Build a Better Website in Seven Weeks
These days, a website is an integral part oft he marketing plan for every small business! You probably have one, but is your website doing it’s job? Is it representing your brand, attracting visitors, and converting those visitors to qualified prospects or even customers.
Do you know how your website stacks up against your competitors and do you have a plan to improve?
To help small business owners answer these questions, and many more, we are launching a FREE even week program designed to help you build a better website.
Interested? Simply fill out the form below to get started.
This is part of our FREE On-Line Education Program. When you finish this class, we will send you a link to the others in the program as well.
Social Media 2010 – What is On the Horizon?
In the last year Social Media has gone from a Buzz to a Roar as niche applications like Twitter have gone mainstream. But will it burn out as fast? Or will it continue to change as new users join the conversations, taking the applications in new directions?
Writing for the Harvard Business, David Armano has identified several trends he believes will shape social media in the coming year. He says:
- Social media begins to look less social - With groups, lists and niche networks becoming more popular, networks could begin to feel more “exclusive. I love the new lists features in Twitter. It has allowed me to bring some order to my stream, and I may even begin to add more people to follow because I can manage when and where I see their content.
- Corporations look to scale - There are relatively few big companies that have scaled social initiatives beyond one-off marketing or communications initiatives.
- Social business becomes serious play - Relatively new networks such as Foursquare are touted for the focus on making networked activity local and mobile. I just started using Foursquare, and like it. I am not sure I am taking full advantage yet.
- Your company will have a social media policy (and it might actually be enforced) - If the company you work for doesn’t already have a social media policy in place with specific rules of engagement across multiple networks, it just might in the next year.
- Mobile becomes a social media lifeline - With approximately 70 percent of organizations banning social networks and, simultaneously, sales of smartphones on the rise, it’s likely that employees will seek to feed their social media addictions on their mobile devices
- Sharing no longer means e-mail - The New York Times iPhone application recently added sharing functionality which allows a user to easily broadcast an article across networks such as Facebook and Twitter. I think this is true, but David is a little late to the party on this one. I have been sharing actively for over a year using Google Reader. I rely on quite a few of my friends, to screen content and share their favorites as well.
What do you think? Has he identified the real game changers for next year? I am sure we will see much debate about this in the months to come; and a year from now, we can look back and see if he was on target.
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Event – Social Media Lunch and Learn – December 2.
Join me, Colin Clark, Michael Reynolds and Dave Anderson as we discuss these and other emerging social media trends at an informal session from 11:30 – 1 at the Fox and Hound on 82nd. The event is hosted by Pinpoint Multimedia. It is free to attend, but RSVP’s are requested.
Lunch and Learn with PinpointMultimedia
My good friend Dave Anderson has asked me to be part of his Lunch and Learn program next week. The topic is social media, and I will be sharing the panel with some of my favorite local social media experts; Colin Clark, Dave Anderson and Michael Reynolds.
The event will be from 11:30 – 1:00 on December 2nd, at the Fox and Hound on 82nd Street in the Castleton Area. There is no cost to attend the informal event, but RSVP’s are requested since space is limited.
Hope to see you there, for what is sure to be a lively conversation!
Tie Your Shoes
Today’s post is by our intern Neil:
Have you ever tried running in shoes without shoelaces? It is difficult, and risky as you can easily trip and fall on your face. 
Running your business website without taking advantage of SEO tools creates a similar scenario. While you are unlikely to be in danger of physical injury, the risk to your business is real. Without a solid focus on SEO, you will find yourself tripping and falling as you attempt to drive traffic and connect with potential prospects and clients.
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) according to Wikapedia
is the process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via “natural” or un-paid (“organic” or “algorithmic”) search results as opposed to search engine marketing (SEM) which deals with paid inclusion
There are many tools you can use to improve your position with search engines such as Google, Yahoo and BIN. Moving to the top of the search list means potential customers find you faster and easier compared to your competitors. This in turn will improve the quantity and quality of traffic to your website.
I have been researching SEO tools for the past few weeks and here are two of my favorites.
- Google Analytics which analyzes your web site’s performance by helping you understand what terms drive traffic, what information visitors search for when they arrive, and how long they stay. By looking at the data you can make adjustments in your site to improve your performance.
- Linkscape from SMOZ.org In the internet world you are judged by the company you keep. These relationships are measured in links. Using this tool you can discover who links to you and more interesting, who links to your competitors.
At Roundpeg we rely on these tools to help our clients rank higher on Search Engines and drive more traffic to their sites. Do you have a favorite SEO tool?
Neil out!
Shout Out to Vincent High School
This is a shout out to the students of Vincent High School of Milwaukee, Wisconsin! You may be wondering why I am doing a shout out to a group of students at a high school I never attended. The answer is simple: WEB STATS!
Last night, as I took a quick look at my web site statistics I was pleasantly surprised by the spike in traffic I experienced on Monday. At first I thought it was because of the guest post by Robby Slaughter (which by the way was really good), but it wasn’t. Instead, more than 50 people (which for my web site is quite a large number) viewed a post from my How to Write a Business Plan series – (Lesson One) which was written on September 4.
Who were these people? And where did they come from? A quick look at the referring information indicated they were coming from a website sponsored by Vincent High School of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The site itself is password protected (as school sites should be) so I am not sure exactly what the site said. My best guess, however is one of the teachers in the business department found my content and recommended it to his/her students.
The point of all of this is that you should be looking at your web stats to figure out what is driving traffic to your site. In this instance, I am flattered that a teacher in Milwaukee likes my content, but since she/he and the students aren’t my core audience, I probably won’t write more just for them. However, if this was a group of small business owners, I would be paying more attention to what they were reading, and trying to find ways to serve up more of the same.
What do your web stats tell you about your readers? With a simple plugs-in like WordPress.com Stats or the more comprehensive Google Analytics, there is much you can learn about your website. It is up to you what you do with the information.
And if you are a student from Vincent High, thanks for stopping by, feel free to post a comment, and then go do your homework!
Five Free SEO Tools
Building a great website is only the beginning. Once built, you need to drive traffic and measure performance. Fortunately there are a number of web tools which can help. Here are just a few tools which you can use to put more power in your eMarketing strategy. Best of all, these tools are FREE
Google Webmaster Tools: Webmaster resources help answer crawling and indexing questions. Using these tools improves traffic, enhances the site’s functionality and helps grow your internet business.
Google Analytics: This tool helps you write better ads, strengthen your marketing initiatives, and improve conversion. The statistics show where visitors come from and how they interact with your site.
Google Alerts: Receive email updates or notes to your Google Reader on the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic. For example: select your company name, the name of your competitor or other hot industry topic and when Google indexes a page related to the topic you have selected you will be notified.
Yahoo Site Explorer: Explore all the web pages indexed by Yahoo! Search. View the most popular pages from any site, dive into a comprehensive site map, and find pages that link to that site or any page. Be sure to submit your site to be crawled as well!
SEOBook.com Keyword Research: A fast, easy, reliable and FREE way to perform keyword research. This tool shows you how many people search for keyword phrases in Google, Yahoo and MSN. This tool can help you write more effective copy to help you improve your position in organic searches.
For a more complete list of great tools check out this post from WebBizIdeas.com
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PROMOTION: Curious about how well your website stacks up? 
Discover how visible your site is to search engines and how attractive it is to people.
Request a Free Website Evaluation
Traffic is Good, But Leads are Better!!
When I worked in retail, we always looked at the traffic in the store as the first sign of what kind of day lay ahead. Lots of people, usually meant someone would be buying something!
As I work with clients, many who are not in retail businesses, I can use the measures from their internet marketing to get a feel for the “traffic” to their business.
I review with them raw traffic, page views and time on site. I can point to the number of people who viewed a particular page or blog post, track where they came from and identify the most effective ads.
The numbers are fascinating, but with all this tracking and viewing it is easy to lose track of the real object … CUSTOMERS!
Back in my retail life, there were days the store was filled with browsers who didn’t buy; sometimes the same thing happens on a website. The trick is to convert window shoppers to buyers.
Now, not every business can ” sell ” products on-line. However, every business can use their website to create leads and move prospects along the sales process.
One strategy is to offer free reports, white papers or other resources. Instead of a simple download, require visitors to provide at least an email address to receive the information. Sometimes, people will give you a bogus email address, but most people who are interested in the content provide real contact information. Now you have permission to reconnect and send follow up information to move the prospect closer to a purchase.
We have always had a sign up form for our newsletter on our website but these free offers, like the one below have been much more effective in generating interest.
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PROMOTION: Curious about how well your website stacks up? Discover how visible your site is to search engines and how attractive it is to people.
Request a Free Website Evaluation
The Beginning of a Podcasting Journey
Written by Neil Chaggar
There are many ways to inform, educate, and communicate with people over the internet. However, there’s one medium that literally gets your voice across to your audience; it’s called Podcasting.
Podcasting works similar to blogging; however it can be far more effective if the presenter is an exceptional speaker rather than a writer or if the audience prefers listening to their media/feed rather than reading it.
Earlier this week, Lorraine expressed an interest in Podcasting to compliment her written blog.
I was excited to work on this project since I already knew how useful yet simple this medium is to get your message across. I’ve listened to Podcasts in the past but didn’t know exactly how to set it up on our website; so began the Podcasting research.
I soon learned many people choose iTunes to publish their Podcasts so they are easily available to anyone and everyone. In addition, there are many other things to consider before you can start Podcasting. To begin, you need to have a quality recording tool. While most computers can record sound into a WAV file, you need additional software to save your files as MP3s.
Turns out, there are many software options from which to choose from but finding a cheap yet efficient one was tricky. Finally, we settled on Audacity, which is free and has decent effects and features, along with capability to save and convert MP3 files.
Another issue Podcaster face is choosing a third-party server where you can upload all your files and material along with RSS codes so iTunes can publish your Podcasts. After looking at several website, some more expensive than others, we chose www.solidcasts.com, which allows users to have first 100MB of space for free and reasonable monthly prices for up to 20GB of space.
Now we have all the precise tools and software to create and publish Podcasts, you can soon listen to Lorraine Ball has to say, literally. Furthermore, if you already publish Podcasts on your own website, feel free to check out the websites and software mentioned above to see if it can improve your Podcasting activities.
Neil out!
Perfect Score
Written by Neil Chaggar
Creating a website takes a lot of hard work, patience, and creativity… but how do you know if your website is serving its true purpose or how effective it is according to your customers? While there are a number of tools out there, we have found www.WebsiteGrader.com to be very helpful as we try to determine if a website set up to attract traffic, if it is connected to the larger internet community, and how it compares to your competitors.
In just in few seconds, the site evaluates your website on a number of set criteria such as Google page rank, Alexa trafffic rank, links, keywords, images, content, blog etc. The detailed report identifies areas for improvment, with suggestions and links on how to make the changes.
I have been using Website Grader to evaluate websites we have designed for clients, including new sites for www.uhasinc.com and www.investsfip.com and have been able to improve their score thanks to this helpful and free website.
So if you are wondering how your website ranks among millions of others just like yours, give Website Grader a try. You may not be able to get into the 90th percentile right away, but you’ll have enough info and the right tools to get there sooner or later. Neil out!
Web Design
There is no official standard or particular software which defines Web 2.0. It is simply a trend in web design which facilitates interactive user experiences, which include opportunities for information sharing, feedback and collaboration.
With simple web designs, blogs, surveys and targeted email, we can help you use the power of the web to create an interactive conversation with your clients and prospects.
Do you have a Web 2.0 strategy? If not, Roundpeg can help!
Our web projects start at $1,750, include design, first year hosting, and training so you can take over management of your site when we are done.
What people say
“Lorraine is a creative whiz. While some people talk about thinking outside the box, Lorraine is reinventing the box. If you are not getting the results you want from your marketing, give Lorraine a buzz and she’ll give your marketing a jolt.” -Drew Cameron (Owner at HVAC Sellutions)
