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Social media is a great way to listen to clients' needs and build a credible web presence that extends beyond your  website....but did you know you can use the social web to generate leads? Below are some tips on how to acquire new business using popular social media sites. If your current and prospective clients are there, you should at least be in on the conversation.

 
Twitter

- Twitter search is one of the most powerful lead sourcing tools available. Using this feature, you can see in real-time what people are tweeting about. Search "email marketing" and see how many people are tweeting about it....hundreds! Now, how many of those people are looking for an email marketing expert? How many need an SEO expert? The list goes on and on -- don't let these cries for help get snatched up by someone else.
 
Search for your area of expertise.

Find the leads. And then send them a friendly tweet letting them know you can help. Remember: people hate spam. Don't hit potential clients over the head with your pitch. And before you start hunting for leads make sure your Twitter profile outlines your expertise and includes links back to your credible website, portfolio, etc.
 
Facebook

- Like Twitter, people share their thoughts on services they want or need. And you can use their search feature to see who may need your help. Try searching "email marketing" in Facebook's search feature. On the left sidebar, look at the option to choose Posts by Everyone. This is everyone that is currently posting about email marketing. Again it's a lot of people....but one of them might be a potential client.
 
LinkedIn

- As you probably know, LinkedIn is a fantastic place to network and join groups of like-minded professionals. But are you using it to garner business? LinkedIn is a great site to promote your services.

First and foremost, add an offer to your profile updates. What's more compelling to a potential client: "Looking for a new car" or "Get a Free Email Marketing analysis at (insert your url) and see what I can do for you!" Also make sure your specialties and summary include your strongest skills. If you want to drive business make sure you have the profile to back it up.

 
Craigslist

- Much more of a barebones approach as opposed to the previous mentioned sites, but definitely another great place to find people looking for your expertise. You can use Craigslist's search feature to look for "gigs" in your area that apply directly to your expertise.

This week we found a fantastic new tool for those is the service industry. Especially those needing to set, schedule and track appointments online. Setster is a new tool built from the ground up to do just that, set appointments.

"LOS ANGELES, Calif. - Setster, announced an alliance with Intuit Inc. to make its industry's leading online calendar and appointment management solution available to Intuit's 4 million small business customers through the Intuit Partner Platform."

This is awesome news! I would highly recommend to all of our service industry clients they take a look at the Setster Website and let us know if they are interested in this new tool. In the meantime, we'll keep looking for cool new web products!

For More Information Visit: http://www.setster.com/

Screen Shots:

At first, I thought this topic would be a bit outdated. But that was only until I discovered how many poor websites are actually still out there.  This article is meant to assist anyone who is looking for a way to increase the effectiveness of their current website. Actually, this article is for anyone who just wants to know the difference between the Pros and the “Cons” in our web world.

Yes, I said ““Cons”” - I truly believe that there are companies out there today that are taking advantage of the “Un-Web-Educated”. The worst part is, these ““Cons”” may not even know that they are ““Cons”” – I would bet that most of the “Cons” actually believe they are doing a good job because they’ve never stepped out their basement to find out how a real website is supposed to be built.

It still amazes me that even today with all the technology and information available that there are still “so-called” designers who aren’t using standards. Actually, they aren’t even using good judgment. Or maybe, these “Poor Websites”, as I’m calling them today, are just someone’s do-it-yourself attempt at saving a couple bucks. Whatever the reason, we felt it was imperative to get the word out and bring some light on what to look for when hiring a design team for a business site.

How to Find a Good Designer/Team

1. Don’t try to find the local guy. That’s almost always a bad way to go. You need to find someone or some company that understands you and your industry. With the technology we have today our firm successfully works with clients around the globe. It’s really not a big deal anymore.

Don’t limit yourself to your surroundings, go outside the box and get someone who has worked with your industry in multiple cities and states that can really give good advice on what works and what doesn’t. That being said, you have to trust your designer, so don’t let

2. Look at their portfolio. If they don’t’ have an online portfolio, ask for some sample of their work. But don’t just take their word for it. Visit the sites and even contact the owners and ask them how they liked working with “So and So”.

Certain design firms have a certain style and you need to find a company that matches your market or company goals.

Too many times we build sites (meaning business owners) that we like instead of sites that our customers can enjoy.

Often times what will work for your market and what you like are totally different things.

3. Ask them to explain it: Many times the words we use in web design and development are pretty confusing to the average person.

If the designer your looking at can’t explain what they do in simple language they are probably trying to smoke screen you into thinking they are smarter than you. A good designer will be able to explain why the design works and how it works in simple language.

4. Have a Budget: Without a budget in mind, your potential designer is just shooting in the dark. These days’ websites can go from $500 to $50K in a heartbeat. It depends on whether you need a custom design, personal consulting, application development, maybe a store, a blog, or any number of additional functions.

Having a proper budget is key to maximizing your success with a new website.

In order to set a proper budget, don’t look at what you spent on your last website. That’s s almost always a bad idea.

Since websites are part function and part art, the only way to tell a websites worth is how it performs.

5. Have a Goal: Ask yourself not only what it will cost, but what will it save! Many of the sites built by professional design teams today can save you on employee phone time, printing costs, and even customer satisfaction. What would be worth to have a customer go to your website, and then, when they do contact you it’s because they are ready to purchase from you?

Think about your site in long-term return rather than just an initial investment.

6. Be Reasonable: Have a reasonable goal in mind. I wouldn’t tell a designer that you want to create eBay or Amazon – Unless you are looking to invest at least 1 million dollars during the first year of development.

Often time we see things online and they look so simple that it’s easy to think that it couldn’t possibly be that hard. After all, it’s just text and graphics, right? WRONG! Usually the simpler it is, the more complicated it is to create. I’m not saying don’t shoot for the stars, but a realist expectation is crucial to a good business & designer relationship.

I hope you enjoyed this little post. Please visit us again for more tips and news. We’re glad you came by. Have a great day! 

In this day and age we have so many tools to help us do so many things, it's hard to focus on what actually runs a business. At the end of the day, it's all about Sales. No sales, no profit, no profit... well, you get the picture. Here's some helpful web resources to get you back in the groove and selling again. I like to call it, going back to the basics.

Sales Advice and Tools

JustSell.com is one the best sites I've ever come across for getting a no-fluff look at sales. Just as an example, here's their download called 30-open-ended questions that will get your prospects talking to you, instead of at you.

• 30 Open Ended Questions Download

The Business of Sales

One of my personal favorits is BusinessBalls.com - They have Free career help, business training, organizational development - inspirational, innovative ideas, materials, exercises, tools, templates - free and fun.

• Visit Business Balls - Click Here

We're often asked questions about web design and if there's any "Guidelines" to creating effective content and/or other ideas to market a website to the general public. Here's a list of the Design Guidelines that we follow here. Us these tips and tools to add some value to your website and increase your conversions.

THE BASICS

• Update your site to retain repeat visitors. Periodic updates are essential so plan an update schedule. The less frequent the updates, the more general the content should be and can use more DHTML randomizing techniques. Also reduce the number of outside links to prevent broken links.

• Surfers will generally wait no more than 20 seconds for a page to load and usually will only remain for 20 to 60 seconds. Home pages and index pages must load quickly. Large downloading pages and cutting edge technologies should be buried a level in the site rather than kept on the home page or primary index pages. For example, a full screen photograph should be accessed by clicking a much smaller 2nd image and faster loading thumbnail. A large Java applet should be accessed by clicking a link Tell the surfer what to expect and how long to wait.

• Know your intended target audience. Studies show that visitors want fast loading pages and useful information. The least important features are “bleeding edge” technologies, flashy animations and non-functional eye-candy (unless that is what you are selling and what your buyers are looking for).

• Learning web programming seems very easy, the hard part is learning to do it right. Stay away from tasks that are normally performed by a team of specialists (designer, copywriter, marketer, programmer and graphics artist to cover just the basics). - Know when to get a PRO!

• Never play music files the user has no control over; Music tastes vary, and most surfers will hit the back button rather than the volume control. This may count in your log as a hit but you will have lost the visitor forever.

• Flashy animations and eye-candy usually are only interesting once. You must rely on fast loading useful content. Allow visitors to bypass your Flash animations and splash screens.

• Do not use frames unless you are an expert. Frames cause more problems than they solve. - Be careful of using frames to frame other sites pages or content within your site. It can be construed as a copyright violation. Even linking into some sites interior pages has been known to get the linking site sued.

• To prevent spammers from harvesting your e-mail addresses, do not ever post e-mail addresses directly on the web site (or in on-line forums). For forums, use a throw away e-mail address. For your web site, use a contact web form which will then send the e-mail to you.

• Add a custom 404 page not found error page to your web site. - Instead of having a generic page not found error displayed on your site, provide a custom page that can direct visitors back to your home page.

ADVANCED TIPS

• People process information in specific ways. Design your site to mirror this process. They read from left to right, top to bottom. Most eyes will automatically gravitate to the top left corner, top header line, left or right top sidebars, bottom trailer and the bottom right hand corner. Write bold headlines to grab attention. Shapes are usually recognized first, actual words last and the mind narrows its focus on each page. The eye is drawn to sharp contrast and distinct patterns. Use animation, large fonts, red highlights, sparingly and only to draw attention to something specific.

• Each page of the site must be consistent and intuitive to navigate. More and more web surfers are computer illiterate. Make your site easy for anyone to understand and use. If you are selling something, remove all obstacles to the sales process to make it easy for customers to want to do business with you (prices and order forms must be easy to find and use).

• Make links in your site informative. Let your visitors know what to expect and give them a compelling reason to want to follow hyperlinks on the site. List the download time and size of large photographs or other files.

• Design the website to allow for future growth without requiring major changes to the navigation systems.

• Many of the best sites on the Internet are content laden - useful information which is freely distributed. Include information relevant to your audience (i.e. how-to articles, tips and tricks, industry related news, etc.).

• Website traffic starts slowly at a new site, builds, plateaus and then declines. To get the best results from your website, you must market constantly and update regularly to build traffic and prevent it from declining. Encourage return visitors.

eCommerce & ONLINE STORES

• Include calls to action to prompt visitors to order, and give them reasons to act soon (e.g. expiring offers and discounts). Up-sell accessories or higher priced items. Bullet points make it easy for customer to scan quickly. Use longer sales copy for extended reading. Study Internet marketing manuals listed in the Appendix of Resources for more in-depth coverage.

• When selling a product or service, it must be easy for the customer to make the decision to buy without needing to Your most qualified leads will most likely come from non-web advertising and/or highly targeted on-line advertising first, links from related websites second and search engines will be the third source of leads. You must take advantage of all these marketing methods and keep up with trends in the industry. Push content has come and gone, banner advertising and pay per click programs are becoming obsolete, affiliate programs are now in. It is necessary to keep up with the rapidly changing face of the Internet.

• Consumers will not always buy only on price; they will navigate and return to sites they feel they can trust. Customer service is imperative to your success. Gather opt-in e-mail contacts with customer permission whenever you can and follow-up.

• Your site must be designed with your visitor’s needs and capabilities in mind. Pages must be fast loading and content must be useful and relevant. Products must include full disclosure of information and provide a quick, convenient method of purchasing without requiring the visitor to call or mail the company. Slow loading, flashy eye candy, animations and music are usually not impressive to visitors unless you are selling tools to create these effects. If you must use them, make them optional. This gives visitors the choice of using these options. The surest way to lose visitors is to force them to wait or listen to your musical preferences.

• Study and emulate other successful techniques and tactics. Do not copy other people’s work but be unique, stand out and do it better. Study catalog design. Printed catalogs allow easy perusal of multiple product choices, and are invaluable as examples of short ad copy, photographic layouts with bullet points, ways to list prices, special offers, etc. Did you ever notice how catalogs tend to have a special deal or closeout price on almost every page to entice people to order?

EMAIL MARKETING

• Do not add visitor or customer contact information (names, e-mail addresses, etc.) to your contact lists without their express permission. Do not grab visitor’s e-mails from their browser since this is commonly considered a violation of privacy.

• Write positive statements about what your products or services do, not what they don’t do.

• Personalize messages to your visitors and customers using mail merge templates. Automated immediate e-mails can be sent during interactions with the website (opt-in, ordering, affiliate sign-up, etc.).

ADVERTISING

• Encourage other sites to link to your website without having to link to theirs when possible. Making graphic and link information available to other sites will encourage and facilitate a partnership. Make it the client’s responsibility to cultivate linkage with other sites since this is a time consuming task.

• Another important marketing tool is linking your site with search engines. Create pages optimized for search engine placement. The final results will vary over time. Search engine rules, rankings and listings vary over time and are out of your control.

• No matter how good a website might be, it must be visible, accessible and readily available. You must get the people there. A site which only has links in a search engine, will probably fail to generate significant traffic.

• Remember that the Internet is a new interactive communications medium. Businesses on the Internet are still bound by the laws of supply and demand. It still takes marketing strategies to be seen and salesmanship to sell. Concentrate on customer service and personal service. Use the Internet as a tool to communicate rather than a tool which isolates you from your customers.

• Use advertorials and endorsements to market affiliate programs for other sites that you personally endorse. Make sure these sites fit within the context of your own website rather than simply trying to cultivate a “banner farm”.

• Consider studying photography. Photography is a subtractive process whereas web development is an additive process. Busy web pages are a common problem. Photography teaches you to remove unnecessary elements that detract from the subject, a very useful tactic for developing a website.

• Eliminate hype and concentrate on useful content and information. Follow tried and true basic marketing techniques (benefits, features, solving problems, using the right words and images to invoke desired feelings, calls to actions, etc.) Give your audience what they are looking for -information to help them.

PROFESSIONAL DESIGN

• Think in terms of end results and simple goals. Guide visitors to the desired goal. Regardless of where a visitor first enters your site, you can still redirect them to pages you want them to view first, such as product information.

• Test multiple designs and pick what works best. The overall infrastructure and design for the sites developed by us have been tested and changed constantly to arrive at the designs we use today.

BUSINESS TIPS

• You should never use free services on a commercial website. Would you seriously consider ordering from a company that that refused to invest to maintain their site?

Commercial sites must do everything possible to establish trust (full disclosures and policies, contact information, secure ordering, professional look, third party endorsements and testimonials).

• Use what works for your business and your clients.
• Use the right tools for the job.
• If you are selling business to business, you should always be professional.
• A business site should be designed from a customer or audience perspective. Topics should be tailored to them, not to you.

BUSINESS DO's

• Use powerful words in your copy such as: “you, your, money, save, free, now, how-to, quick, new, exciting, love, secret, reveal, discover, improved, guarantee, latest, amazing, offer, important, revolutionary, powerful.”

• Avoid using words and phrases with negative connotation such as: “but, try, could have, would have, should have, cannot, not”. This puts the reader in the wrong frame of mind. The mind is much better at resolving concepts if there are fewer choices.

FOCUS ON YOUR VISITOR

• Give your visitors a mental picture of a clear, reachable and present goal. Speaking in the past tense can sound old and outdated. Speaking in the future tense may evoke feelings that are not yet attainable. Read your copy carefully to ensure it evokes feelings you intended. Over the course of several days or weeks, read through your site multiple times. You will find things you overlooked when you were “too close to the chalkboard”.

• Use a common frame of reference to introduce a new concept. It is easier for someone to understand a new idea or concept if it relates to the familiar. Remember, you know and care about the details of your product, the customer wants to know how and if it will help them!

It seems the entire Internet  has been buzzing about the news of Adobe's buyout of Business Catalyst / GoodBarry.  I've been asked by most of my current and potential clients "are you selling to Adobe? are your prices changing? Etc. " Instead of lots and lots of phone calls, I thought this would be a good time to post up a new blog article and get our new blog area freshened up a bit!

The entire EBWAY Creative team has working their tales off to integrate our new Online Business Builder™ system into our every day workflow and service offerings. Our partners over at Business Catalyst have been helping us to streamline our entire business in this new venture. And we're loving every minute of it. I was thrilled to here of Adobe's interest and purchase! We've never been more excited to bring a product to market than we are at this very moment. This will be the defining moment that changes the way EBWAY does business, forever.

WHAT HAPPENED?

Here's the basics of what just went down...

• Our Online Business Builder™ solution is now backed by Adobe, which everyone knows as the leaders in on and offline web technology. We can now say "We are a Certified Adobe  - Business Catalyst Partner". There are many types of partners and resellers, but we are Certified! That basically means we've been trained by the pros and proven ourselves as a valuable asset to the BC/Adobe team.
• The GoodBarry brand will expire on October 1, 2009. This means we just lost our largest competitor and gained a huge amount of possible clients! GoodBarry sold a Do-It-Yourself version of our system... They were never really a competitor, but it's important to mention they didn't offer website design anyways.
• All of the Adobe tools we already use to build websites will most likely have direct integration into our Online Business Builder™.  This is huge news for our Partners who want to leverage their Adobe Dreamweaver skills etc.

MOVING FORWARD!

We'll be updating our logo and website over the next month to catch up with what's going on. So don't be alarmed if you see some things start to change around. Our first priority is our client and partners, so as soon as we can get a second wind, we'll start the re-design of our website. That'll be a fun weekend! We'd better get the Starbucks cards & Red Bull ready!

We're excited to be involved in this venture, we're not changing our pricing, and we're only seeing positives! Our entire staff remains the same and we won't be changing the way we handle our client support! That being said, please let us know if you have any questions at all!

As of today, I'm happy to announce that Business Catalyst (our Partner & OBB Solution Provider) has been acquired by Adobe. We're unanimously excited to be joining Adobe. Adobe is a company that the team and I have always admired. Their products are widely known and used, from PDF to Flash®, Photoshop® to Dreamweaver®, Flex® to AIR®. Their community of web professionals is vast and vibrant, and their approach to business is open and innovative.

Naturally, you've probably got some questions about what this means for you.

Firstly, I want to emphasize that when it comes to our system, our support and our dedication to our Partners and Customers – it is business as usual. As a result of this deal we have not currently planned any significant changes to things like:

• How we provide technical support
• How existing Partners and Resellers create and build new sites
• The continued operation of the Online Business Builder™ system

Within Adobe, we'll continue to innovate and improve the Business Catalyst/Online Business Builder™ software with the help of our new friends inside Adobe. So while the future will hold some changes, we're hoping most of them will be positive for you and your customers.

Finally, I want to personally thank you for your valuable business. We're looking forward to an exciting year!

Jonathan Hinshaw / Owner

Stay tuned for information, posts, videos, and more. We're working hard with the new launch of our Online Business Builder™ and this blog will have all kinds of support, design, development, and business topics...