CoreyY | Briscoe Network Solutions

Corey’s Corner | How Do Customers Find Your Site Online?

December 16, 2010 By CoreyY Leave a Comment

As with any online endeavor, be it a blog or an online representation for your business, you need people to come to your site. Yet, how do you draw that traffic?

The most familiar way for most people is “traditional” advertising. You buy newspaper, TV and radio spots, send out mailers to a targeted area and even possibly attend events in your community to spread the word about your website. This method, while time honored, is generally expensive and really only solves half of your online traffic problem. You’ve generated interest, but how will those customers find your site once they get home and onto their computers?

If you’re counting on those new contacts remembering your URL well enough to pop it into a browser and getting your site, you’re making a very risky bet. While events and commercials are excellent ways to reach people in your community, they have a limited effect on those people’s memories. They may remember your name is Julie, or that you offer excellent prices, but they won’t necessarily remember your website URL. So, they take the information they do remember, and search for your website using a search engine. Chances are that they’re going to use Google, Yahoo or Bing. The only problem is that if you haven’t worked to make your site visible to the search engines, the customer won’t be able to find you. Neither will anyone else searching for your particular service/goods in your area. Without some kind of work to make your site searchable, you’re effectively invisible online.

Now, optimization doesn’t have to be an arduous task. In fact, Google has an excellent guide on some of the basic guidelines and tips you need to make your site searchable. There are also many beginners guides out there on search engine optimization for SEO novices. Another option is to hire an SEO Specialist to do the optimization work for you. The process to do this is very much like the process to hire a web designer, which I outlined in a previous Corey’s Corner. Either way you take, proper optimization should help customers find your site. Just remember: While search engine optimization is an extremely useful tool, it’s still passive in nature. Customers have to be searching for your products or services before they have a chance to find your site. If the keyword you’ve optimized for isn’t one that people search for, it won’t do you any good. (If you find yourself in a situation where you’re worried about keywords and their effectiveness, I highly recommend that you simply hire an SEO. There are ways to learn about the myriad ways keywords can help your site and drive traffic, but the process can be difficult to learn and extremely time consuming to the beginner).

A final way to drive people to your site is promoting it through social media. This tactic, while cheaper than traditional advertising, can be much more time consuming than search engine optimization. Social Media takes dedication and time, but can be ultimately rewarding. Not only does Facebook offer cheap advertising based on pay per click, it also offers a way to uniquely target your core demographic easily. Also, as long as you spend time on building your number of fans and make a point to update your account with new products, sales, promotions and other things that get customers in your door interested to buy, you can manage to gain interest and drive traffic to your site in one fell swoop. (You also can offer an extremely easy way to send customers from your Facebook to your website, rather than advertising to create interest, and then hoping they can find you online.)

All this considered, I’ve only barely outlined some of the many ways you can make your website a success. All ways require payment in either time, money or both, but have plenty of possible growth for your customer base. It all depends on how much effort you’re willing to give driving traffic to your website, and how much traffic your business needs at the moment.

Filed Under: Blog, Corey's Corner Tagged With: Corey's Corner

Corey’s Corner | Social Media Experts?

October 21, 2010 By CoreyY 1 Comment

It never fails. Every time a new internet sensation pops up, a wave of people claiming to be specialists appear to take your money and somehow monetize the craze, no matter how inappropriate the new service/program/good is. When it comes to the internet, this is exacerbated by the ease with which people can disseminate incorrect information, and of course, by how fast a new site or fad can change from one month to the next.

Social networking is no exception from this. More and more, I see more people touting themselves as “social media specialists”, ready to tell potential customers that Facebook is the new Google, and can make them millions if only they let this person have access to their business and pay a hefty service fee. Now, this isn’t to say there aren’t individuals who have the marketing knowledge to leverage your Facebook to help your website and other online operations gain more business. It can be done, but there are a few things you need to watch out for before opening your pocketbook.

1. If they sound like they aren’t making sense, they probably aren’t. Just like any scammer, some people can and will say anything to try and get you to give them money for a “service” they can provide to you. If it sounds like they’re all buzzwords and no substance, they probably are.

2. Their price seems pretty high for the services they claim they are offering. Honestly, if they can’t break down what they’re charging you for and why, why would you give them money? Any specialist soliciting your business should be able to explain the benefits of their services, how they feel they can generate more customers for you and then give examples from the real world on how what they are claiming can be done.

3. They guarantee results. While it’s tempting to go with a “sure thing”, the internet rarely offers any kind of surety where marketing is involved. Unless you’re paying a service directly for results, you can’t be sure about what you’re getting. (ie: Paying Facebook or Twitter for the results, not a third party claiming they can advocate for you.) Just as an organic search optimization can’t guarantee your the #1 spot on Google, a social networking specialist can’t guarantee that 50,000 people will “Like” your page on Facebook and bring you money. They can give you their tailored strategy to show how they will work to get you more business, but the keyword here is more. Exact numbers are a dangerous game to play with internet results, and specialists all too often use shortcuts that can get your site flagged at a later date by the very sites they optimized for. By the time you’ve been penalized for their methods, that specialist is long gone with your money.

5. They use buzzwords and make outrageous claims while trying to earn your business. I can honestly say that if I hear “Search is Dead” one more time, I won’t be able to stop screaming. While Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites are excellent ways to disseminate information, they are tools to be used lightly and appropriately. They will never replace a customer’s need for a search engine, and can only marginally influence their spending trends. Can you use them in a way that gets you more business? Of course!

This would be a pretty poor article if I didn’t give you a few pointers on how to make your Facebook fan page or Twitter do some heavy lifting for your marketing plans. Here are a few tips to keep in mind while updating your respective social networking accounts:

1. Think about what you’re posting. While this may seem like a simplistic piece of advice, I see countless updates by clients that obviously have no idea how people use Facebook. Social media is best suited to spreading information about sales, new services and deals. It can also help with giving your customers reminders about special events or celebrations. For instance, I’ve seen some car dealerships offer a Facebook service special that could be applied to an oil change. I’ve also seen a massage company advertise specials for their Facebook friends only. All can gain you new business.

2. Be creative! Your product or services may not be an easy fit for social media marketing. Try to keep any sales text succinct, to the point and energetic. For example, if you’re a clothing shop with a sale on say, sweaters for the Fall season, a good Facebook update could be: “Brrr! It’s chilly out there! Don’t suffer at the bus stop, come in and save 20% on all sweaters, through Friday at Sammy’s Sweater Emporium.” The point is to grab attention as quickly as possible, deliver a short message, and then end it before you lose your audience. They have other Facebook updates to read, after all.

3. Try to make a connection. It’s easy to de-friend or remove a page on Facebook. It’s even easier to hide updates from a certain user. The trick is to try to make a connection with your audience without clogging their news feed with countless updates they aren’t interested in. Red Mango is an excellent example of a company that updates their Facebook fans while still keeping everyone interested. They encourage customers to prove their love for their frozen yogurt by sending in pictures, showcase new flavors or poll customers to see what they want to see next on their menu.

4. Keep things updated! Another common sense bit of advice that is much harder to follow than is apparent. Social networking is hard work, and can be time consuming to do properly. It isn’t something that can be done halfheartedly, or you run the risk of losing your audience through inactivity. Make sure there’s a little something for your Facebook fans on a regular basis, or even better, update the same time every week if appropriate.

5. Have a plan. Just like your website, your social networking accounts should have a clear goal along with a plan on how to reach that goal. If your goal is to gain 50 more fans by next week, how are you going to manage that? What kind of marketing are you willing to do? How will you encourage your current fans to bring in their friends? If you stop and ask the simple questions before you go on a Tweeting or updating frenzy, you’ll be in a much better place to handle your social networking efforts and turn that time into new business for your operation.

Filed Under: Blog, Corey's Corner Tagged With: Corey's Corner, small business, Social Media

What the Heck is a Groupon? Group Deals Take Seattle By Storm

September 20, 2010 By CoreyY 1 Comment

With the exploding popularity of social media, it’s no surprise that other movements have spawned from the idea of online groupings that merge with the communities we all live in offline. The “group deal” is one of the many concepts taking off in our interconnected world. Right now, they’re especially popular in our hometown of Seattle, with many restaurants, spas and even white water rafting companies joining the marketing fray.

Now, what is a group deal, you ask? It’s a type of pre-paid coupon, offering services or products at a fairly steep discount. Many sites are popping up with this marketing strategy in mind, but the big players at the moment are Groupon and Living Social. The idea is that, through these services, a company can offer a fantastic deal to customers. They set the price, the stipulations of the deal, and then set a threshold the distribution company, Groupon, Living Social, etc, has to meet before it can actually sell and distribute the deal. This of course comes with a sort of fee between you and the distributor to send your deal to their pool of subscribers in your city.

A more detailed overview for how Groupon works can be found here. The Living Social business explanation can be found here. While I’m sure that we can all see the benefits of reaching a large audience with a fantastic deal, what do businesses really get? That is the question anyone wanting to try Groupon or Living Social should ask before they create a deal and unleash it on their city.

Once customers with a group coupon come to use your services, what are you going to do with them? Since the deal is generally substantial, I’ve heard several businesses complain about their profit loss per customer on the group deals. Mind, I was a new CUSTOMER while they were complaining about it to me. Trust me, it didn’t make me want to come back and make the loss they made on my first visit back on my return business. You don’t want to give a new customer that feeling once they walk through the door, and I know I definitely don’t want to feel that way as a customer again. Thus, one of your first thoughts before you go in and create a deal with Groupon is how you’re going to retain all the new business the deal is going to bring in your door. Are you going to offer smaller incentives for continued business? Or are you offering a service that has maintenance built in that should keep customers coming back due to their excellent first experience? There are many, many ways to ensure that customers will want to continue coming in.

Another consideration is training intake or customer-facing staff on how to accept group deals, and encouraging each and every one to provide these new customers with a glowing welcome and the best service. I can’t count the times I’ve encountered a surly waiter or confused cashier when presenting my Groupon. I can count the times I’ve received a glowing response and kind service. Guess which businesses I’m looking forward on visiting again? Setting up a Groupon can also give you a fantastic opportunity to survey the new customers about their experience and satisfaction with your service/products/ambiance/etc. There’s no better information source than customers that are experiencing your business for the first time.

However you want to use your group deal experience, remember what you want to accomplish. Keep your goals in mind, and there’s no doubt you’ll be able to use whatever your new marketing endeavor brings.

Filed Under: Blog

Corey’s Corner | Avoiding Scammers

August 5, 2010 By CoreyY Leave a Comment

Usually I write about getting your website up and running. I’m going to take a little detour this time around and talk about a persistent and seemingly never ending problem them plagues businesses and private residences alike: scammers/spammers.

We’ve all gotten the gibberish emails, the “male enhancement”, Russian dating and Nigerian prince emails. We all know they’re spam and opening them or downloading a file from them can spell our computer or network’s doom. Did you know, however, about Tab Nabbing? I sure didn’t. Apparently, the new way scammers get your information is by opening a new tab with a dummy site loaded in it mimicking Amazon.com or your bank website. The goal is to trick you into putting your information into the fake site and giving the scammers your password. With that in hand, they can drain your account, buy expensive items, or, in the case of Facebook and your email, send distressed emails to the people in your address book asking for money to get you out of a jam.

With new scams being born every minute in cyberspace, it’s hard to keep up with all the possible dangers. Just this last weekend, I received an email telling me that one of my friends on Facebook recommended a page. I clicked on the link and thankfully nothing happened. I heard later that day from that same friend letting me know that his account had been hacked, and that any emails from him via Facebook should be ignored. (I of course immediately changed my password and kept vigilant for any unusual activity on my account for the next week or so.) With all these new dangers being born any moment, what can we do to keep our information safe?

Two excellent tips offered by scambusters.org is to always pay attention to the icons in your browser. For secures sites such as bank sites, Amazon.com, etc, the padlock, located on the lower right side for many browsers, should be lit up. Also, the URL should look like it normally does. (ie Amazon.com/a long string of characters that allow you to log in.) If the URL doesn’t look right, or you are suspicious, re-enter the URL. If you’re super paranoid, like me, you can also search for the company using Google or Bing. Search Engines are usually pretty good at not recognizing dummy URLs, and Google especially is harsh on scammers when it can. So when in doubt, simply close the tab and try to get to the site in another way. Another excellent resource is snopes.com. You can search urban legends, chain letters and many other possibly shady things using their database of information. They also usually have fairly up to date information on new scams.

While it’s hard to keep on top of keeping your information safe in cyberspace, vigilance is key. While the internet can seem like an endless playground of information, toys and entertainment, you can never let yourself forget that there are people out there that will take your information and use it for nefarious purposes if they can get a hold of it. Pay attention, close tabs when you aren’t using them, and you should be all right.

Filed Under: Blog, Corey's Corner, CyberCrime, Network Security Tagged With: Busines networking, Corey's Corner, crime, Network Security, small business

Who Needs Bad Press?

July 29, 2010 By CoreyY Leave a Comment

I’m sure by now we’ve all heard about the iPhone 4 debacle and how Steve Job’s email response to a user fanned the flames and caused a widespread internet discussion about Apple’s business practices. Things like this happen all the time to large companies, and usually the backlash can be a sight to behold. But what can smaller businesses learn from the mistakes of a company like Apple? Plenty.

The internet makes disseminating information not only fast, but easy. One bad interaction with you or your business, and you can bet someone is posting a negative review on Yelp or any other number of popular review sites. Usually, those negative reviews are unavoidable and balanced out by the other positive reviews about your business. In fact, many users don’t trust a business that seems to have only positive reviews, as they need the complaints to give more depth to the positive reviews. (This is one reason why trying to convince Yelp or CitySearch to get rid of negative reviews is counterintuitive.)

However, what do you do if you have negative reviews pouring in, or just one negative review for your business profile and no positive ones to balance it out? The art of customer service serves us all well in that situation. Many review sites allow a business a chance to rectify a complaint or negative reviews, and utilizing this in the right way is key. Some points to consider are:

Don’t make excuses
Are you responding to the customer complaint, or being defensive? It’s hard to keep cool when someone is saying something negative about your hard work, but you have to set your personal feelings aside and try to address their problem.
No matter how tempting, don’t offer promises you can’t or don’t intend to keep. If you offer free services or good to the person, make sure you make it clear you have a way to get it to them guaranteed.
Don’t try to discredit the negative reviewer, no matter how crazy their claims are or how bad their spelling is.
Accept that not every complain can be resolved. If a customer really is inconsolable over something, do your best and move on. Encourage other customers to review your services and see what they say. You may be surprised as to what kind of service people feel you are providing.

Now, many of the points above are things we already know from doing business with the public at large. With that in mind, however, remember how hard it can be keeping a level head when a customer is having a meltdown either online or right in front of you. Many business owners have made the mistake of taking criticism as personal insult, and damaged their branding by going after a negative reviewer.

One final question may be “Well, how do I even know if I have bad reviews?” One of the best ways to find this out is by doing a Google search for your business name. (Coupling your business name with review can also bring up interesting results.) Many times, Google will provide reviews to assist their customers in making a choice. Also, you can check out http://www.yelp.com, http://www.ripoffreport.com or http://www.pissedconsumer.com. All three sites are popular, and also can appear under a search for your business name in Google. To my knowledge, all three also offer a way for business owners to comment on complaints left by customers. While being hyper vigilant isn’t really the way to deal with keeping track of your reputation, checking every few weeks or even months helps you know what your customers are thinking. And knowing what they’re thinking is half the battle, right?

Filed Under: Blog

Corey’s Corner | Finding the Web Designer for You

July 7, 2010 By CoreyY Leave a Comment

In my last post for Corey’s Corner, I covered some easy to make mistakes when dealing with building a cohesive and easy to use site to promote your business. This month, I’d like to cover the process on finding the right web designer for you, and how to utilize their talents to the fullest.

It’s easy to be intimidated by technology you imperfectly understand. We all have had a moment when facing someone from a younger generation, full of internet slang and enthusiasm, babbling in a language that is near incomprehensible. In fact, to some, I have been that person. In the end, it’s easy for both parties to feel frustrated by the lack of effective communication, and both walk away unsatisfied by the interaction. Sound like something you want to encounter every time you need to update, upgrade or change your website? Heaven forbid that you ever have anything actually break. This is why choosing a web designer that you are comfortable with is such an important task. It literally can make or break your foray into starting or even expanding your online presence.

Some key things you should look for in a web designer are their organizational, professional and communication skills. Do they respond to your emails promptly? (We’re talking within 48 hours, not 30 minutes people.) When you have questions, are they able to answer in a way that you can understand? If their initial answer is vague or incomprehensible, are they able to take the time to explain what they mean? While inability to accomplish these things doesn’t make the individual a bad web designer, it does make them a bad fit for you and your needs.

Another important thing to take note of is skill. While that may seem obvious, it can be easy to fall prey to fancy promises and guarantees of success. If the designer in question isn’t able to produce a portfolio of work, makes promises that sound too good to be true, or doesn’t seem to be listening to your concerns, they may not be the designer for you. Better to spend time talking to prospective designers than find out they’re scam artists after you’ve invested thousands of dollars for a site you and more importantly, your customers, hate.

A little time spent looking at ideas and talking about goals not only helps the designer understand what you want, but it can open a dialogue in which clear deadlines and goals are set for both sides of the designer client relationship. Don’t be afraid to be clear and up front with what you want! A competent designer should be able to tell you if what you want is possible within a given time frame. An ethical one will tell you if the goals you’ve set are reachable. Remember, however, that some of the onus is on you as the client too. Are you being unrealistic? Are you listening to what the designer is trying to tell you? As long as you keep your mind and ears open and use discretion, your employment of a web designer can be rewarding and worth the sometimes steep prices.

One last thing to consider when looking at developing a new or improved website is choosing between a company or freelance designer. While a company does offer the kind of personnel flexibility that can make finding the right designer for you easier, they also can tend towards template website designs as well as more rigid website packages. With a freelance designer, you can pick and choose what you do and don’t want, and can come out with a more unique look. On the other hand, you’re dealing with an individual that could get sick, have a family emergency, or even simply leave the industry. There’s no replacement for your needs in that situation, save hiring a new designer that may or may not know how to work with the previous designer’s website. This loses you money and time, not to mention the frustration of starting the search again.

In the end, how you conduct your search for a web designer is your decision. It’s your website, your money and your business. You are ultimately responsible for how well your website performs when all is said and done. With that in mind, take a moment to see this comic by my current favorite, The Oatmeal. Are you acting like this customer when dealing with web professionals?

How a Web Design Can Go Straight To Hell

Filed Under: Blog, Business Tools, Corey's Corner Tagged With: Busines networking, Corey's Corner, Networking, small business

Corey’s Corner: I Have a Website, Now What?

April 30, 2010 By CoreyY Leave a Comment

So you’ve taken the plunge and created a website. Now what? Never fear, you’re not alone when it comes to not knowing the next step of internet marketing. My next series of blog posts should help get your mind going in the right direction as well as provide a few resources for you to lean on.

The first thing you should know about internet marketing is that it has very little to do with traditional marketing. This isn’t Valpak or your local newspaper. It’s the world wide internet, and it takes a different thought process to reach your target audience. One of the biggest mental block’s I’ve experienced working with my clients is the jump from a relatively captive audience to being forced to lure in your potential customers. Not only do you need to offer a valuable service, you need to offer it the right way with the right content and vehicle to capture your target demographic.

Step 1: Figure out who you want to target with your website. Everyone wants more sales, but who buys your products? What do you think you would be looking for online if you needed your own services? How would you look for your services? Putting yourself in the customer’s shoes is an excellent way to formulate a plan.

Step 2: Form a cohesive plan. You need to know what your expectations concerning your website are, and then you need to ask yourself what you need to accomplish those goals. This could require the hiring of outside professionals to fill in your knowledge or skill gaps, but we’ll talk about that later. Right now, you’re planning, and hopefully budgeting, for your website.

Another part of the plan is to figure out how your website will connect with your business. Is it meant to be your one and only way to get customers? Do you just want it so customers can see what your brick and mortar store offers? Perhaps you just want to have a web presence for now, and only want to post basic information and contact information. All of these are viable uses of a website, and can help your business. You just need to choose which is right for you, and build your plan around your needs. (Remember, the best part about having something on the internet is that it’s easy to change! Your website can always be updated to change with your needs.)

Step 3: Educate yourself! While it can be frustrating and uncomfortable to acknowledge that you don’t know anything or very little about creating a website, don’t be afraid to ask questions. Don’t know what SEO, Paid Search or Local Search are? Research! Wikipedia can be an excellent resource, as can technical blogs and many other internet resources. In addition to Wikipedia, Google Webmaster Tools has a set of guidelines that are good to know. As they are dense and in what I lovingly call “netspeak”, I do recommend Feedthebot.com, where the guidelines are explained in a more friendly manner. Still confused about what some of the information means? Run unfamiliar words through an online tech dictionary.

I know it sounds and feels a little like researching a paper, but trust me, the better informed you are about the internet, websites and internet marketing, the better off you’ll be. Even if you only know the basics of what some things are and want to hire a professional to take care of it, knowing a little protects you from obvious swindlers that try to trick the unsavvy with doublespeak and buzz words. Avoiding even one of these can save you loads of money and keeps you free to find a good specialist to help you manage your site.

I understand that this post only covers the rudimentary basics of managing your website. See it as a way to readjust your thinking on what this new website is and what it can do for you. There’s a very fine line between taking up real estate on the internet and having a useful, revenue-producing website, and walking that line takes dedication and passion. As long as you care about your internet presence and are willing to put the time in to keeping your website up to date, you’ll do fine.

Filed Under: Corey's Corner, Online Tools Tagged With: Busines networking, Corey's Corner, Resource Center, small business, Social Media

Corey’s Corner | Is Flash Dead?

March 28, 2010 By CoreyY Leave a Comment

You’ve probably already heard about what Apple’s Steve Jobs has to say about Flash already. As explained in numerous blog posts, one linked here to give you the gist of the situation, the Apple guru himself indicated that he felt Flash was dead, and HTML5 was the future, at least for Apple products. He cited that Flash is a “CPU Hog”, and several other unflattering things about the program.

So, no Flash for the iPad. Or the iPhone apparently. Now, what does that mean to the rest of us? While HTML5 is an interesting prospect and an emerging technology for sure, could it actually kill Flash? Not if Adobe, the company that created and continues to develop Flash, has anything to say about it. They’ve already rallied with claims that there aren’t any problems with Flash they are aware of, and that if Apple wants improvements, they need only ask. On top of that, Flash is used so widely throughout the internet, once hailed as the new avant-garde way to design interactive web pages, a gradual phase out could take years.

That said, we have to realize that Flash is indeed an older, matured program. Users have had a chance to give the program limits, and have found what it can and can’t do. HTML5 is new, shiny and can appear limitless. This is what I think Jobs was getting at. It’s not so much Flash not performing the way he wants, but it hasn’t done anything to absolutely wow him lately. HTML5 could be the cutting new wave of the internet, and he doesn’t want Apple to miss out. So far, they’ve managed to squash competition by staying ahead of the game by bringing completed products to market that grab an almost captive fanbase. It could be a legitimate fear that Flash will hold them back while other developers run with HTML5 and create the new internet. Steve Jobs wouldn’t want to miss out on that, and neither should you in the long run. Yet, the big question is: why does this matter to those of us that don’t build websites?

The first is that if you have a website, there is a good chance you have Flash somewhere on it. Remember that slick image that changes the picture when you put your mouse cursor over it, or how your site is more one seamless image than blocks of text with images? Surprise, your site has Flash on it, or another of the interactive animation programs out there, such as Silverlight, offered by Microsoft. If Flash were to suddenly fall out of favor with developers and companies that build products that use the internet, it would mean support for that program would slowly start to drop from browsers and cause customers coming to your site to not see it properly or even at all if your site is more Flash than traditional content such as text. It would cost you money to upgrade your website, and more than likely cause a headache as your web designer tries to recreate the feel you loved with new technology.

Flash isn’t evil, or a dinosaur quite yet. It has its uses, and Adobe could shock and wow us in the near future as they develop the program further. What it means to all of us that use Flash on our websites is that we should be mindful of how dependent your site is on Flash, or really any technology beyond HTML and CSS coding, which should always be supported. If that sentence just now didn’t make any sense to you, talk with your site designer! While you don’t need to know everything there is to know about web design, you should know what it uses to work. It’s the same as knowing how fast your internet connection is, while not going into the details of WHY it’s fast.

All of this falls back on what I would like to accomplish through this blog. Everyone should know the “whys” of owning and maintaining a website, even if they don’t have to time to focus on the “hows”. Just as knowing your network is important, knowing at least vaguely how your site operates can help save you a lot of trouble in the end. Especially if, for instance, Flash is suddenly gone one of these days.

Filed Under: Blog, Browser Apps Tagged With: Busines networking, Corey's Corner, Microsoft, small business, Technology News