Put the Web to Work

“Pin” your way to more Business! You may have heard about a new social media channel called Pinterest, and you likely rolled your eyes and thought, “Just what I need…another social media fad to take up more of my time.”   In reality, Pinterest is rapidly becoming another great avenue to promote your business and build your brand. A few facts about Pinterest that might convince you to start pinning: Pinterest drew 23.7 million first time visitors in February alone (up from 3.5 million in September) Pinterest is ranked by Experian Marketing Services as the third-most-popular social networking site behind Facebook and Twitter. Approximately 70% of Pinterest’s users are women – studies have suggested that 85% of household decisions are made by women. 21% of Pinterest users have purchased products after seeing them on the site. Lowe’s reports a 32% jump in followers on their Facebook page after incorporating Pinte...

Over the past seventeen months we’ve identified many steps in the process of building an effective web presence, and Facebook Timeline is the newest twist.   It’s a radical change to the way that you will see your business page on Facebook, so here are some ideas on how to make this work for you! Facebook Timeline is coming whether you like it or not. In typical Facebook fashion, you are not going to have a choice in the matter.   Business pages will convert to Facebook Timeline on March 31 st , 2012.   The good news is that you will be able to “preview” the page and adjust/edit the look and feel of the page before it is published on that date. Start with your “cover image” and put something that has your business branding involved.   Some geek speak here – the size of the cover image is 851 x 315 pixels.   If you put something smaller than that here, it will stretch. You can change your “cover” as many times as you’d like. Your profile picture will d...

Step #13 – Tweet Over   the past twelve posts we’ve identified many steps in the process of building an effective web presence:    1) Define your ideal client; 2) Identify specific goals; 3) Create a call to action; 4) Give customers what they expect; 5) Be a better communicator; 6) Get found; 7) Improve Your Link Popularity;   8) Setup and optimize your free Google Places listing;   9) Make it easy to share; 10) Be analytical;   11) Start a Blog; and 12) Get LinkedIn. The thirteenth step is:   Tweet. What is Twitter?     ( http://business.twitter.com ) Twitter is a network where millions of people and businesses find/share information every day. As a Twitter user, you read/write messages up to 140 characters. These are called Tweets. Other Twitter users subscribe to your messages by “following” your account. Your followers then receive each of your messages in their timeline … a feed of all the accounts they have subscrib...

Over  the past eleven posts we identified steps one through eleven in the process of building an effective web presence:   1) Define your ideal client; 2) Identify specific goals; 3) Create a call to action; 4) Give customers what they expect; 5) Be a better communicator; 6) Get found; 7) Improve Your Link Popularity;  8) Setup and optimize your free Google Places listing;  9) Make it easy to share; 10) Be analytical; and 11) Start a Blog. The twelfth step is:  Get LinkedIn. Most people have heard of LinkedIn, and like so many others, you may have setup a personal profile and not touched it since. It’s time to start taking advantage of everything LinkedIn can offer your company! Did you know that LinkedIn has several new features that can positively impact business owners like you?  LinkedIn offers company pages (similar to Facebook) and there are already nearly 90 million business members.  Does your business have a compan...

Step #11 – Start a Blog Over  the past ten months we identified steps one through ten in the process of building an effective web presence:   1) Define your ideal client; 2) Identify specific goals; 3) Create a call to action; 4) Give customers what they expect; 5) Be a better communicator; 6) Get found; 7) Improve Your Link Popularity;  8) Setup and optimize your free Google Places listing;  9) Make it easy to share; and 10) Be analytical. The eleventh step is:  Start a blog and write … often. If you’ve ever attended a Jeffrey Gitomer seminar, you know he talks about the path to wealth (and dominating your competition) is writing.  Gitomer says write daily and offer something of value to your customers.  Good advice. It should be no surprise that one of the keys to dominating your competition online is writing, as well.  A blog (short for “web-log”) is a great way to start. When I present workshops about growing your web presence...

I just wanted to make a quick blog post to share the link where you go to setup a Paypal account for your business website.  Paypal makes the setup process pretty straight forward, but navigating to the link for Paypal Website Payments Standard can sometimes be challenging! Use this link : http://bit.ly/dwGHM5 Paypal offers a nice tutorial video on this page to show you how to setup your account.  Once your account is created and attached bank account verified, you'll be ready to start accepting payments.  Your webmaster should be able to help you setup Paypal buttons on your website. If you need assistance integrating Paypal with your website, please don't hesitate to contact us! MSW Interactive Designs LLC We put the web to work for you! http://www.MSWInteractiveDesigns.com 573-552-8403

Over the past nine months we identified steps one through nine in the process of building an effective web presence:    1) Define your ideal client; 2) Identify specific goals; 3) Create a call to action; 4) Give customers what they expect; 5) Be a better communicator; 6) Get found; 7) Improve Your Link Popularity;   8) Setup and optimize your free Google Places listing; and 9) Make it easy to share. The tenth step is:   Be analytical. You’ve worked hard to build a professional web presence around clear goals and calls to action.   You are definitely a step ahead of the pack, but you should not stop there.   It’s important to have some type of analytics available about your web presence.   This allows you to make informed and intelligent decisions based on what people are (or are not) doing when they get there.   Without analytics, changes or adjustments you make to improve things are mere guesses.    I came across a quote t...