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Handy Business Apps For an Online World

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Useful Online Apps

You may have guessed this already, but I spend a considerable amount of time online. Due to this, I have discovered some incredibly handy and powerful applications that can make a huge difference to anyone who works online.

Some I have learned about from podcasts and other people getting excited about them, others I have been told about by friends and others I seem to have stumbled across and now cannot live without. My intent is to see if I can provide a new tool or app every week so you can stop by check out what I recommend and perhaps add it to your online arsenal.

Let’s get started, this week’s handy app is………..

Evernote

I’m actually amazed at what a hard product this is for people to use and understand. My wife was a prime example of this. I have been using Evernote for about six months, had explained it to her a few times, loaded it on her phone and desktop and she barely touched it. Then one day she discovered the task feature and became so excited about it she started digging in to learn more about it. Now she has a pending blog post of her own about how great it is!

So let me try and explain Evernote a bit more before you classify it as just a task manager. Evernote is like taking all of the post it notes on your computer at work, your computer at home, your browser and just about everything else and taking it all into one handy cloud based application. This cloud based product can be accessed by installing an app on your smart phone and by installing the app on your desktop computer(s).

Since the information is stored in the cloud it can be accessed anywhere, from any PC or Mac, from your smart phone, wherever. Say for instance you use Evernote at home to store recipes, when you are at the store, you can use your smart phone to look up your Evernote notes and determine what ingredients you need to buy. Or say you just left a client’s office and are dashing off to the next meeting, but the client gave you a heads up they will follow up with you next Monday. You load up Evernote, leave yourself an audio message and when you get back to your desk later in the day you can replay the note.

There are also plug-ins you add to your browser that you can allow you to save bookmarks, graphics or specific web information directly into your Evernote notebook. The Evernote notebooks are where you store your information online and allow you to store different information in each notebook. If you have personal items you store, create your own personal notebook, if you have business items store them in your business notebook.

What Does Evernote Cost?

Now if you are wondering how expensive Evernote is, great news, it’s free! At least for the base version, but with 60MB per month of storage this free version will work great for almost everyone. If however you need the ability to share notebooks between office staff or co-workers and would prefer to have 1GB of storage per month you may want to consider the Premium Edition of Evernote which is still well priced at $45 per year or $5 per month.

Just to finish off, here’s a great video from Evernote about their product and how you too can it can rescue you from the grasp of the note monster!

Is Your Business On YouTube? It Better Be!

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Are You on YouTube?YouTube


Recently I wrote an article about how Facebook has become a force and why it’s important for a company to get their Facebook Fanpage set up. Well, YouTube can be just as valuable to business as Facebook if a well designed marketing plan is created.

If you thought the Facebook Facts were interesting, look at these tidbits about YouTube.

  • Over 2,000,000,000 (yep that’s billion!) video views per day
  • 24 hours of video are uploaded every minute
  • YouTube is the second largest search engine, after Google
  • Video results are showing up more often in Google search results

What exactly does this mean to business? Opportunity! Some of the most popular videos on YouTube are informative how to style videos and this is mostly why YouTube has moved up to second place as a choice for a search engine.

Do you have a business with a product or service that could benefit from being explained via video? Often people want to be shown how something works or how to do a certain task with a product. One area I have found this to be beneficial is when I undertake a home renovation project.

There is no shortage of videos helping homeowners learn the process of repairing toilets, installing electrical devices or even fixing garage doors. More often than not, these videos are provided by people in that particular industry as a “public service”. Really though they are planting their product or service in the mind of consumers as a go to person or company for information, advise and potentially new sales.

Why You Want A Youtube Channel

Could your business benefit from a little extra exposure, a few more calls and some additional sales? I’m pretty sure we both know your answer to this question, otherwise you wouldn’t still be reading, would you?

This is where having your own YouTube channel can help give you an edge over the competition. Much like having a Facebook Fanpage, having a YouTube channel can set you and your business apart and provide you with one additional place to be found by potential customers.

A YouTube channel doesn’t have to be something elaborate and doesn’t have to contain an extensive collection of videos. It can be as simple as one video in your channel like this one,

Plaka Greek Restaurant YouTube Channel

The important aspect is that it is complete with plenty of information about your company, how to contact you and your services. In my example, note how the video contains information about what they offer, where they can be found and how to contact them. This is further reinforced on the channel itself as under their profile explains what they offer “Fine Greek Food”, their web address, their physical address and even a phone number for reservations and take-out orders. It’s simply another billboard out on the internet, which directs people back to your business. Which is really what marketing is really all about.

Now, much like almost everything on the internet, these channels can be highly customized to best position your business. This customization should be taken advantage of to help promote your product or service and to make it easier for potential clients to find out more. Here’s an example of an even more decked out channel with a very clear message.

Organizing Clutter Video Channel

From the channel name to the extensive number of videos it serves to promote the product and cater to people specifically looking for information on organizing and decluttering their home. This has helped to contribute to the success and growth of the channel and as this was written, to having over 500 subscribers and over 5,000 friends of the channel. Hopefully that number is even higher now as it’s my wife’s channel!

So How Can You Leverage YouTube?

Hopefully you understand the benefits of having a YouTube channel, but now it comes down to how you can use it to leverage your business on the internet. Let’s look at some quick ideas that worked for other businesses.

FAQ’s

Does your business have a list of Frequently Asked Questions by your clients? Why not create a series of videos that answer these questions and place them on your channel? This works two fold, the questions may turn up in search results when other people are inquiring about similar products and attract new clients and it may result in new business

What’s In the Box?

Do customers often wonder what all is included with a product you sell or a service you provide? If it’s a product in a box, video tape someone opening the box and explaining each item in the box. This would work incredibly well if you have a product like a video camera that includes additional cables for plugging into TV’s etc. The person explaining the items could explain what the “mystery cables” are used with.

If you are a furnace cleaning service, why not make a video detailing the areas of the furnace you inspect and explain how it benefits the client? What do you believe your clients want to know about your product or service? Tell them the answers in a video!

Compare Products

Do you have multiple products that are similar but have slightly different uses? For a drycleaner, perhaps you explain the difference between your cleaning process and the industry standard cleaning process (if yours is different of course, no fibbing!). If your company provides free onsite service, how does this benefit the client versus what the competition does?

Helping You Market Online

Really, there is no limit to the ideas available to help increase your marketing, for your particular business, the only limit is your creativity. If you are absolutely stymied, send me a quick email with info about your product and I will send you some ideas back.

Now I’m not sure what type of feedback I will get from people. I may have a thousand people read this and only one emails me, or I could have 50 people read this and all 50 can see the value and request some ideas. It’s kind of a shot in the dark, so I’ll start this off by putting an imaginary cap of a maximum of five emails of these a month, but perhaps I can feature them in a post every month or two that will also help provide your product or service with extra exposure. It’s free to you, so what do you have to lose?

So don’t wait, send me an email with your questions! Or just as good, send me an email to tell us how you market your business or service online!

QR Codes- Everything You Need to Know About QR Codes

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QR Codes- Why We Need Them

Have you ever seen an ad somewhere for a product or a service you absolutely needed. Then hours later, when you finally have some time at your computer to look it up, you discover your mind has generated this huge vacuum where absolutely no hint of what you positively had to have can ever reappear?

It happens to the best of us and it appears to becoming much more common as we get lambasted with more and more non-stop advertising. This continual barrage of ads, information, and general branding messages eventually causes us to try and forget more than we remember. Or at the very least numbs us to the majority of it. I would like to think this is what led to the creation of QR codes. It was all just to help the overwhelmed out there who are just like me.

So what exactly are QR codes and more importantly how can they help people remember those ads? Let me start by explaining what QR code stands for. It is an acronym for Quick Response code and is an extension of the bar codes found most often in retail establishments. This extension involves turning the straight bar code into a 2D code and I have an example below.

QR Codes – It Takes More Than Just The Code

Now the QR code is only part of the puzzle, or in this case the solution. The second part is a device that can read these 2D bar codes. We aren’t talking about anything as clumsy as one of those large hand scanners you find at Wal-Mart either. We are talking about that iPhone in your pocket, or that Blackberry you carry everywhere with you. The device more and more people cannot live without and carry with them everywhere.

By installing one of the many free QR code readers onto your smart phone, you are ready to scan away. This brings us to the next question which is, So What? What is the point of being able to read these codes?

This is where the people who get this, can really see the value, So pay close attention. Consider you are in the market for a new vehicle and just happen to be out for coffee and reading the newspaper. Suddenly you notice an ad for the vehicle you’ve been looking for. As you look closely, you notice the QR code in the corner of the ad. You quickly grab your smart phone, fire up the QR reader and take a picture of the QR code.

Within a few seconds, your browser on your phone opens and takes you directly to a link on the dealer’s website where you simply enter your name, phone number and you can book a test drive later that day. Right from where you are sitting. No need to call in, no need to write all the details down to as you can simply bookmark the page on your phone. All with minimal fuss and no vacuum affect where you forgot about it by the time you arrived home.

This is just one example. Other ideas may be a restaurant putting their QR code on their window. Instead of going inside to determine what the special is, you can scan it and have access to the entire menu, or even just determine today’s specials. Or maybe they put the QR code on their takeout menu. Now you can scan the takeout menu and the link there takes you to their online menu. Suddenly you can flip to your bookmark while you are riding home on the train and order your food ahead so it is waiting for you on your way home.

QR Codes Make It Simpler

Sure, you could easily have just typed the longer web address in your phone for either of these examples, but this is so much simpler. It is just so much cleaner and easier. But it doesn’t end there. You see QR codes don’t have to just direct people to a web page.

You can put QR codes on billboards, so someone can scan it from the street. You can put them on business cards, vehicle signage, almost anywhere. Even more interesting is understanding that it doesn’t just end with web addresses.

You can use the QR code to load a GoogleMap to help someone locate your business. You can use it to grab an email address or a phone number. You can use it on your business card to send your VCard information. Or even to direct someone to a YouTube video. The possibilities are endless!

QR Codes Uses

This is what is so exciting, especially to small business owners who can react to this and incorporate the possibilities into their business. Think about this from your business’s perspective. How could you use this to help your company do any of the following?

  • Solve client problems
  • Promote special deals
  • Streamline providing clients with information

How is this for some quick answers? If you provide a product that has an FAQ to answer common questions, you could put a sticker with the QR code directing clients to the FAQ. If you business has monthly promotions you could include a QR code directing people to that month’s or weeks special. If you have just released a new product and want your clients to see it, create a YouTube video walking the product through its paces, then create a QR code you distribute out in your advertising that directs clients to the video.

I’m barely touching the surface here. Currently transit systems in Asia and Norway use QR codes to help people with bus routes. Some Realtors in the US are including QR codes on their listings signage to direct people to the properties info sheet online. People are using QR codes to direct clients or friends to their Facebook FanPages.  The more you think about the potential, the more ideas you can come up with to market with QR codes.

I’ve included a couple QR codes in this article for examples, so if you have a smart phone, go load a QR code reader up and scan them in. Experience for yourself what can be done and how easy it can be.

The next challenge for you after you have thought about this is to leave me a comment and tell me a potential use for QR codes you can see happening. Or tell me how you are already using QR codes in your business and what your impression of the technology is so far. Our creativity is the only thing holding us back, so be creative!

Facebook Fanpages – Why They Matter

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Facebook is a Force

If you haven’t noticed, Facebook has quietly become a dominant force online. In the last year, it’s had some very notable achievements, not the least of which is an entire movie called The Social Network!

Here are some quick facts about Facebook.

  • Over 500 million users worldwide
  • 50% of users login to Facebook any given day
  • 700 billion minutes are spent on Facebook, each month

The implications of this to a business owner are huge. Over 500 million users all in one place is exciting enough, but knowing how often people log in to the site and how much time they spend online with Facebook just make it that much more enticing.

You Need a FaceBook Fanpage

Now you have to understand that you are not the only person or company that has noticed this. Facebook has become such a huge enterprise that it has led to a multitude of different businesses processes being built to complement it and even to profit from it and there is no reason you cannot be one of them. If you are currently on the outside looking in, one of the most important steps a business can make to start becoming involved, is to claim your own Facebook Fanpage .

Your Facebook Fanpage will allow your business to have that first step into the world of Facebook and Social Media. If you believe that this doesn’t make a difference you might want to be aware that over 80 of the top 100 websites based out of the US have integrated with Facebook and over 2 millions websites worldwide have integrated themselves with Facebook, usually directly via Fanpages.

Of course, there is more to just having a Fanpage, but getting that page started is the crucial step that is needed to move forward and getting their company noticed. Once it is up and running it provides you with the beginning platform to promote your business, to grow a tribe of raving fans and to allow you to become seen by a much broader audience.

Most importantly, this potential audience has an average of 130 friends linked to them in Facebook, many of whom are just like them and are likely to be influenced by their decisions. If you have a product or service that benefits from people talking about you in a positive way can you see where this can lead?

The question at this point isn’t whether you need a Facebook Fanpage, really, it’s how quickly you can get it up and running and start using it as a platform. So what are you waiting for? Shouldn’t you be out there starting your own Fanpage?

Well, this is where the wheels tend to fall off and good intent often gets overwhelmed by sheer confusion. While it’s important to get a Fanpage set up, it can be a rather confusing process. But don’t give up, you still have options! If you absolutely positively have to get something up now, this is just one of the services we can provide, or you can find someone else to hire to get the work completed. However, if you can hang on for a week or two and want to tackle this yourself, I am in the process of putting together a guide that will take you through the process.

Decision Time

So you have some decisions to make, but let me give you your options.

If you have plenty of time and don’t mind leisurely getting around to it, there are plenty of free and paid resources out on the internet as to how to set up a Fanpage. With a little searching around and some time spent with Google, you should be able to find some information on how to get started. Just be careful you have the current information. Facebook has made a couple of huge changes just in the last few months and older guides may be more confusing now than helpful as the process has changed a bit.

If you have some time, understand you need to get on this, but can wait a bit longer, I recommend you scroll up to the top of the page and fill out the form near the top right of the page and grab your Free Social Media Report. By filling out the form, I will provide you with some great additional information about what is happening with Social Media as a marketing tool and how it is affecting business right now. Plus when the guide is available, you will be the first to know as I will update people on that list immediately!

Finally, if this is time sensitive  and need a Fanpage ASAP away email me at bill@billbiko.com and we can get started moving forward almost immediately and getting you set up. I’ll need some information from you, a bit of understanding about your business, what your aspirations are and how I can help you get there to start. Once we have that we’ll get you set up quickly and correctly, so you are off to the right start immediately.

Just to conclude this, I would love to know your thoughts about Facebook and Fanpages, so if you have one already please tell us about it. Just leave us a comment below. Or if you have a favourite Fanpage from another business you like, why don’t you tell us about it too!

Have You Claimed Your Google Place?

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Google Places Listings

It’s amazing how many local businesses have no idea about Google Places. Which brings up the question of “What exactly is Google Places?” To answer that I helped a friend of mine Steve Bell of Target Your Site Locally to create a video explaining a bit about Google Places to you.

You can watch the video below to learn a bit more and Steve has also put together a free guide explaining how you can actually set up your own Google Places listing. Just head over to his site at http://www.targetyoursitelocally.com to grab it, after you watch the video of course!

Some of the information that didn’t make the video is that a company doesn’t even need their own website to get some value from a google Places listing, but the two in combination can really help your marketing efforts.

Anyway take a look at the video and if you have any comments or questions I would love to hear them.

Just a quick note for you, if you already have your Google Places listing configured, but it hasn’t really helped your business, it may just require some optimization. Along with helping companies set up their own Google Places listings, we can also come in and optimize the listing for you to ensure you are getting the most bang for your buck.

Enjoy,

Bill

Is The Internet a Fad? Or Will It Take Off?

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Rumour has it the Internet may take off one of these days. They say it could even replace things like Yellow Pages, newspapers and possibly even TV some day!

If you are a small business this might be rather important information for your companies future success. On a little more serious note, the Internet has already had a significant impact on all three of the areas I mentioned in the first paragraph.

Think about the last time you used the Yellow Pages? We actually threw ours into the recycle bin when we received them. (Confession time, I actually retrieved the Yellow Pages from the recycle when I realized everyone advertising in there needed my services!) When I need to look up anything from vehicle repair to carpet cleaning, I just go online like just about everyone else and just like your customers.

This is turning those high priced Yellow Page ads into expensive propositions with steadily diminishing returns.Just when people need to stretch their marketing dollars the most!

As for newspapers, wow. You can get most of the information from the paper in their online versions or sometimes faster via services like Twitter. Remember the crash of the plane into the Hudson River in New York last year? It was on Twitter almost a day before it made it to the newspapers.

I even found out about Michael Jackson’s death on Twitter! It was almost two hours later before I found any info on some of the news sites and again not until the next day until it hit the newspaper. Often times it is old news by then.

No wonder readership of the papers is down, no wonder advertising there is also less effective. Less eyeballs looking at the ads translates into fewer clients, less business and again potentially wasted marketing funds.

Finally TV, between PVR’s streaming online video and boxed DVD sets of TV series arriving in stores in what seems like hours after the season ends, bring sup the question, who is actually watching TV commercials these days?

The Internet is taking off all around us, it’s not the future it’s now. Its on our desktop at work, it’s on our smartphone we carry with us and it’s bringing an entire revolution to how businesses need to market to succeed. Companies today that don’t recognize this will be following the footsteps of the businesses who thought the automobile was a fad.

Do you know which companies those are? Exactly, because they didn’t make the transition and were left behind, so no one is talking about them. Obviously you don’t want this to happen to you, really what business would? So what can you do?

First off, you should probably become more informed of what is currently taking place out there. For this I have created a special report which you can grab over on the sidebar to the right.

Second, you can contact me for a no obligation consultation. I can give you a quick explanation of what we have done to help other businesses, what is currently working in helping these other businesses get more leads, more prospects and ultimately more business and discuss whether it would work for you as well.

Or you can simply sit back and wait to see if the Internet really is the next big fad? The question is, are you willing to risk the future success of your business by sitting on the sideline?

Web Video – How to Market Your Business with Web video

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Ironically, I create web video promotions for other local businesses, but when it comes time for my site, I’m the last person in line. Well, hopefully I can change that over the next week.

I’ve scheduled some time to do some quick videos, so watch for them to appear shortly, along with some other changes for the site as well. In the meantime, I’ll use some of the videos I have recently put together to help explain web video marketing for local businesses a bit better.

If you aren’t aware of some of the recent headlines, more and more people are moving away from regular TV and watching all their shows and movies online. Companies like Apple with iTunes and Netflix with their service are making it easier and easier to accomplish this.

This is all leading to an entire marketing shift, at least for those paying attention. Effectiveness of Yellow Pages ads has dropped drastically (yet prices continue to go up) as people search online rather than leafing through big phone books, commercials on regular television have become costlier, yet less effective and with PVR’s saturating the market the majority get fast forwarded through anyway. Even local radio ads are losing effectiveness as more people switch to satellite radio services.

So how can companies get their products and services in front of consumer’s eyes? One huge area of potential is Facebook. If you are on Facebook, who hasn’t seen a video marketing a product on their wall or an ad down the side of their profile page? Combine this with the explosion of Facebook Fanpages (which ironically even show up at the end of TV commercials that are fast forwarded anyway) and you can understand why  Facebook is poised to become a major player for companies advertising online.

As an example, just last week our Realtor took my wife and I out for lunch to a fabulous little Greek restaurant here in Calgary, Plaka Greek Taverna. We had such a great time there we are looking forward to going back. Now while I was there, I managed to take some pictures, capture a little video and then when I had some time, I put the following video together, and then I added it to my Facebook stream to show to people and help promote Yianni’s business

.

After seeing the video, wouldn’t you like to go for lunch there? If you do, tell them you came after seeing the video Bill did!!! This is a simple example of how you can market your business online by using web video.

The important aspects of the video, which are often missed by people creating their own promotional videos, are the following;

  1. The name of the business is listed several times
  2. The phone number and address are included for people to write down
  3. Music adds to the experience
  4. It’s short, but effective

If you are interested in creating some web videos to help promote your business online, be sure to include the above information in them. Alternatively if you would be interested in having me come in and talk about creating some promotional videos for you, I can be reached via email at bill(at)bill.biko.com, just replace the (at) with @, or you can reach me via phone at 403-870-4663.

What Would You Want a List For?

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Part of selling to your clients involves staying in contact with them. In today’s busy world though, that can be a problem. More businesses are working on shoe string budgets and no one seems to be able to make time to call each client every few days, there’s just not enough time or manpower. Sure if you are marketing your local business you can use ads in the paper, billboards or even potentially flyers, but you don’t know who sees it and who you might be missing.

What if there was a better way? A way you could target clients specifically looking for your products or services? Unbeknownst to many, there are several better ways to accomplish this and they can be designed to operate automatically, in the background. you could even call it your own 24/7 super salesman!

If you read the subject line, I am referring to an email list and using the service of an autoresponder system to stay in touch with your customers. If you are not familiar with an auto responder, it is simply a service that provides a series of emails you prepare in advance to send out to your clients.

So how would this work? Well, every business seems to have a set of common questions that their customers always seem to ask. As a business owner you will be all to aware how often they get asked and you most likely already have a patented canned response. It’s these responses that are the best candidates to turn into a series of expanded emails to your clients.

Now depending on your business it could just be a few questions, or each answer could lend itself to another series of questions. These questions turn into great “touch points” for you to stay in contact with your clients. Also since you aren’t constricted by time, you can go into extensive detail when necessary in your automated series.

If you would like more information on how creating a list and using an auto responder to market to your clients would benefit your business call or email us and let’s see if we can help you make your business grow faster than you thought possible!

Watch for an upcoming article on how to start building your list quickly and if you want to take a Free Test drive of AWeber’s auto-responder system just fill in the info below.


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Internet Marketing in Calgary – Marketing Without a Net Part 9

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So here we are 45 days since I started and it’s time for a recap. My original goal was to capture at least one spot on page one of the Google search for one of the various keywords, granite countertop companies Calgary, granite countertop installers Calgary, granite countertops calgary, granite installers calgary and granite countertop Calgary.

I have no experience in the granite industry, yet I put together a report on “How to Choose a Granite Countertop Installer in Calgary” by spending a day researching and writing. I also created an additional report on how to clean granite countertops as a bonus.

From there I created a set of four videos covering “the Myths About Granite” and a couple other quick versions for my lead capture page and one to push out to various video sites. I also put together one article talking about Granite versus Marble Countertops. Then finally about a week ago, I put together a blog site to help expand the info.

So what are the results after 45 days? Overall I am pretty disappointed, but I did learn quite a bit. With some of Google’s new updates to their search algorithms I realized that a Lead Capture Page isn’t enough. Future campaigns will have more complete launches as part of the package.

Next, five videos simply isn’t enough. It’s getting tougher to get the backlinks to the pages recognized and longer for them to appear. For real traction it appears I need at least ten videos out there if not more.

So back to the results. The best I did was two keywords on page 1 for just under a week, Granite Countertop companies Calgary made it to 7 and Granite Countertop Installers Calgary made it to 9. Granite countertops Calgary and Granite Installers Calgary both made it into the low teens, but didn’t crack page one.

Now I do have a lot of spots on page two and three for various videos and the article and there is potential over time for them to slip forward, but it will require more dedicated time for it. Overall I had roughly 60 visits to the site and zero leads captured. Was it the reports? Was it the titles? Still a bit early to tell.

It’s most interesting when I compare it to another campaign I am running for someone where we have 11 videos out already and more coming. This client is currently operating with 10% of his visitors clicking through for his report. So good news is the Granite test which is an experiment and unpaid isn’t performing, but the  work I am getting paid for is doing gangbusters.

Just to provide an idea of how gangbusters, here’s a couple screenshots of two searches, the yellow highlighted areas are the videos we put together;

5 spots on page 1 of Google out of 428,000 results makes me pretty happy, but…

8 spots on page 1 of Google out of 274,000 results isn’t too shabby either. Plus we have other keywords also working for us.

In the end, I understand I need more content to push out. Ideally when I contact some of the Granite companies next week, I find one or two who understand the opportunity that this presents. If I can work with them and can get into their shops and/or a couple of their job sites to create some branded videos for them, I can bring them some new business, which this is really all about.

If you have a small business and would like to inquire about us creating a web video campaign for you simply email us directly or leave us a comment below.

Is Your Website Too Pretty?

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If it is, lucky you, unless of course the pretty factor is wiping out your ability to be found by potential clients on the Internet. You’ve all seen the sites that have the incredibly cool graphics on their home page, the pictures that change, the flash movie or intro you have to watch before you enter the actual site. Well the ironic part is these cool features may be actually impeding your ability to get found by potential clients.

Yep, Google doesn’t see the flash movie that plays, it cannot tell what the cool pictures are and pretty has absolutely zero ranking factor with Google. Yet this is exactly what many business owners get sold on when getting a site designed. Sure, it’s nice to have a cool site, but who cares if no one ever sees it?

Think of it this way; imagine having the best kitchen in your home that you could possibly have, quite possibly the best kitchen in North America. Imagine the granite counter tops, the beautiful cabinetry, an incredible island with a stainless steel gas stove built right in, all the luxuries, all the amenities, simply a beautiful, pretty kitchen. So beautiful that Architectural Digest would die to come see it, to take photos of it to show others, but ironically only people you specifically invite into your home ever get to view it. It makes you happy when you are in it, but 99.9999999999% of the population will never ever know about it. Does this sound like your site?

Now depending on your business, pretty may be a factor, ultimately a website is a tool to attract more clients, inform potential and current clients, and to provide information about what your company does. While we still run into many websites that are simply tired old online promotional material converted from old paper style brochures, the companies that get found by new clients are doing so by providing information, focusing on key words that clients search for, and using their websites as a sales tool to help grow business.

If you are simply using your site as a place card to store your address online you are missing out. With today’s technologies, it is possible to create email campaigns that promote targeted items to interested clients, to build lists of potential clients that you might possibly convert into active clients, and to track how people are finding your site so you can focus on converting those people into extra business/revenue for your company. Perhaps most importantly, most of this can be automated for you, creating a sales person for your company that works 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and helping you to increase profitability. In today’s economy employees like this are invaluable!

If you would like to learn more or to have us do a free evaluation of your site, email us at bill@billbiko.com or call us directly at 403-870-4663. Wouldn’t it be worth it to find that a few simple changes could mean extra business for you?