From the category archives:

Website

Essential Plugins for WordPress

August 6, 2010

I recently re-launched by blog and was able to mess around with a few new plugins that I’ve found really helpful.  Here’s a list of a few:

  • For commenting, I highly recommend Disqus.  Plugin integration was very simple and there are some great options to manage from right within the options settings.
  • Clean-Contact is a great contact us form that’s simple to use and set up.
  • To help blog posts extend to the social world:
    • Auto Tweet allows your posts to auto-tweet when posted online. UPDATE: Actually prefer Tweetly Updater as I’m a bit.ly guy.
    • Can’t decide which network to allow?  Use them all with ShareThis!  I particularly liked the various options in terms of the tool set that you can use.
    • You can insert a TweetMeme button right at the top of your post so that option is front and center.
  • I also am using Google Analytics to track my site traffic and Google Webmaster Tools (with the help of Google XML Sitemaps plugin) so that I can make sure my site is working as best as possible.

Hope that helps!

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Your Marketing Strategy Cannot Just Be Reactionary

August 6, 2010

online marketing focus

Shiny is nice.  Shiny is alluring.  In business, shiny can be devastating if there isn’t a purpose behind it.

Insecurity runs rampant in business today.  The conclusion as to why the competition is winning out is because they have an active Facebook fan page and you don’t.  Or their website is more “optimized” than yours so we all need to react and get what they have!  Wrong.

Yes, in order to survive as a business today you must stay current, but only as much as to stay where your buyers are.  Dumping money and time into a youtube channel because you saw some presentation as to how it’s the “thing everyone will be doing in a year so beat the curve” but unfortunately your base could care less to watch video after video.  
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Everyone Has A Budget

03.09.2010
digital marketing budget planning

Or, everyone has a price. There is a price-point threshold you have in your mind for your next project. One of the most common questions a web/creative/design person gets is, “How much would it take to do ____”. The better question is, “How much are you willing to spend to make ____ happen?”  

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A Great Restaurant, A Very Good Use of Joomla

03.08.2010
Urban Solace restaurant using Joomla

Last night my wife and I decided to venture out of suburbia San Diego and head south into North Park/Hillcrest to check out a new restaurant that was recommended by some friends called Urban Solace. I can go on forever about what great food we had, the unique menu selection, the chic decor, the uniqueness [...]

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Tips for Keyword Research
Tools to Help Your SEO and PPC Campaigns

03.04.2010
SEO small business

One safe point of entry for any small business person trying to work with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to hopefully drive more leads from the search engines to your site is to use Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaigns. These are the “sponsored” links that you see on the top and right side of your search results. The [...]

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Open-Source Content Management Systems

03.03.2010
open-source content management system

For someone running their own small business, the constant issue is money. Couple that with even less time and you have a serious challenge when trying to succeed in the web world. You know it’s important to be found online, you want to put your best foot forward as, for you, it’s personal what the [...]

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Why You Should Build Your Website With A Content Management System

03.02.2010
Content Management System CMS

Anyone can be a ‘web guy/gal’ these days. You can look like a super-hero to your boss/group just because you have figured out how to easily add content to your website. No longer do you need to be at the mercy of a hard-to-reach webmaster or billed for every second you call to ask for [...]

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A Simple Check-List Before Starting A Web Design Project

02.12.2010
website design check-list

Note: this is mainly for the home/small business as there are typically many more factors involved with medium-big business websites. However, many of the concepts will still work for any web improvement effort. So it’s time for a change to your website? Launching a new company so now need a new website? Starting your consulting [...]

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Focus Your Marketing Efforts on What Works with Your Strategy

02.04.2010
Thumbnail image for Focus Your Marketing Efforts on What Works with Your Strategy

I recently came across the image to the right on a post by Greg Verdino. His post and the image bring up some great issues for discussion when it comes to marketing and the tools that are out there. The reality is, the tools aren’t going to stop coming. Right now there are some dominant [...]

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'How can I get more _____'

11.18.2009
Thumbnail image for 'How can I get more _____'

Sales? Customers? Market share? Whatever it is that you’re looking to accomplish with your company, knowing what “it” is provides the answer to the primary question of “Where should I start with social media?”. There are so many options in regards to social media marketing. If you just plow out there and get your Facebook [...]

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Moving Target

09.30.2009
to-do digital marketing list

“Way back” in the early 2001-2’s there was this new fad of needing a website for your business. People weren’t really sure if it would stick, but they had to keep up with the trends to stay relevant. As a result a TON of websites appeared only to be left alone post-launch. The goal was [...]

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A Look Behind the Outsourcing Curtain

08.31.2009
out-sourcing web development

It’s hard to search for any company without finding an outsourced alternative. Though a user of outsourcing (I feel like I’m at a recovery group meeting) in the past, there were some hard lessons learned along the way that I thought would be helpful to share with you. Before we start, the assumption I’m working [...]

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