Happy New Year!
Today’s Byte is a little different. First I wanted to send a reminder on a free webinar that I’m doing on Thursday on Facebook Stats: http://tinyurl.com/7m6hccc Please feel free join us.
Then I’m working with a group that is looking for product reviews – one lucky reviewer will win a $100 gift certificate. And you can review some of their free products and still qualify. Learning ZoneXpress http://www.learningzonexpress.com/ creates fun educational products that promote healthy choices – especially nutritional choices. They are running a Facebook contest, So if you write a review (fewer than 400 characters) and post it on their FB page you qualify for a drawing to win the gift cert.
Good luck!
I am pleased to unveil a brand new web site for Wilson Graphic in Madison Minnesota. We wanted a sign that showcased Dan Wilson’s art and craft. As you can see he does a great job with standard business signs, vehicle signage and residential art. Also we wanted something that they could maintain themselves and that would fit well with their growing social media strategy.
You can never rank too highly on the search engines. Sometimes I hear from folks who have not paid much attention to search engines; sometimes I hear from folks who have been paying attention but for some reason run into hiccups. Return2Ftiness had paid attention for search engines. In fact they ranked very well for shoulder brace – but not as well for knee braces.
The site is well constructed, very functional, they had done a lot to get links into the site. The question was – why was knee brace not doing as well as should brace?
Return2Ftiness has a sister site in the UK. So my first concern was the chances of duplicate content – but the pages were sufficiently different so as not to confuse a search engine. (Although we also noted that they have had issues getting listed on DMOZ and I think perhaps the cause there was that an Editor didn’t take the time to recognize the site differences. We’re trying again there.)
We did find space for improvement. Specifically we add some keyword-rich content to the top of the knee brace page to help search engines make the connection between the specific product names and the general term. Also we moved the link to the specific page up in the navigation. So that search engines would see that this page is prominent in the site structure, which generally indicates importance.
We’re currently waiting for results – but I thought the steps we took might be helpful to others.
I’m enjoying a rare day of calm – so I thought I’d update the Byte of the Week with some of the newly minted web sites, starting with the Montana Rural Health Initiative. They had used WordPress for their old site – but some of the features had gone wonky so it was time for a refresh. Part of the issue/opportunity is that WordPress and WordPress Themes have made so many upgrades.
So this new site is also built on WordPress. It uses a Woo Theme and ties into other online tools such as Google Calendar and Constant Contact.
OK I promise I’m going to get back in the saddle for Byte articles. I’ve just been so busy. Yesterday I was busy talking to renewable energy companies about businesses uses of broadband. It’s a new project I’m excited about doing: http://www.mnrem.com/blog While creating the presentation for renewable folks I ran into a tool that sounds super helpful for anyone who has to deal with expenses:
Expensify: https://www.expensify.com/
It’s free for personal use. When you sign up you can connect it directly to your bank account. You can upload receipts by scanning and adding OR use a mobile app to take pictures of your receipts are you receive them. You can set up categories and policies and run reports. For those of us who are more organized online, it saves tracking down receipts, especially for small purchases.
I’m always pleased to unveil a new client site. FiberFirst Minnesota is a go-to place for anything related to fiber optics, FTTH and FTTP in Minnesota. We’ll be posting updates on a regular basis. If you have anything you want posted, please let me know.
I’m pleased to unveil a new client web site:
It’s for BHB Advisors in St Paul, Minnesota. While BHB Advisors is a new business, the accounts there are not new. I have been using one of them (Matt Bruun) for many years and I have always been super happy with his work. He knows that I’m going to need an extension – every year. He’s dealt with the mess of me spending extended periods overseas. He’s found some nice tax credits (like part of my husband’s PhD tuition) that would never have occurred to me.
We used a WordPress blog for the basis of the web site, which will make it very easy for BHB Advisors to maintain the site themselves.
Earlier this week I gave a presentation at the Minnesota Library Association. I spoke to Friends’ Groups about hot o use social media. It was a fun presentation. Some folks in the room were big social media users; others weren’t sure what a blog was.
One special and unexpected treat was running into a client – Learning ZoneXpress. I have been working with LZE on social media strategies – so I couldn’t resist taking a picture to add them to my blog. (Sometimes they offer free things and super deals on their blog, I’m just saying.)
Earlier this summer I started working with Learning Zone Express. They create and sell posters, books, curricula and more related to kids’ health and nutrition. Some stuff is geared towards teachers and schools; some is more for families. (I love their foodscapes – pictures of animals created with food.)
Anyways we met to start a social media strategy for the group. They have started to use Twitter and YouTube and they have really been rocking on the Learning Zone Express blog. You have to check it out – but I strongly suggest you check it out on a Friday when they have their big poster sales.
They know their customers and their industry so well. They were able to jump in right away to create posts that would interest their customers. Sometimes they blog about themselves; sometimes they blog about what other folks are doing, what they’ve read or the conferences they are attending. They’ve done a good job tying the blog into their web site.
The readership is good and the reaction to the Friday poster sales have been tremendous – despite the fact that a lot of their target market takes the summer off. I was especially pleased when their online marketing efforts were recognized by the local paper.
We’ve really spent the summer building up a base for the social media tools – creating consistency, a voice and skills. Our next plan is to work on some solid campaigns where we will use the social media tools to promote the company or products in ways that are completely new.
I am pleased to unveil the new Lake Carlos Area Association web site. Lake Carlos is located near Alexandria, Minnesota. What’s nice is that the Association members had a ton of great pictures to use, which made is easy to give a good glimpse of the area.
The goal of the site is to keep the members informed of community information and promote the Association to new members.
