Why

The How

The Results

Facebook Part 2: Must Haves for your Fan Page

Facebook Part 1: Vanity URL

Content Curation: The new Social Media Wave?

LinkedIn’s successful IPO validates Social Media as Investment

Vote for Best SEO Cartoon Caption

Caption Options

Internet Marketing like a Sports Team

Mobile Ads for Airtime

Customizing Your eFusion Blog

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

Google Video Tech Help: Helping Mom & Dad use the computer.

Top Five Components to Consider Regarding Video Marketing

Social Media “Rules of Engagement”

The Vote’s in on Your Business. Are you a winner or loser?

Online Marketing can be a lot like today’s nasty political campaigns.

Why Should You Care Now? What is the Influence of Online Reviews?