Jun 25
MikeGeneral Business Practices, Web Industry Google, google voice
In the last couple of days Google, Google has opened Google Voice to anyone in the U.S. looking for phone management on the web. Until now it has only been available to a select few, since Google acquired the excellent Grand Central service back in 2007. After launching Google Voice on a limited scale and shutting down Grand Central, Google went on to acquire the VoIP service Gizmo5, which it too shut down. Because Google did seemingly nothing for sometime with regards to Google Voice its long term plans have at best been left to educated guesses, until now.
The Google Voice service which launched last year in Beta, has since undergone a metamorphosis and has emerged as a brilliant solution to online phone and voicemail management. The SMS service works better and there is a Chrome extension which makes it easier to manage. An account is still free if you have a Google log-in and you have a choice of keeping your existing number and upgrading it with voicemail. If that doesn’t suit then you can set a new main number which will ring your cell, home and office phones, as well as your desktop VoIP. Gmail integration also gives users the ability to turn voicemail into emails. International calls are cheap and future additions include number portability and no set-up web calling.
As a communications solution, especially where small businesses are concerned, it is simply brilliant and we have been using it for sometime now along with over 1 million others – a figure you can now expect to balloon thanks to this latest release. Google themselves are delighted with the results particularly after the now infamous rejection by Apple of its Google Voice app (an episode that led Google to design their own mobile based web app).
Google have described the service as ‘the pinnacle of modern human communication’ and given all that it has to offer – I think they may be right!
Jun 16
MikeGeneral Business Practices basecamp, project management
Managing a project from start to finish means we have to deliver on time, on budget and meet the requirements of our clients. To achieve this we have to be organized, communicate effectively between ourselves and with our clients, deal with issues quickly, monitor our progress and produce a finished project which exceeds our clients’ expectations. Basecamp, the online project management software, enables us to deliver each and every time.
Basecamp allows us to track and organize every aspect of a project online making it easier to manage jobs and stay on schedule. The reason we love to use Basecamp is the numerous advantages it offers us to keep a project running smoothly from beginning to end. This project management software allows us to set up project tasks, assign members of our team to each one and set project milestones. From one location we can upload and review files, update our clients on progress and handle every task quickly and efficiently.
Email is a vital aspect of our project management and Basecamp helps to ensure we always deliver messages when and where intended. The software allows us to send emails without even having to be logged into the service. Basecamp gives each project its own unique email address so we always know who sent the message and which project it is intended for, any messages sent are also flagged up to every user on that account letting them know a new message is available. Better than that, Mailmanagr can now be integrated with Basecamp allowing users to set up email addresses, create milestones, to-do lists and messages just by sending an email.
In our opinion Basecamp gives us everything we need to manage our projects and deliver to our clients on time. The Mailmanagr integration is a great addition too, ensuring our emails and communications do not go astray! While it may not suit everyone, I would strongly encourage everyone to take advantage of the free one project plan they offer. Give it a whirl, it’s a product that I swear by and couldn’t live without…let me know what you think.
Jun 09
MikeGeneral Business Practices, Web Industry email marketing, marketing
Clients often ask us about the use of email marketing solutions. While much has been written about the benefits of adopting email marketing strategies, it can be difficult to navigate the wealth of different solutions available to businesses, large or small.
Email marketing can be a great tool for promoting your business, if you get it right that is. Many companies will adopt it because it offers the potential to instantly increase sales and allows business owners to adopt a marketing strategy which is easily measurable. There are a number of factors which will govern the success of an email marketing campaign, but one of the most important factors is the email marketing vendor that you chose.
The market for this type of service is huge and in our opinion over saturated. This means that when it comes to choosing a company to launch your email marketing campaign you will need to pick wisely and according to your needs and business type. Here are our top four email marketing solutions to help get you started:
- Mail Chimp: This is our personal favorite and the one solution we frequently recommend to our clients, especially small businesses. Designed with a bright and cheerful interface, Mail Chimp offers plenty of features which are designed with simplicity in mind. While it may lack some advanced reporting features, it makes up with a robust feature set. Mail Chimp also offers a free service to those businesses that have under 500 subscribers. This is a pricing advantage that no others can match!
- Constant Contact: Constant Contact is a household name for many businesses. They have done a great job with their corporate branding and advertisements but don’t let this play into your decision. Pricing starts from just $15 per month and subscribers will find a comprehensive feature set, easy to use wizards and excellent help and support. Where it does fall short is in the number of reporting features available and free tools on offer such as conversion tracking.
- Vertical Response: If you are looking for a solution which does not require a contract or minimum term commitment then give Vertical Response a try. From just $10 per month you will find plenty of features which will rival those of any of their competitors. Personally, the best part about Vertical Response is their “pay as you go” pricing option. Maybe you send quarterly newsletters. If you know that your business will not be sending emails monthly, why enter into a monthly contract? Unfortunately, Vertical Response is not the easiest of the bunch to navigate.
- iContact: Considered among the best in the business, iContact offers a simple to use solution. Packed with features, including a custom survey option which allows users to create and send their own surveys, it is easy to use and with subscriptions starting from $14 per month. Its only flaw is the lack of reporting features available and it doesn’t include conversion tracking or Google Analytics integration.
Businesses of all sizes, give each of these four vendors a look. Personally, if you’re a small business with under 500 subscribers (email recipients), I’d definitely suggest going with Mail Chimp. (Mail Chimp is also good for companies of all sizes, see their full pricing options). If you have more than 500 subscribers and know that you won’t need a vendor each month, I’d suggest either Mail Chimp’s prepaid “pay as you go” plan or Vertical Response’s “pay as you go” plan.
May 12
MikeGeneral Business Practices, SEO rss, SEO, social bookmarking
On many websites, specifically blogs, a range of miniature icons are placed at the top or bottom of pages of content. These icons enable you, as the reader, to share the content with a selection of other sites across the web. “Social bookmarking” is tool for Internet marketing and is a great way of promoting your site across the web.
Social bookmarking sites are plentiful and are a good way of applying SEO to your website without doing very much. By submitting your articles to sites such as Digg, StumbleUpon and Deli.icio.us on a daily basis, you may see an increase in website traffic. Sure, submitting every blog article or page of content to all of the social bookmarking sites can be very time consuming, although this process can be done in thirty minutes a day once you have created your accounts.
In addition to social bookmarking, RSS feeds are also popular. Unfortunately, many businesses fail to realize their potential and how they can utilize them in terms of marketing their business. Essentially, an RSS feed will notify subscribers each time you post something new to your site, making it the perfect way of keeping people up to date with what is happening within your business or on your website without having to check back every day wondering if new content has been published.
So what is the point to all this? Both social bookmarking sites and RSS feeds increase exposure to your content as well as creating more venues for new users to stumble upon your content. By simply integrating a standard social bookmarking set of icons, you can invite your readers to spread the word for you.
May 05
MikeGeneral Business Practices, SEO link building, SEO
Link building to improve your website rankings has become a well established technique in terms of Internet marketing. But there are right ways and wrong ways of going about it. Before embarking on an aggressive link building campaign, you should know the differences as the consequences for not following best practices can be severe and detrimental to your business. If you are not too familiar with the principles of link building then it can be easy to fall into the clutches of an unscrupulous “link building” firm who will tempt you with offers of massive numbers of links and improved search engine rankings in next to no time. Lately, I’ve been receiving dozens of emails per week of firms overseas promoting 500+ links for roughly $14 – don’t be fooled!
Link building used to be an easy process. Many websites offered to “exchange links” with you, by which you would enter their web address on your site someplace and they would do likewise. It was quite common to visit a website and see a page titled “Links” which would list any number of other websites for you to click on and visit. Typically, websites were exchanging links with anyone who asked, whether or not their site was related to their own. The effectiveness of this did really rely on you being able to exchange links with higher ranking sites.
Today, things are done differently. “Links” pages are no longer viewed in a positive light by search engines. Link building has become a weapon of mass marketing in Internet terms, leading to many SEO firms offering to take on a link building strategy for you and propel your site in search rankings.
Unfortunately, while there are many good SEO firms out there that will carry this out in an SEO legal manner, known as “white hat” techniques; there are also many more that will engage in so called “black hat” (the firms that I mentioned above) techniques when it comes to link building. It’s not just me, many business owners are finding numerous emails landing in their inboxes each day from sites offering thousands of links for just a few dollars and the guarantee that their website will be top ranking in a matter of weeks (or days in some cases). The old saying “if it sounds too good to be true…” comes to mind, purely because link building takes time, it takes good research and it requires a targeted plan. Also, remember no one other than the executives of Google knows Google’s search algorithm. Beware of any company that guarantees rankings.
Why is link building so vital to SEO? Search engines love links! It makes them think your website is uber popular and as a result they will place you higher in the rankings – think of it as a popularity competition! Unlike what most so-called SEO professionals will tell you (the “black hats” I mentioned a couple of times above), quantity IS NOT everything. It’s important; however, the quality and relevance of links needs to be your first consideration. If the search engine deems for your links to be non-relevant to your business, the links will be rejected and your site can even be removed from the search engine!
Black hat link building however, is simply another form of spamming, posting links to your website on pages that bear no relation to your site or business. Unfortunately, it is your site that will get penalized not the company that posted the links in the first place. Hence why you should be careful when selecting a link building partner – “black hat” link building may appear to be a great value but they will not only fall short on their promises but will increase your business’s potential for getting caught and banned from the search engines. After all, you get what you pay for.
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