Because my business involves website design, SEO and copywriting, I tend to analzye the websites I visit. First I notice their overall look and feel. If I like it, I will bookmark the site for design inspiration later down the road. I also note the kinds of information sites provide, the kind of feeling that…
High-value, high-quality marketing content targeted at a specific audience will increase sales and grow your business. How? Writing blogs, articles and ebooks; hosting teleseminars; and sharing your solutions through audios and videos gives your visitors direct contact with you. Such communications enable your visitors to experience the value of what you have to offer firsthand,…
Even if you aren’t particularly tech-savvy, you have probably heard terms like search engine optimization and SEO. But what do they really mean? And what do they have to do with growing your business in 2011? SEO Basics To begin answering these questions, it is important to understand that the only mission a search engine…
I just received my monthly newsletter from Russell Stannard, who is one of my favorite people! (Actually, we’ve never met, but he feels like a friend to me, anyway.) Russell is a London-based teacher of English as a second language who creates simple, straightforward, and extremely effective training videos on software that increases teachers’ creativity…
I recently revised a website planning guide I wrote titled Telling Your Story on the Web. As a result, I have been thinking a lot about how websites need to be designed–-and what kinds of information they need to contain–-in order to successfully build relationships with visitors and encourage them to return again. Some of…
If you are a small business owner or independent professional who would like to attract more clients (and who doesn’t?!), you need to know that the marketing paradigm has changed dramatically in just the last few years. The Old Marketing Paradigm The old paradigm (outbound marketing) consisted of strategies that sent generic messages to as…
I just spent the weekend designing a new theme for WordPress (using Headway) and then converting my “traditional” Dreamweaver site into it. Why did I go to all of that time and effort? Because it was fun! Ok, I had business reasons to do it, too. The most important one is that I am creating…