Feb 13 2012

25 Easy Ways to Increase Profits on Your Ecommerce Site

ecommerce

Many of these businesses started out with brick and mortar locations and have since closed their physical presences as a result of higher revenues and profit margins from their online sales.  Unfortunately, many other businesses started to execute our mutually created game plan and then got busy and put it on the side burner.

What’s the result?  Their ability to grow their business, stay ahead of their competitors and truly reap the rewards of their competitive advantages has not yet been realized.  Ironically, many of these companies should be sitting in a far better situation today than they are, but, they continue to struggle because they’ve got caught up in the day-to-day operation of their business and put aside the most important activity that’s vital to any company’s long-term success – following a game plan.  We’ve all heard the old adage, when you fail to plan, you plan to fail.

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Feb 8 2012

When It Comes to Websites, Content Is King… But Only Once Earned

Content Is KingEverywhere you turn, there’s another individual that’s touting the same old expression “Content is King”.  If you’re in an industry that works with publishing in one way or another, you probably hear this almost as many times each day than the number of spam messages you receive!  But what does it really mean?

I’ve witnessed hundreds of companies massaging this expression to fit whatever message they’re trying to convey.  The term is used so frequently because it creates a sense of authenticity for whatever words follow.  The fact of the matter however is that the words itself means very little without further explanation.

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Feb 6 2012

A Dozen Tips About Using Twitter Effectively to Gain Customers and Increase Profits

Twitter

This week I thought I’d put together a few tips for users who are trying to learn to effectively use Twitter in order to engage an audience and create new connections.

The most common reason that Twitter isn’t working for many companies is because they simply haven’t taken the time to learn how to use it effectively.

I’ve put together a brief list of the best tips that will help get you on your way to successfully leveraging the power of Twitter in your social media marketing efforts.  What’re you waiting for?  Let’s get started and start creating some real buzz around your brand!

Here are the tips:

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Feb 3 2012

Get Your Priorities Straight

Priority All the time people ask me how I get so much done each and every day.  There are a lot of weapons in my arsenal that you’ll learn about if you follow my blog, this is most definitely one of them.  I call it my “super-secret, no bullsh*t priority management approach” but you can call it the “common-sense well thought out approach” if you wish… I just think my naming choice sounds cooler.

Every week or two I intend to reveal another one of my weapons used to battle the obstacle-laden horizon of productivity.  If you want to take your business to the next level, with no cost other than the time you take to learn from and implement the strategies that I’ve honed over the last decade and a half, you too will become a powerhouse to be reckoned with in your own respective industry.  After all, what do you have to lose?  More importantly, what do you have to gain?

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Feb 1 2012

Keep Thy Strengths Close and Thy Weaknesses Closer

Want to try something interesting?  Take a minute and identify your top 5 weaknesses right now.  Go!  If you’re like most business owners you’ve discovered that you have only identified one or possibly two.  The reason for this is simple, your focus is too narrow.  You simply haven’t taken the time to widen your focus so that you can see the entire picture.  Don’t worry, you’re not alone.  So many business owners get caught in “the daily grind” by focusing on the tasks at hand and moving from one to the next, they forget to take a look at the whole picture and to maintain a longer term plan can be worked towards.  Strengths

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Jan 27 2012

What’s an Internet presence? If you said ‘website’ you’re so 2000!

I’ve been having a lot of discussions about what an Internet presence encompasses.  Only a few years ago this conversation would have been brief, discussing primarily website presence, but today an Internet presence has dramatically evolved into much more!  Today Internet presences aren’t centralized around just a website.  While a website is an absolutely essential aspect, other presences have also become vital in ensuring an edge amongst competitors.  Chances are if you’re not there, your competitors are and they’re gaining business from potential customers that don’t even know you exist.  This is almost like if you were a farmer trying to sell your fruit and vegetables on a side street when there’s a huge farmer’s market around the corner.  Quite simply… by not using common sense you are missing out and helping your competitors to get rich while you accept the status quo!    Aspects of an Internet Presence
Jan 19 2012

To SOPA or not to SOPA… how does it impact me?

First of all, let’s look at the purpose of SOPA and consider what it’s intended goal is:

Taken from one of my favorite sites, Wikipedia, ironically one that would be blocked if SOPA was enforced, here’s a definition of what it is:

 Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) “The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is a law (bill) of the United States proposed in 2011 to fight online trafficking in copyrighted intellectual property and counterfeit goods. Proposals include barring advertising networks and payment facilities from conducting business with allegedly infringing websites, barring search engines from linking to the sites, and requiring Internet service providers (ISP) to block access to the sites. The bill would criminalize the streaming of such content, with a maximum penalty of five years in prison.”

User-content websites such as YouTube would be greatly affected.  Concerns have been expressed that they and many other similar sites would be shut down if the bill became law.  Entire domains could be blocked if something was posted in a single photo, video, blog, article, etc.  Taken to extreme, practically any website on the Internet would be infringing due to their content.

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Jan 19 2012

Internet website acronyms and abbreviations

 Internet website acronyms and abbreviations After years of discussions with thousands of business owners, I’ve come to the realization that there’s no single location to find clear, concise and non-technical descriptions of keywords related to our industry.  For this reason, I’ve decided to create a list of acronyms and abbreviations used when describing projects related to Internet presences on all mediums – web, mobile and social media.

Because technology evolves so quickly I will be adding to this on an ongoing basis so that hopefully it can remain a helpful and useful resource for our leads, clients and any website visitors that may come across this.   If there are acronyms or abbreviations that you feel are too technical and require a more simplified description, or if you feel I’ve missed one that should be added to the list, please leave a comment.

Please feel free to bookmark this resource and refer to it on an as-needed basis.

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Jan 16 2012

What makes Brent tick?

While it’s only been a month since my blog has existed, I’ve already received dozens of emails from my readers, the majority complete strangers asking me to talk a little bit more about myself within my blogs.  As a result, I’ve made a decision that from now on I’ll also be including personal blogs within the mix starting with a brief introduction about what makes me tick and how I’ve gotten to where I am today.

If any of my personal blogs don’t interest you, please, feel free to skip them.  On the other hand, if they do and if you find that we have mutual interests and are compelled to reach out, even just for a chat over coffee, then give me a call.  If there are three things in life that make me smile every day, it’s family, friends, and coffee!

So then, what makes me tick? It’s story time… jump into my time machine and let’s go back a dozen years.

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Jan 12 2012

The Dimensions of a Successful Website (Part 4 of 4): Functionality

Welcome to the last of the 4-part series that focuses on the dimensions of a successful website.  Congratulations, you’ve made it through all four parts and can pat yourself on the back because clearly you’re dedicated to ensuring the success of your website!  Last in this series, but not least, I’ll be addressing functionality.

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