Here’s my thought for the day…

Marketing is really the same as it’s always been; we’ve just got much cooler tools to work with.

The key is connecting with customers and now even the little guys and gals have powerful tools at their disposal. Social media and networking, blogging, email campaigns with tracking tools. These are all just new ways to do what businesses have always been trying to do; let customers know who they are and what they’ve got to offer.

You can’t do it all, but if you look for creative ways to leverage new technology you will benefit the same way businesses have benefited from all such advances – like the printing press and the telephone.

I just visited two websites – completely different businesses, different web developers, different industries – with the exact same problem; horrible navigation.

Now I don’t normally like to start on such a negative note, but these were especially egregious examples of a really bad user experience. The navigation links on both of these websites were quite literally moving! On the first I needed to attempt several times before successfully clicking the “contact us” link. On the next the entire navigation menu was scrolling horizontally.

If you want people to connect to you make it easy! A clean, simple design that allows users to quickly and easily find out how to contact you is always a must. Save the “cool” effects for non-content; aesthetics, backgrounds, etc.

I used to find myself in a momentary panic when first sitting down to "design." I would wonder if I had anything creative to add. But experience has taught me that the first thing I needed to do when sitting down to create – was not to sit down at all. Read more »

Just about everyone has heard the term “blog” bantered about. That doesn’t mean you know what it is or how to use it to promote your business. So let’s take a look at blogs as a marketing tool.

Definition
Blog is short for “web log” but if you say web log you will sound like my mother sounds when she says “dungarees” instead of jeans – lovable, but out of date. Read more »

I was listening to the radio the other morning, as I do most mornings and "The Osgood File" came on. Dave Ross was filling in and and talking about "Figuring Out Ways To Force Viewers To Watch TV Ads."

Now with so many of us using TiVo and DVRs, fewer and fewer of us are watching commercials. (I, myself, love my DVR. I can watch Hereos and The Closer in a fraction of the time.)

But Dave wonders if the point of watching TV is to be entertained, "If the commercials are entertaining enough, conceivably, Super Bowl rules might kick in – where you skip the programming so you can watch the commercials."

It was a very amusing segment and I chuckled, but then I got to thinking…is YOUR advertising clever and engaging? Is it entertaining? Does your audience want to watch/read it?

Too often we get into a comfort zone and stop being creative. We start providing answers before we even know the questions.

So…stop phoning it in. That doesn’t mean you need to be silly or flip. But you should come up with a new way of looking at things. A fresh perspective can yield new means of communicating with your target audience and answer the real questions. Not the ones that you have pat answers for already.

One of the biggest questions clients ask is “How will people find me once my website is up and running?”

My clients are mainly small businesses. Many are startups by first-time business owners so the idea of marketing in general, and internet marketing specifically, can be a bit overwhelming.

The first thing I encourage them to do is to think about ways that they can get the word out about their online venture that they may be more familiar with. Read more »

Selecting THE PERFECT name for your online business can often be a daunting task, especially if THE PERFECT domain name is already taken.

So here are some things to consider in selecting your URL. Read more »

When creating your web site, you have about 15 seconds to capture your visitor’s attention. That’s it. If they decide you are not what they are looking for they will move on and not look back.

So knowing what a small window you have, how do you capture their attention and entice them past your home page? Read more »

Too often I get phone calls from business owners who no longer own their domain names.

“How can this happen?” you ask. More easily than you realize. When you hire someone to develop your website, often they will be the one to register your domain name and sometimes they do it under their own name. You’ve just made your first big mistake. Read more »

The first step to successful online marketing is to identify your goal. If you are a merchant, you will obviously want to sell your products online on an eCommerce site. For service providers it might be to build your “brand”; establishing who you are and your expertise online.

Once you know what kind of website you need, you will need to register your domain (the name of your site) and set up a hosting account. Read more »