Get Listed for Local Google Searches

You can now list your business with Google local listing searches.

There are tools to help customers find your business easier, see where your customers are coming from, and more... go to http://google.com/lbc and get listed today.

http://www.simplywebcenters.com/

Is Social Media a Fad?

Or is it the biggest shift since the industrial revolution? Watch this thought provoking video and judge for yourself...

Are You Ready?

http://www.simplywebcenters.com/

Secrets To An Effective Web Presence

It's time for small and medium-sized businesses to move beyond their online brochures and pack their Web sites with engaging, interactive content.

We've been talking a lot about this lately, and we've got even more advice on the topic this week! Bill Siwicki at Internet Retailer interviewed some leading e-commerce experts about running an effective Web presence. Their opinion? Content is everything!

"Having well-developed site content detailing products and categories can turn pages of an e-commerce site into a presence akin to the most knowledgeable of salespersons...thus making consumers more comfortable with online shopping-and more apt to buy," Siwicki concluded.

Jason Friedman, e-Commerce VP at J&R Electronics, talked to Siwicki about what makes his company's site so successful. Friedman said feedback from online customers helps him understand what he needs to add or change on the company's Web site.

Our clients can use the feedback page included in our Web Solution for the same purpose...it's an easy way to make site visitors feel like valued customers!

Friedman also uses "well-written, in-depth product descriptions with multiple images" and creates site pages "devoted to education through articles, videos and more" as a means of keeping site visitors informed about their potential purchases. He says this extra attention to content is what clinches sales for his company!

That's great advice for your business as well! With our Complete Web Solution Package, you can create the kind of e-commerce catalog Friedman's talking about and develop site pages with embedded media and industry-related articles. Because the solution we offer is so user-friendly, it won't take much effort for you to add those features and achieve the same results!

Siwicki also spoke with Keith Maddox at Parentgiving about his company's thriving Web presence. Maddox echoed Friedman's comments...content is what drives sales!

"...you have to offer a great Web experience that includes excellent content, so people researching products online will come to know you as an authority and become repeat customers."

To be credible figures in your industry, you need an online presence that's professional, informative and interactive! That's how you can draw customers and keep them coming back!

"The alternative is having an image, a short description and a Buy! button and hope they buy, and that's not enough," Friedman says.

If you don't see the value in a dynamic Web site that allows you to add superior content, this advice from your peers will help change your mind!


------- Did you know...

E-mail marketing is helping companies beat the downturn and increase their marketing budgets! E-Consultancy and Clash-Media's latest study revealed that 53% of surveyed companies in the US have increased their marketing budget over the past year...all because of their e-mail and online campaigns!

The respondents cited cost-effectiveness, better targeted marketing and increased ROI as their reasons for switching to online lead generation. Here's what two of the respondents had to say:

"Better comparability between online and offline cost-per-lead has enabled us to shift budgets from off to online."

"Offline is too expensive and doesn't get the same speed of responses as online. Online gives faster calls to action and results, too."

Companies everywhere are switching their marketing efforts to the Web! They're saving money, reaching a larger market and increasing their profit all at the same time. And with our Web Solution's e-mail marketing tools, you can too! Set an appointment and let our Product Specialists show you what an effective Web presence can do for your business!

www.SimplyWebCenters.com

Are You Ready For The Value Hunters?

The latest study by Penn, Schoen and Berland Associates (in partnership with LinkShare) reveals that all those consumers who have turned to the Web are sticking with their new habit!

According to a press released about the study: "With the economy slowing down over the past year, a shopping behavior that for some consumers had been an occasional habit has now become a routine - turning to the Internet to find the best value."

Earlier in the downturn, PSB coined the term "Recession Shoppers" to refer to those consumers. Now they're calling this group "Value Hunters," because the shoppers aren't just comparing prices anymore....they're looking for overall better value and a better experience on the Web!

"These consumers...claimed that as economic situations worsened, they would look to the Internet to find the best deals. Now, months later, even as the economy's vital signs are improving, online shopping behavior shows consumers are still heavily focused on value - in quality price, convenience and time."

Now, according to the researchers, "value" is the new fundamental objective of online consumers! As LinkShare's Yaz! Iida explains, "More than ever before, consumers are searching online for products, services and Web sites that provide value."

Here's a breakdown of the study's findings based on their survey of "Value Hunters:"

51% look for incentives when making online purchases
63% have purchased something online they wouldn't normally have because of a special offer
68% of online shoppers search for value in the form of coupons and special promotions
45% purchase something online once a week or more
47% prefer shopping online to shopping in-store
22% plan to make more purchases online this year than last year

PSB advises that online businesses can "differentiate themselves from competition through value offerings." That means focusing on "pricing, quality and experience."

These businesses must "create an online experience built on value." PSB specifically emphasizes accomplishing this "through the use of an easy-to-navigate Web site!"

There's a lot to take away from this study! First, owners of small- and medium-sized businesses-need a Web presence to garner attention from all those "Value Hunters" out there. It's a crucial market that you simply can't ignore. Also, for all business owners who currently have a site, you need to move beyond your low-quality online brochures to a dynamic, engaging Web site that provides visitors with a superior experience, including e-mail campaigns that promote discounts! Simply WebCenters offers a complete Web solution that provides all the tools necessary to accomplish these things...easily and effectively!

--- Did you know...

July was an encouraging month in the world of online sales, according to the IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index! Capgemini's Mike Petevinos said, "Online continues to perform strongly with year-on-year growth in July exceeding the last 12 months average at 16.8%...as retailers further improve their online propositions with better product information, visual merchandising and delivery methods."

And Tina Spooner, also with Capgemini, said online retailers were clearly outperforming their brick-and-mortar counterparts.

"It is evident that online merchants are becoming more sophisticated in their marketing efforts and e-mail communications to their customers, the result of which can be seen in higher conversion rates..." Spooner said.

Businesses that leverage the Web are going to experience better success and growth during the downturn, and retailers are catching on! It's time for you to get on board! We will help you achieve these results!

Set an appointment today for a no-cost, no-obligation demonstration of our Complete Business Web Solution Package.

Visit us at SimplyWebCenters.com

E-commerce Remains Strong and Steady, Despite the Downturn

According to Jupiter Research's U.S. Online Retail Forecast for 2007-2012, e-commerce sales reached $128 billion in 2008, and that total is expected to climb to $148 billion this year!
A study by The Conference Board and TNS Retail Forward found that 5% of online households plan to spend more than $500 at e-commerce Web sites this year ... that's a four percent increase over 2008!
Forrester Research also revealed that 72% of companies surveyed said economic conditions have not impacted their e-business technology plans. In fact, over half of the companies said they planned to increase their e-business technology budgets. Forrester analyst Brian Walker said businesses will continue to make the investment in e-commerce because they understand the power of the online channel.
A sweeping number of consumers are taking their holiday shopping online. ATG and The E-Tailing Group predicted that 49% of U.S. holiday gift shoppers would turn to the Web in 2008, marking the first year ever that Web shopping would surpass in-store shopping.
Research released by ComScore and MasterCard in early 2009 show that ATG's prediction about a jump in holiday online spending was accurate! ComScore's Gian Fulgoni reported that, "... e-commerce trends outperformed overall consumer spending in several product categories, which is to say that e-commerce continued to capture an increasing share of consumers' wallet."
Shop.org and Forrester Research report that in the first quarter of 2009, U.S. online retail sales rose an average of 11%! While most brick-and-mortar establishments without a Web site were reporting losses, 58% of the surveyed retailers with an online presence reported that their Web sales increased during the first quarter!

Great WebSite Promotion Tips

By following these Web site promotion tips from our MA WebCenters Technical Support Team, you'll greatly improve your chance of ranking well with the major search engines such as Google and Yahoo.

SUBMIT RIGHT: Submit your site once a month to search engines. Directories have their own rules for how often to submit. If your site is in the directory already, don't resubmit to it. Use your Web site Promotion tool to submit, including all of its links to search engines that require manual submission. Always submit using the same domain name. Google and others have cracked down on the submission of several domain names that all point to the same site or to identical content in another site (mirroring). Begin submitting as soon as you have a good home page and a few other pages with content (no "under construction" wording); you should also have a domain name pointing to your site which will be the only domain name you'll use in all submissions.

HOME PAGE:Make sure your home page is the first one ready for the search engines -- and is friendly for humans as well as search engines. Disable pages that are under construction. "Coming soon" is okay if you include good text describing the coming content. Disable your splash page. Avoid putting anything onto your site's pages (especially the home page) that will cause them to load slowly, such as Java or huge images. Provide text links as well as buttons. Update your site often; visitors and search engines like fresh content.

TITLE: Give each page a unique title, reflecting what the page is about. The page's title needs to be 60 characters long counting all characters including spaces. Start with your most important search words. Capitalize the first letter of each major word. Use no more than 2 commas. Use the same rules for the names of items, categories etc. in your catalog, since their names act as titles for their pages.

KEYWORDS: Give each page and each item in your catalog a unique keywords meta tag, reflecting what the page or item is about. The keywords list can be long (even 1024 characters for some search engines) but don't add words just to make it long. More words can mean less power for each word. Put your most important keywords first. Include plural versions and variations such as hyphenations and common misspellings. Break up very similar keywords by putting dissimilar words in between, so it doesn't look as if you're stuffing the same word again and again into the list. Don't use the same word more than 5 times in the keywords list.

DESCRIPTION: Give each page and each item, category, etc., in your catalog a unique description meta tag, reflecting what the page, item etc. is about. The meta description can be up to 250 characters. Don't use more than 2 commas. Put your most important search terms first. Avoid unnecessary words such as promotional language. Use correct grammar and spelling, since the description meta tag is displayed in some search results.

CONTENT: The page's content needs to include a good amount of readable text. Search engines can't read images and most can't read Flash. Most won't follow frames or Javascripted or Flash links to other pages. Put your most important search terms early on the page in large font. Include two or three occurrences of your most important search phrases in the page content, ideally as links to related pages in your site. The words in text links are important to search engines like Google. Give each image a unique ALT tag using words that relate to the image plus a search term or two.

GEOGRAPHY: If your business is focused on a certain region, then your content, title and meta tags need to include the appropriate geographical terms such as the city, region, and state(s) that you serve. Your site might also qualify for regional categories in directories such as DMOZ. Getting into regional categories can be faster than non-regional categories -- but check the rules for the category to make sure you qualify.

LINKS: Get other sites to link to yours and link your site to others. Search engines don't like "dead end" sites that lack external links. Directories are a good source of links to your site. The DMOZ directory is most important, but be sure to exploit special resources such as your local Chamber of Commerce site, local business directory sites, etc. Get other sites to use your top priority search term as the text link to your site. Make sure that they link using the same domain name that you use when submitting your site.

HUB PAGES: Enhance your catalog's visibility to search engines by adding "hub pages" to your site. On each hub page, feature several related products and offer text links to related categories in your catalog. Name your hub page using important search terms. A page for enamel bath tubs should be named "enamel_bath_tubs.html". Words in URL's are detected by some search engines including Google. On your home page, provide text links to these pages. Each text link should include the hub page's most important search term.

And the most important tip...

PLAY IT STRAIGHT: Don't cheat. A trick that works today could get you in trouble tomorrow, as search engine companies continue to thwart trickery. Just some of the tricks that have stopped working and can even get your site banned or penalized: redirects, hidden text, keywords listed anywhere other than in the keywords meta tag e.g. stuffed into ALT tags, tiny font, submitting the same content via different URL's, and too many occurrences of a word on a page.

There you have it...

To Your Ongoing Success

Why Are Newspaper Companies Failing?

Newspaper companies are folding all over the country right now. Big companies like the New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle and the Seattle Post Intelligencer. Why? Because of big losses in ad revenue. Big advertisers are going where the consumers are, and consumers are not looking for information or shopping in newspapers anymore. The market is changing and consumers are going where it's easiest to get information and shop, and that's online. That's where the consumers are going, that's where big advertising is going and that's where you should be going too. Your competitors are.

We offer a unique approach by providing business owners the "experience" of test-driving a WebCenter designed specifically for your business, right on your own computer. You wouldn't want to own a car without test driving it first, right? By experiencing our Complete Web Solutions Package along with the opportunity to interact with our phenomenal support team, you'll see why our clients stick with us, month to month with no contracts. So contact us today and have a WebCenter designed specifically for your business and then have one of our Product Specialists walk you through a "test drive" with no cost or obligation.

Click Here to set up an appoinment now.

Google Rule Change Helps Local Businesses

Google "quietly" changed the way that it ranks search results on April 1st. This is important for all small businesses to take advantage of. Before April of this year, if you searched for "pizza" on Google, you would get nationwide results, which pretty much gave the big chains priority. Now that same search will look at your IP address and give higher placement to matching businesses that are close to your customer's location.

This is important for any business with a website that wants to attract local customers. Now small business owners can compete with the big guys for top placement. It has leveled the playing field so now competition is local for small-to-medium size businesses.

Read the complete article at SmallBusinessComputing.com

Check Out Dynamic Drive To Enhance Your WebSite

This is a great site recommended by the MA WebCenters Support Team for free HTML to enhance your website. Each comes with author's instructions and utilize a simple cut-and-paste method to insert the HTML scripts into the locations you select. There is a wide array of enhancements to explore on this site. Some may be a little complicated. If you need help, contact us or the MA WebCenters support team to get you up and running.

www.DynamicDrive.com

Small Businesses Seek Solutions Online

APRIL 13, 2009

Having to do more with less, many small shops go digital.

Small businesses face stiff challenges in 2009.

According to a poll of US marketers by Bredin Business Information, the primary challenges in marketing to small businesses are funding new projects, growing the business with limited resources and increasing awareness.

In addition, marketers say the outlook for small-business marketing has changed in 2009. They are increasing their online activities, becoming more focused and conducting segmentation research to better target their customers.

It is no surprise that the local online marketing space is where many small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are moving their efforts—and their dollars.

Borrell Associates estimated SMBs spent $7.4 billion on local online marketing in 2008.

That figure accounted for 11% of all SMB marketing spending, and more than one-half of total US local digital spending, including Website development.

-eMarketer

15 REASONS WHY EVERY BUSINESS NEEDS A WEBSITE

1. It is the most cost-effective way to advertise.

2. Your customers expect it.

3. You will sell more products and services.

4. You will be able to provide information to your customers more cost effectively.

5. You can receive feedback via your Web site.

6. It is much easier to stay in contact with distributors and sales reps.

7. You can provide better customer service.

8. It's the best way to stay competitive -- considering that most of your rivals already own their own Web sites or are looking into getting one.

9. Your business will grow immediately. Any small, local business has the ability to be an instant international sensation with franchise penetration in every city -­simply by getting an on-line presence.

10. Your business will look more professional.

11. You will gain credibility. A professional, well-designed site makes your business look successful, and builds trust in your company and its products/services.

12. You are open 24/7 without any added overhead and your sales potential may increase exponentially.

13. You have the ability to update sales information in real-time.

14. It is much more convenient for your customers to purchase your goods and services on-line than by physically coming to your location.

15. You can't afford not to. With Internet sales increasing almost 400% in the last six years, it's just good common sense to boost your business onboard the Internet superhighway.