You’re the Driver: Five tricks to turn your dream into reality

Have you ever had a burning desire to start something magnificent, but then felt overwhelmed with all the details? Still working the 9-5 job while wishing you were selling your hand-crafted jewelry online? Want to learn to code with ease? Balance a spinning basketball on your finger? All these skills start somewhere. Not sure where to begin? Or where to turn for help? These questions could make it easy for some people to become discouraged and eventually talk themselves out of what could be a Read More >>

Web Marketing Directs the Traffic

An online presence doesn’t just mean a website anymore, it also means having great sub-sites, mini-sites, social media platforms, blogs, etc… You get the idea. Having a great website doesn’t guarantee that people are going to automatically notice it when it’s launched. You’ve got to create awareness about it in the marketplace, which means expanding beyond just the website. (That’s why pre-launch marketing campaigns are so important. It creates a buzz that otherwise wouldn’t Read More >>

New Facebook App Wows Users Into Getting Work Done

Have you heard about the new Facebook App for iPhone/iPad that everyone is oohing-and-ahhing about? Have you tried it? No?! You should. The developers at Facebook decided to start from scratch on this newest update, which means that the app is working at optimum for iDevice users. Content is loading faster, notifications are coming through in a blink of an eye, not to mention that posting and reviewing photos is easier than it’s ever been. I cannot tell you how much I am loving this update Read More >>

If you build it, they will come…

A long time ago (2009), in a land far far away (Germany) I traveled to Cologne on business. We stayed at the “Radisson Blu” - which was appropriately swank for our meeting: sauna, rec room, breakfast, bar, customer service - it was truly par excellence. But, that’s not what made this trip classically interesting. As it happened, I forgot something in the dining room (as I am prone to do) so I headed back to the “lift.” As I stepped into the elevator, who’s standing there in the Read More >>

Why are you building a website?

As with all advertising and marketing, your website exists for a very important reason: it’s the genesis of your sales efforts. However, many business owners I speak with - in fact, even some of our clients - don’t look at their web presence this way. Thus - I was inspired to write this article. So… Why do you want a website?   Let’s get serious. The only purpose of using the web is to make sales - whether you are selling yourself as a personal brand, selling products, or selling Read More >>

To Web Marketeers: 3 Reasons Your SEO is Rusting

There are few things as complicated as online marketing. You must combine the science of search engine indexing with high impact messaging that converts customer visits to sales. Knowing where to focus your marketing efforts and dollars is important. Aside from getting lucky with a good viral marketing campaign, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is one of the best places to start. You have no hope of listing organically on the first page of Google unless you put some significant thought into your Read More >>

Marketing in an Economic Downturn

There seems to be very little argument that our economy is experiencing a downturn that looks like it will be with us for a while. In the face of economic uncertainty, it can be very tempting to cut back on advertising. Many companies give into this temptation in times like these. Budgets for online advertising, website improvements, and sales staffs are often cut back and marketing improvements are often postponed. There are many reasons why this reaction to an economic downturn may be a critical Read More >>

Blogging Tip to Live By

There are millions of blogs in the world and if you have one, you are simply adding to the growing pile of the public’s online writing.  But with so many different blogs out there, how are you ever going to promote yours to the point where you will have regular readers? This tip is probably the easiest one of all, and it will have you saying “Tony, you idiot, I already knew that.”  That’s fine (although I would prefer to keep the name calling to a minimum), but remembering this tip will Read More >>

The Email Standards Project

It’s about time. Literally. After a few years doing email marketing — a year of which was spent in the trenches at an email marketing service provider — I’ve spent a lot of time trying to get HTML emails to render properly in all of the different email clients. Every time I code an email template, it has to be tested in up to 19 different email clients. That’s right — nineteen. Don’t believe me? Here’s a list: AOL 9 AOL Webmail Apple Mail Comcast Webmail Earthlink Webmail Entourage Gmail Lotus Read More >>

Please Write Content That Humans Can Read

I’m completely amazed at some of the content I see on the web. It seems as if some people have sold out and are offering up simple readability as a sacrifice to the gods of Search Engine Optimization. They don’t care what the text on their site actually looks like to a human as long as they get ranked highly by the almighty Google. Here’s an example. Names have been changed to protect the innocent (or ignorant): Acme Corp is a Raleigh Web Design company located in Raleigh, NC. Acme specializes Read More >>