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Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Skittles New Website. Who Cares?
Is this the corporate website of the future?
The new Skittles website.
Really…the website is just direct links to social networking sites talking about Skittles. I understand the popularity of sharing, but this seems way over the top.
Posted by: Michael Swartz at 10:30 pm
Comments: None | Filed under: Web Design, Web General, Web Marketing
Friday, January 23, 2009
Add Your RSS Feed to Your Email Messages
 Hello.
To promote my blog, I have a link to it from all my email messages. It’s just a generic link to my blog, not to any particular post.
Traffic from this generic link is pretty slim, so I thought if I could dynamically (automatically) include my most recent posts to my email messages, I’d gain some more traffic. Well, I found out how to do it.
If you use Feedburner to distribute your RSS feeds, you will need to setup up Animator.
This is how my signature file looked before:
Michael Swartz
Senior Web Architect
MJS Web Solutions
“Building Websites That Can Actually be Found”
(510) 523-7312
info@mjswebsolutions.com
http://www.mjswebsolutions.com
===================================
MJS Blog: http://www.mjswebsolutions.com/blog
=================================== This is how it looks now:
Michael Swartz
Senior Web Architect
MJS Web Solutions
“Building Websites That Can Actually be Found”
(510) 523-7312
info@mjswebsolutions.com
http://www.mjswebsolutions.com
So now when I add a new post to my blog, my RSS feed updates to my signature file. Very cool.
My next step is to see if traffic to my blog increases.
Mike Swartz says, “Check it out”!
Posted by: Michael Swartz at 12:30 pm
Comments: None | Filed under: Blogging, Web Marketing
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Google is Still The Leader in Search
 Google continues to dominate the web search environment.
According to the Internet metric company Hitwise, “more than 72 percent of American searches were conducted with Google; meanwhile, a little under 18 percent used Yahoo, and just more than 5 percent used Windows Live Search”.
View Report (.pdf)
Back in 2006, Google controlled around 43% of the search market.
The reason why more people go to Google to search is because Google delivers. How many times has Google NOT found what you’re looking for? For me? Very few.
I’ve continued to say and will as long as Google dominates the market, “Optimize for Google First“.
Posted by: Michael Swartz at 5:40 pm
Comments: None | Filed under: Web General, SEO, Web Marketing
Monday, January 5, 2009
DeVry’s Banner Ad Works
I was visiting Investors.com and noticed the DeVry banner ad below.
Clicking on the banner sends you to this Landing Page:
The ad works!
- In the current economy, people are going back to school. DeVry can help.
- The banner ad displays courses you can take and a button to apply
- The landing page does it’s job (1) Explains the program and (2) includes a form to immediately take action and request more information.
Posted by: Michael Swartz at 11:43 pm
Comments: None | Filed under: Web Marketing
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
It Pays To Have a Website
 Hello.
Been awhile, I know. But I have a good excuse.
I was on vacation in Ireland. Great country. Beautiful people too.
We lodged at the Croan Cottages. A very nice place to stay. The owners of the cottage live on the property with a farm and peaceful landscapes.
I asked my Father in Law how he found the place and he said the internet. I asked another guest on the property the same question. He said, he found out about the cottages on the internet. He said he typed in some keywords into Google and wah la.
The owner is now telling other businesses in the area to get a website because of the increase in business he’s receiving from marketing on the internet.
My Point
Even if your website is just one page, that’s fine, just put something up. If nothing else, get one domain and one web page.
On this page, simply list your business name, logo, picture of product(s)/service(s), something about the company and services, and how to contact.
There is no good reason why your business is not online.
Photo: An actual picture we took while visiting the Woodstock Gardens.
Posted by: Michael Swartz at 5:38 pm
Comments: None | Filed under: SEO, Web Marketing, Business
Monday, November 19, 2007
How NOT to Title Your Email Newsletter Subject Line
They tricked me. I don’t want to be treated this way from my email newsletters.
I just received an email from Vertical Response with the Subject: Is there such a thing as too much business?
“Yes, if it’s the wrong kind of business.”
I was going to submit my comments above but no where in the email was the answer OR the question.
At least match the Subject line to a Headline or Story or I’m not going to read the email.
I didn’t. It’s been deleted.
If you’re not going to deliver, don’t bother.
Please. When you write your Subject line deliver on your promise. Don’t trick your users or try to give them something that’s not. They won’t read it.
Posted by: Michael Swartz at 7:06 pm
Comments: 2 Comments | Filed under: Web Design, Web Marketing, Writing For The Web
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Internet Yellow Page Usage Continues to Rise
Hello.
Anyone reading this blog knows that I talk a lot about optimizing your website for your local customers.
Well, another headline speaks the facts once again that more people are using the internet to find local businesses.
I quote:
“The number of searches conducted on Internet Yellow Page (IYP) sites increased by 27 percent in 2006 over the previous year.”
I am currently working with a client right now that has been having trouble getting his website listed higher in Google’s local search results. This is very important because his whole business relies on local customers. The main problem is that his website is not “showing up in Google’s Local One Box.
To solve this problem, I can’t just go to Google and tell them to place his website first. I must look into many different scenarios into why his website is not listed higher.
- First I need to check his listing on Google Local. Are there any errors in the listing? Is there information missing?
- Second, I need to study the local competition and find out why they’re getting preferential treatment?
There are a number of factors that go into how Google displays local businesses, so it’s up to us, the search engine optimizers, to try each fix individually and not expect a one fits all solution…because there isn’t one.
“They” say SEO (search engine optimization) is an art not a science and I would have to agree with “them” completely. There are a few things everyone can do, but it’s always a work in progress after that.
Posted by: Michael Swartz at 11:26 am
Comments: None | Filed under: SEO, Web Marketing
Monday, August 13, 2007
Partnerships in Business
Though I am not a big fan of the extra fees Ticketmaster applies to each ticket purchase, I have to commend them on their partnership business deals.
You can see in the image below, Ticketmaster has teamed up with iTunes and Facebook (and vice versa). I have iTunes and I did go to the iTunes store and download the sampler. Everyone benefited from my one action: Ticketmaster, iTunes and the bands on the sampler.
The most important business partner piece is the Facebook Users reference, “Are You Going to This Show”? Facebook is becoming the next revolution on the internet and what better way to promote Ticketmaster - and the band that I purchased - than to recommend them to my friends, immediately, on Facebook.
More…
After I purchased my tickets, it wasn’t over yet. I received a coupon from Netflix, with the tickets, asking me to sign up to receive 3 free rentals.
Creating and establishing partnerships in the online world is more important than ever. Facebook, Yelp, MySpace and other social networking sites are becoming the future of the internet.
Creating Business Partnerships
Who can you partner up with? If you’re a Realtor, you can partner up with Title companies, mortgage brokers, real estate lawyers, home inspectors, etc. How? Ads on each other’s websites or being included in their newsletters.
Mike Swartz says, “Check it Out”.
Posted by: Michael Swartz at 1:07 pm
Comments: None | Filed under: Web Marketing
Monday, October 2, 2006
Website Visitors Take Action After Performing Local Search
Hello.
I hope you had a great weekend.
(NOTE: Regarding my last post, I still haven’t fixed the iTunes fiasco. I’ll give an update when that’s complete (or not)).
In our last email newsletter, I spoke about the importance of local search and optimizing your website for local search visitors. Turns out there is more research to back up this importance.
I have seen more traffic and conversions from our own site and many of our clients websites from locally based search results. Comscore has released new data that supports this fact.
Local Searchers Take Action
Some facts I found most interesting were:
- Local searches were up 43% from a year ago
- Most people searching used either Google or Yahoo
- About 52% said they were searching specifically for a business phone number or address.
- 41% were looking for information on a local service in their home area, including car rental office, dry cleaner or lawyer.
These are incredible findings.
The most impressive finding was “The comScore study also found that performing a local search drives consumers to take action. More than one-third (37 percent) made contact online as a result of conducting a local area search.”
Isn’t this the main goal of any website - to get people to take action? Are you seeing these results from your website? If not, it’s time to optimize your site to take advantage of your local customers. They’re out there searching.
If your business relies on local customers, it’s now more important than ever to get your site optimized for your local customer base!
Read our latest newsletter to find out more on how you can get your website found by local visitors. Or if you don’t like reading, contact us to find out how we’ve helped other organizations reach the top of the local search results.
Mike Swartz says, “Check it out”
Posted by: Michael Swartz at 11:44 am
Comments: None | Filed under: SEO, Web Marketing
Thursday, August 3, 2006
How To Get More Website Inquires
A customer of ours recently asked (in an email) why he wasn’t receiving any contacts from his website.
“I continue to receive almost no website contacts. Can you do anything?”
Something can be done and I wanted to share my answers with you.
- Increase your exposure on the search engines by adding relevant keywords to your website, thus increasing more traffic to your website.
- Pay for placement (ads) on the search engines to increase traffic to your website.
- Offer a “Free Report” or an incentive for people when they contact you from your website.
- Add your website to online directories with a link back to your website.
- We could build a new page called, “Why Choose Us?” or a “Testimonials” page to give people more reasons to contact you.
- We could create an offline marketing campaign that would draw and attract more people/visitors to your website.
These are just some solutions to getting more traffic and inquires to your website.
Contact us to learn more on how we can generate more leads for your organization.
Posted by: Michael Swartz at 10:52 am
Comments: None | Filed under: Web Marketing
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