“Word-of-mouth advertising is the defining element of Web 2.0 advertising. It’s all about making new connections and expanding your internet presence via social networking.

Web 2.0 advertising through social networking gives you the much needed proximity to your clients, increases the frequency of social contact and changes the dynamics between you and your customers.

It creates structured internet communities and puts like minded people in touch with others, where once it was impossible. Social networking, which is viral in nature, keeps the community growing and extends your reach indefinitely.

Social networking sites not only help people interact with each other but also allow them to share likes and dislikes, music and photos as well as video and TV clips. This provides businesses with a perfect platform to advertise and promote their products or services.

You can get a better feel for the market by getting to know more about your target audience including the kind of products or services they prefer. This in itself can save you loads of time, effort and money spent advertising to the wrong target audience.”

With the insights provided above, we can maximize the use of web 2.0 for our business.Contact us to update your company websites in an in-time web 2.0 based site.

We have reached the point in the internet revolution where organizational websites are not only common but expected. If you don’t have a website, you don’t appear to exist. With more people using search engines to find information than ever before it is critical that your organization have a strong web presence. This post will cover the importance of chapter websites and ways to improve or start one.

Why You Need a Website

Like I said earlier, if you don’t have a website, you don’t appear to exist. Here are a few more reasons why it is important:

• Websites lower the barriers to participation and help you gain members and build chapters.
• They allow potential members from geographic areas outside of traditional population centers to find your organization and get involved.
• If you don’t have one you are missing out on a vital form of communication, making it much more difficult to spread your message.
• You can raise money online. Many people are less intimidated of contributing to a campaign or organization online than in person.
• Reporters are less likely to take your organization seriously if you do not have one.

Creating a Website

I strongly suggest that your organization’s website have its own domain name. Orgname.wordpress.com might work for a personal blog, but not really for an organization. This is a matter of being taken seriously by visitors, making your site easier to find on search engines, and the ability to have a memorable URL to put on all of your materials. The most popular domain registration service is GoDaddy.com (from right here in AZ).

There might be someone in your organization that already has experience making websites. (Check out my post on getting the most out of your members). If not, I suggest using Campaign Window. Campaign Window allows you to create professional quality sites quickly and easily. You could also hire someone to build a site for you, but this can be extremely expensive (for example, hiring me to do a basic site design costs a minimum of $1000). If your organization is going to build your own site, you need to get a domain name, select a hosting service, and decide on a platform. Platforms include TextPattern, WordPress (not wordpress.com), Drupal, etc. The technical aspects of building a website would take up this entire post, so I won’t go into it here. Some online research will go a long way in finding good resources and advice on this.

As implied byKevin’s blog, putting up a website is not as simple as by having a just website. Quality is also important in order to imply the message you want to send to your viewers. The more specialized it is, the more possibility for you be taken seriously by other media and your prospective clients.

To understand website designing and development better you may contact us at 516-01-13, 0927-248-72-15, or email us at em@open-axcss.com.

1. You can publicise your business, service or products to millions of potential customers. Having a web site can increase your sales.
2. You can update your web site with your latest news or prices much easier and cheaper than print based media. A web site can save you a lot of money in communication and administration costs.
3. You can link your web site with other advertising campaigns therefore creating brand awareness.
4. Your business can advertise and publicise on the internet 24 hours a day, 365 days of the year.
5. Your business now has an extra outlet for taking orders.
6. Web sites are easier and cheaper to change / update, than conventional print based media. Content Management Systems can be set-up so that you can update any section of your web site, when ever you want as often as you want.
7. Web sites make it easier for customers to do business with you. These customers can be global or local.
8. You can compete with other companies in your market area.
9. You can now place your web site address on your business card to enhance your image.
10. You can use your web site to network with other companies and build better business relationships, locally and around the world.

Understand the costs of printing, telemarketing time that you will save by having a website set up by professionals like us. Contact us at 516-0113 or 09272487215 for more information.

Small business owners establishing an online presence often turn to professional web site developers for advice and assistance. Being clear about what is required for the process to flow smoothly can help you avoid a bad experience or an expensive mistake. So, what should a small business owner expect when they consult a web developer?

1. Information about their skill set

Web developers can have a diverse array of backgrounds and qualifications, e.g. graphic design, programming, marketing, business information technology, management consultancy… There is no certification process or standard qualification required to call yourself a web developer! If you are looking for sound advice about e-Business strategies, don’t choose a ‘geek’ who only knows about technology. If you want a specialised, complex site, you’ll be needing programming skills, not just someone who offers you a range of templates to pick from. Also, remember the person you talk to initially may not be the one who does the work: find out about the whole team, including sub-contractors.

2. A list of client referees

You need names and contact details of previous clients, and you need to take the time to talk to them. Don’t just look at their web site – confirm that the web developer did actually build what is currently at that address and that the client was happy with the result and the service.

3. Curiousity about your business

The web developer should have a lot of questions to ask you about your business. They will want to find out what you are selling and what makes people want to buy it from you; what are your customers like; who are your competitors; how does your business operate; is there scope for improving the efficiency or effectiveness of how things are done? Even if you don’t have all this written down as a formal business plan, you’ll have it in your head. You need to talk, and the web developer needs to listen carefully.

4. A collaborative approach

Working with a consultant doesn’t mean you get a solution on a plate. It should be a collaborative partnership, where both of you end up learning something along the way. If you tell the web developer what you want, and they deliver only that, you’ve missed your chance to expand your ideas about web strategy options. If you sit back and let the web developer decide what’s best, you’re unlikely to get a web site that reflects the real distinctiveness of your business. A web developer who happily takes a pile of marketing material from you and doesn’t get in contact again until the web site is finished is going to deliver brochureware. By ‘brochureware’ I mean a site that is static and superficial, as opposed to a site that enriches your business by taking good advantage of the Internet’s unique communicating powers.

5. A proposal document

After meeting with you to find out about your business and discuss the objectives for your web site, the web developer should prepare a proposal describing the work to be done, the time it will take, and roughly how much it will cost you. Expect the proposal to also contain details about the web developer’s business: how long it has been in operation, what resources it draws upon, and information about their web site design and implementation process.

6. Clarity about what you will receive

To compare proposals, you need to be sure what’s included in the price. Copywriting? Graphic design? A content management system allowing you to make your own changes and additions to the site? Domain name registration? Hosting costs? Is there a ‘warranty period’, during which bugs and errors will be fixed without charge? What hourly rate does the web developer charge for maintaining the site content?

7. A way of handling changing requirements

Software development is an iterative, evolutionary process. It takes time to come to a shared understanding of the issues and work through the possible ways of addressing them to arrive at the best solution. If the web developer is working to a specification at a fixed price, you can expect extra work to cost extra. If the additions are extensive, they may need to be treated as a new project. Establish the scope for minor alterations to specifications to occur without charge.

8. Best practice advice

In discussing the implementation of your site, the web developer should talk to you about ensuring that it:

• loads quickly
• is compatible with a wide range of platforms and browsers
• has an attractive and consistent ‘look and feel’
• has well-structured, well-written and comprehensive information
• is easy to navigate and use
• includes appropriate interactivity
• displays privacy/security policies
• is ‘sticky’ (entices visitors to prolong or repeat their visit)
• is regularly updated
• is well-ranked by the search engines
• collects statistics about visitors and their behaviour
• is well-promoted

9. An ongoing relationship

The best web sites grow and change. Ideally, neither you nor your web developer will regard your web site development as a one-off project, but rather see it as the foundation task for a mutually beneficial partnership, based on trust, communication, satisfaction and cooperation. However, be aware of the degree of ‘lock-in’ you have with your web developer, in case things do go sour. It will be easier to switch to a new web developer if you took the precaution of asking for CDs of source materials for your site.

10. A contract

Small business owners often prefer to keep arrangements with their web developer informal. But without a contract or a letter of agreement they find it much harder to deal with the unpleasant issues that can and do arise, such as: failure or incompletion of the project; budget over-runs; lack of clarity in mutual responsibilities; problems with payment options; disputes over intellectual property; and unmet expectations regarding timeliness, quality and support.

Just having a website ranking on the first page of Google won’t necessarily get you clients. For the three main ways as well as any other method, you need a plan. You need a conversion-oriented website to generate clients once you get traffic. Your plan must be based on conversion goals you set at the beginning. For more details, contact a representative.

The advantage internet marketing has over traditional marketing is that everything can be measured, in many cases down to the cent. You have the ability to see stats and behavioral intelligence about your market.

What they do on your site and your ability to find out what decisions they make is powerful. We can show results of what works, what doesn’t and to what degree. Things that are tracked and measured can be improved upon.

Take one step at a time so you lessen the risk. Get educated. We can help you with that. We are inexpensive and can compliment what you are already doing or we can do it for you once you are comfortable and trust our process.

Things are changing and it is becoming harder to rely solely on this avenue for lead generation. More than ever, people are relying on the search engines to do their own research even though they’ve received a recommendation about a business from trusted friends or family. Although advertising works on some levels, it is always better to have people opting in to come to you directly.

“I’ve been burned before”

“We get our Business from Word of Mouth”
“I Don’t Think Internet Marketing Works”

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Creating a small business website opens the possibility to not just market to your leads, but also gives you the ability to engage with your audience and build relationships with your prospects and clients.

All roads in your business should lead back to your website, making it the pivot point for all of your marketing efforts. This is why your small business website needs to be on point.

So if you want a successful business, and I believe you do, it only seems natural to create a website that fuels the growth of your business.

Yet, as a small business owner, it can be easy to get in the way of your own marketing.  The sad thing is that you may not know you’re making these mistakes and undermining your business website.

We would like to present some of the most common mistakes made on small business websites:

1. No Blog

If you don’t have a blog on your website, there is no reason for anyone to visit. With a blog, you’re going to get more traffic, attract more prospects and become a go to resource for your market. It is without a doubt the number one mistake that small businesses make, so don’t be a statistic.

2. No Opt-in

The objective of your website is to turn a one-time visitor into a frequent visitor. A major step in accomplishing that is through an opt-in newsletter. By collecting email address, you get an opportunity to develop a relationship with potential customers. These relationships can turn into fans that spread the good word of your business in the social media space.

3. Messy Website

Simple, clean designs are becoming more and more popular on the web. Many of the most visited websites have mostly white backgrounds, complemented text and a header and footer. Take a closer look at some of your favorite websites and I think you’ll notice that simple and clean go a long way.

4. Where is the Fold?

When people visit your website, the first section that they see is described as ‘above-the-fold’. The fold usually depends on two factors: the physical size of their screen and its resolution. Make sure to place good content above this fold to keep potential clients interested in reading more about your business. If you would like to see the location of your fold, visit this website.

These are a few of the common mistakes on small business websites that we come across on a daily basis. If you correct at least one of these mistakes, you will not only see an improvement to your website, but the odds will be in your favor that more potential clients will start knocking on your online door.

5. Heavy aesthetics.  its okay to have good designs in your site but if your image is too big to load then your site may suffer from slow loading hence your viewers might get bored.

6. Free sites. Never be fooled with free hosted sites. The least thing you wanna being locked out from your site and never will get a chance to transfer your post/files into another better hosting provider.

Does your website make any of these mistakes? If so, which ones? Do you know of any more common mistakes?

Find out and take note what qualities you should have and attitudes you should avoid when you blog.

1. AVOID “GET RICH QUICK” SCHEMES (SELFISHNESS)

Whenever you blog, don’t be selfish.

Most of the bloggers mindset is to take advantage, but to be able to have a network of audience you have to offer good and relevant information to be able to gain the feedback you want.

Blogging is not about TAKING. It is about GIVING. This is why blogs with the “get rich quick” schemes don’t work.

2. LAZINESS

Blogging and use of social media should give you the idea of “LESS WORK” and not “NO WORK”. You should have a mindset that it should help you maximize your time and not to become lazy.

3. IMPATIENCE

Perseverance is one great character that one blogger should possess.

It takes time to build a network of your audience.

It will be slow at first but when you start giving and giving, feedback will start to grow.

For those bloggers that do not get feedback from their targeted audience, you need to ask yourself questions like “Do I satisfy my readers?” , “Do I give less than what they have asked for?” , “Is my topic not appealing?”

Ask your self, and assess. Being a successful blogger is not easy but you need to motivate yourself to get there.

4. LAMENESS

Offer your reader with strong contents that will urge them to read more of your blogs.

5. BE YOU!

Do not copy and paste. Learn to create your own identity.

Wanting to become like your blog icon is great, but you should make real contributions.

Voice out your own thoughts, be inspired and don’t make yourself a duplicate.

6. INSIGNIFICANCE and IRRELEVANCE

It’s always important to put your heart in everything you do.

Being attached to what you are writing about will make you a significant contributor. Though always put in mind that you can’t expect everyone to like all the things that you like as everyone is a unique individual that has unique thoughts.

Be relevant!

7. BOORISHNESS

Have a content that will encourage your readers to read more of you. It is not about writing and repeating keywords to be able to earn. Be creative and offer a good topic.

Source : copyblogger.com/blogging-sins/

In a recent eye tracking research project, Jacob Nielsen found that the ‘average time allocated to an email newsletter after opening was 51 seconds, and that subscribers fully read only 19% of an email.

Now, if you’re anything like me, you may be inclined to runaway screaming at the idea of those odds. If you stop and think for a minute though, those stats start to sound pretty good, especially when compared to print advertising and other forms of direct marketing, and email marketing is much cheaper too.

It does present us with a challenge though; how to get those readers to spend more than a minute looking at your newsletter. I think the answer is the design and layout. It’s time to get creative!

Content is important and will stay priority for most email marketers. But, when you consider that most readers will only read the first two words of a paragraph before their attention is caught by something else, email marketers will need to come up with strategies for guiding the reader through the email, hopefully taking them to what they are interested in, but at least holding their attention for long enough to get them to click.
There are some great examples out there of using design and layout as the guiding priority for keeping your readers’ attention.

Keeping your email short and sweet isn’t always the answer, what is best is to prioritise the content and use design to bring the reader in and keep them interested. Apple uses the ‘hero shot’ and an accompanying tag line to grab the reader’s attention. They place this right in the middle of the email with a little apple symbol off to one side. With this method, they’ve got my attention straight away, using something simple and bold in the centre of my vision, there’s loads more content below now that I’m hooked.

Now I know what you’re going to say. We haven’t all got the branding that Apple has nor, for that matter the products. The principal is the same though, use the design of the email to guide and persuade your reader into engaging with the content. Don’t bombard them with lots of content straight away; give them the best you have to offer in a simple, bold way and they should stay hooked.

Now, we’ve talked about the layout, what about the look. There is no better place than email marketing to get creative. It’s easy and cheap and you can test to your heart’s content before sending to thousands of subscribers. A unique graphic concept is a great way of engaging your subscribers. It pays to think about cool ideas which will represent your brand and wow your readers.

Starbucks have used a simple concept of a hessian sack background to great effect. The concept builds their brand and more crucially for us email marketers, gives the reader something new and interesting to look at. There’s loads more email marketing newsletters out there for inspiration, but I think it’s worth brainstorming a few ‘off the wall’ ideas and see if you can make it happen.

This is something that happens to a lot of people and can be very easily fixed.

The chances are you are using Outlook 2007 as your email client, and that uses a different rendering engine to other desktop and web-based clients and affects people who have used the image resizing tool within their campaign to get their images to the right size.

When the email is sent to Outlook 2007, the client removes the code that resizes the image and leaves it in its original (and normally huge) state; making your campaign look ugly, and unprofessional.

The Solution: Images need to be uploaded to mailingmanager in their desired size to prevent this from happening.  A major hurdle for a lot of people with this is that they don’t have the software to do this.  Luckily, we at mailingmanager have found a great, free bit of software for you to use.  View the tool on CNET and download it and remove this problem from ever happening again.

The email keeps doing weird things after I’ve saved it (content disappearing, layout moving around, text changing font and size)

This is a very common problem we hear and some poor people keep struggling through it, re-doing the campaign again, only to find it reoccur after saving again.

The problem is down to copying and pasting from Microsoft Word, email, or from any word processing software that defines the font type and size.  The reason it causes this problem is because it doesn’t use html code to change the font format and instead uses code that WYSIWYG html editors can’t read and display correctly.  The result is that the WYSIWYG, in its attempt to make sense of the unrecognised code, will break and distort the email causing erratic (and sometimes drastic) changes to the email, leaving your shouting profanities at the screen!

The Solution: Never, ever copy and paste from Microsoft Word, Publisher, Outlook, or any other word processing program that can alter font formatting.  You have two options really:

Either type directly into the editor or, alternatively if you want to copy and paste from an existing document, paste it into the Notepad prior to pasting it into the WYSIWYG editor and then you will not bring any dodgy coding over with it.

The Email keeps expanding in size when I…

….put links in

We’ve seen this enough times for this to be mentioned as advisory to not do.  A lot of times people will put in a link such as:

http://www.mailingmanager.co.uk/reallylongurl/inasubsectionofthesite/reallylongpagename.html

This will be inserted into the email how it is above.  The problem with doing this is that the link will not split onto two lines and will instead just continue on the same line, causing it to push out the size of your email, and make it lose its desired shape.

The Solution: The link needs to be put into a hyperlink to stop this problem from happening.  Just have it inserted behind wording such as “view the rest of this article” or “read more” and you will remove this problem.

….put images in

You may have taken our advice above and resized the images to your desired size and then gone to insert it, only to find that when you do insert it, it pushes out the width of the email.

The Solution: It is a pretty simple one; the image is too big.  The reason this is included is because people normally do the whole campaign before realising this mistake.

When they look at it though, they normally see the image as having space on either side of it, making them presume that it can’t be the image causing the problem.  What they sometimes miss is that most tables have a padding value in it that makes the images and text not touch the sides to give it a nice overall look.  You can reduce the padding if you want the image to fit, but we personally recommend shrinking that image a little bit more.

Posted by Kristella Santos on February 17, 2011.

Email width: Should be no more than 650px and preferably 600px (or 480px if you’re designing for mobile). This is so that your recipients can read your emails without scrolling left and right.

Browser Compatibility: Designing when it comes to email marketing also has a bit of html coding knowledge involved to make sure your email is universally received in the way you want it.

Design for failure: Remember that a lot of emails clients have images turned off by default so you need to persuade your subscriber to download the images. Try and make the email eye catching and interesting without images to get the most out of the design.

Image to Text: Bearing in mind the previous point, all images not only affects your deliverability, but also does nothing for enticing people to open an email when all they can see is a blank page. Have a mixture of images and text for optimum effect.