2009

Just because you're on the web doesn’t mean people will find you. The competition is fierce for the top listing in search engines like Google and Yahoo. Making your website search engine friendly will improve the chances of people finding you. Building a search engine friendly website from the start is more effective than trying to "make do" with an existing one. Redesigning your website can insure that it appeals to both customers and search engines alike.

A website redesign is lot more than just giving it a “face lift”. When someone gets a face-lift the sole purpose for doing so is to look younger and better. A strategic redesign not only improves the look of your website, but also goes far beyond the surface, dealing with increasing the functionality and improving the overall structure of the website. You could have a great looking website but that doesn’t eliminate the need for a redesign.

If you have redesigned your website twelve months ago, but since then you have added more content and features cluttering the website, you may want to look at a strategic structural redesign. This redesign would primarily focus on the placement and structure in order to ensure your website is simple to navigate and that you can direct your end users to specific content before they lose interest. Click here to view few of our most recent strategic redesigns.

People are known to have a very low attention span; you only have seconds to impress your end user. Your website should allow them to make a decision to explore and go beyond the first page. The look of your website plays a very important role, but the interactive content that your website provides will keep them coming back for more and provide them with a reason to make a positive decision towards your product or services.

A website redesign is nice for getting a burst of clients coming to check out what’s new, but in order to keep potential prospects interested while visiting your website it takes a sound strategy to back up that design. Utilizing these ideas, a strategic redesign can make your website the most productive employee in your company.

The image your project to potential clients through your corporate web site or your intranet is just as important as any printed materials, the packaging of your products, or any of your marketing materials you distribute to advertise your business.

All of these communication channels are elements of your corporate identity and they all have to to be aligned with your company's perspectives and goals to be true to your brand's image.

We all know the old adage, "Sex sells", but we certainly recognize when the message is inappropriate for our business. The equivalent message in online advertising is, "Interactivity sells." If you can draw the user's eye and successfully get them to do something, you are on your way to winning new customers.

Be interactive, because when your customers feel compelled to action, they are one step closer to buying!

The customer management system lets you manage your leads by searching customer information, managing activities, and tracking all communications with your contacts so that your company can grow productive business relationships.

When using the customer management system for multiple employees you can track the progress of each person, view reports on the contacts made daily, or see a report on the activities made by the employee

A customer management system or a business management system will help you run your business efficiently and productively.

E-mail marketing is a form of direct marketing which uses electronic mail as a means of communicating commercial or fundraising messages to an audience. The term is usually used to refer to sending emails with the purpose of enhancing the relationship of a merchant with its customers and to encourage customer loyalty and repeat business, as well as adding advertisements to e-mails sent by other companies to their customers.

Traditional direct marketing has the 40/40/20 rule, 40% of your success is dependent on the audience, 40% on the offer and 20% on everything else. Email marketing has the 90/10 rule where 90% of your success is dependent on the subject line and 10% on everything else. When a promotion or newsletter pulls in unexpected results, the first thought is to point the finger in the direction of the subject.

There are both advantages and disadvantages to using e-mail marketing in comparison to traditional advertising mail.

Advantages

An exact return on investment can be tracked and has proven to be high when done properly. E-mail marketing is often reported as second only to search marketing as the most effective online marketing tactic. Advertisers can reach substantial numbers of e-mail subscribers who have opted in to receive e-mail communications on subjects of interest to them. Over half of Internet users check or send e-mail on a typical day. E-mail is popular with digital marketers allowing them to reach out to consumers with personalized, relevant, dynamic messages.

Disadvantages

E-mail services companies face problems that e-mail deliverability is still an issue for legitimate marketers. Legitimate e-mail servers averaged a delivery rate of 56%; twenty percent of the messages are rejected, and eight percent are filtered.

Companies considering the use of an e-mail marketing program must make sure that they do not violate spam laws such as the United States' Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act, the European Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003, or their Internet service provider's acceptable use policy.

Opt-In

Opt-in e-mail advertising, or permission marketing, is a method of advertising where the recipient of the advertisement has consented to receive it. This method is one of several developed by marketers to eliminate the disadvantages of mass e-mail marketing.

A common example of opt-in marketing is a newsletter sent to an advertising firm's customers. In this type of advertising, a company that wants to send a newsletter to their customers may ask them at the point of purchase if they would like to receive the newsletter. Ideally, opt-in e-mail advertisements will be more personal and relevant to the consumer.

Social Networking

One example is incorporating Facebook into e-mail marketing campaigns to marry e-mail with word-of-mouth marketing. Social media is becoming a focus of e-mail marketing strategies. Recently, companies have been setting up a social sharing program to allow their clients — small and midsize businesses, nonprofits and agencies — to incorporate Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn into their e-mail newsletters and campaigns. The goal is to provide a platform for engaged supporters to discuss the film and issues it raises, as well as to encourage support as the document is released across the country. Incorporating a Facebook “like” button directly in the e-mail, as opposed to driving people to its Facebook fan page in the near future is a great way of an aspect of social media into emails.

Email marketing can bring you closer to your clients letting you connect better with them. At Integrated Webworks, we can help establish a strategic plan to implementing an email marketing campaign from planning and designing all the way to monitoring the progress on our own in-house software for different mailing platforms.

 

IT support is more than just the usual support that most people think it is. When there’s a problem, call the IT guy and he’ll come down to fix the issue. IT, or Information Technology, encompasses much more nowadays than before. IT will still do the everyday fixing of a computer issue or error, but they also set up a lot from behind the scenes to keep the major issues away like an entire computer network crashing and only have you worry about things like the printer malfunctioning.

Some tasks of IT Support include preventing hacking, data breaches and stolen credentials. They will also try to prevent intruders from using back doors into programs or the network to harm secure information and future attacks through exploited problems. One bring problem the IT department has to face is the invasion of viruses and worms into the computer network. These “bugs” are often downloaded by users not knowing exactly what is in the file they are downloading, or they may not even know it is there to begin with.  To combat these threats, they will install firewalls on every device possible, the router, the switchbox, every computer on the network.  Anything connected to the network is vulnerable to attacks and the IT department must be prepared. Many companies are now supporting the use of administrators on their network.  If an office has multiple computers being used by employees, a single administrator can help protect the network from unauthorized installation of programs.

Other than the occasional security breach or attack on the network, IT Support is responsible the installation of new hardware and software, server and computer maintenance; but IT can also provide some more security in the physical world.  Surveillance is a major importance to companies who need to protect information, records, or valuable inventory. The installation of cameras can ward off intruders and theft of items.

At Integrated Webworks, we value the safety and security of our clients’ most valuable information, so we offer these services as well as some extras to new and existing clients under Networking and Security (going to be a link to the new page) with exceptional expertise in support and maintenance. We value the clients’ expectations and try to exceed them with our quality of service and improve your company’s productivity.

Not long ago, the only competitor you had to worry about was the business down the street, but with the growth of the internet you now have to worry about competitors throughout the nation and in some cases around the world. How do you sell products or services to your consumer when you are competing against millions? By standing out from the crowd.

To “Stand Out” you don’t have to change your products, or services, it just means, you have to change the way you present your products or approach your customer. Humans are emotional beings, we purchase things based on our emotions. If we have a bad experience with a company, even if the product or services are good, most likely we will try to find an alternative source. If you can win over your customer emotionally they won’t look to your competitors for the same goods or services.

Your website is a 24/7, on demand, advertising medium for your company and it needs to stand out, not only in the way it looks and feels, but also in the way it functions. With today’s advancements in web technology your customer expects more from your site then just few static pages and the who, what, where and why of your company. The functionality required depends on your industry. For example, A realtor that has just the contact information and introduction of services on their site is not impressive, today’s buyers and sellers are looking for featured properties, relocation packages, neighborhood information and other tools such as a mortgage calculator, and the ability to email a property to a friend.

A visitor to your site decides within seconds if they like your site and want to take the time to learn more about your company. The difference between getting a lead and just another visitor to the site is your ability to stand out and offer the experience the customer is looking for.

At Integrated Webworks when we structure “the solution” for you we will make sure we implement ideas that will allow you to stand out from the crowd. To do so, a lot of research, planning, and detailed understanding of your business is required. The more we learn about your business the better we can work for you.

With the ever growing broadband users in the United States, and the move to faster connection speeds, video has become a mainstream tool. You only need to look at the most popular sites on the Internet and see that Youtube is the 3rd most popular website in the world. It is estimated that 77% of Internet users in the United States have broadband access. If you’re not using video on your website yet, then you’re missing out on a great opportunity to increase customer awareness.

As you are undoubtedly aware, web video is massive right now, and there is a lot of potential you may be missing out on if you are not using videos to promote your business, either on video sharing websites, or on your own website. Putting a video onto a website can seem quite intimidating if it’s something you never done it before. A very convenient option is to go through Youtube, Google Video, or Yahoo video and others that can embed the video on your website and make your site more attractive to visitors and more effective in communicating your message. But problems can arise like the video is taken down or the video quality isn’t that great. Embedding from another site can cause distractions to the viewer from your site and have them turn away to a site like Youtube.

If you are new to the whole Internet marketing and are still struggling to have your website set up, one of the most important things about doing business on the web is getting the formula right for getting your sales. One of the best ways to keep visitors glued to your pages is using video to convey some type of message. Depending on what you have to sell or the goal of your site, video can enhance the experience for the people who search for what you have to offer.

Videos offer an experience of sight, sound and emotional pull that can make people laugh, cry or feel excited with a well edited video. The goal of course is to increase your conversion rate. When people are in a heightened state, they will be more likely to follow your lead.

Some websites use a short flash based video on the website to allow quick review of the subject matter and to get everyone interested in seeing more. The benefit of that alternative is that the viewer can determine from the quick introduction whether the subject matter is what they were looking for. HTML5 is rising as capable competitor to Adobe’s Flash as a faster and less computer memory intensive.

At Integrated Webworks, we pride ourselves in offering our clients the best of what is available. Focusing on what the client’s needs of integrating interactive media and video into the design of their site is just one of our chief goals.