The Tech Report

5 Things You Need to Know About SEO

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, includes an ever evolving set of techniques and tweaks to influence search engines to display your website as most relevant. Here are 5 foundational frequently asked SEO questions:

1. What is SEO?
   Search Engine Optimization is the active practice of improving a website's internal and external aspects in order to engage both viewers and search engines. The purpose of most search engines is to return the most appropriate content for a given search, so the focus of good SEO is to make your website as relevant as possible in your niche.
   
   
2. Why is SEO Important?
   As more websites are added to the internet, your competition will grow as well as the mire of information flooding the web. Search engines weed through this information to produce what they perceive as the most relevant results for a search term or phrase. As a result, optimization allows your website’s content to be more powerfully advertised to a growing internet audience.
   
   
3. How Long Does SEO Take?
   Website optimization is not only for internal aspects of a website, but also external facets such as incoming links, article writing, blogging, and the many social medium now available in growing favor. It’s vital to realize that these efforts both offer a more consistent top ranking and take some time. In reality, a solid top search engine position can take up to six months to come to realization and you should be cautious of any company that guarantees otherwise.
   
   
4. Is there a strategy to SEO?
   Strategy is a principle many SEO companies overlook. Gathering a vague list of keywords for website optimization without a plan will not produce lasting results. A good SEO company will gather information about your company’s mission statement, values, branding, products and services to position your website through focused marketing.
   
   
5. Aren’t All SEO Companies Created Equal?
   As with any industry there are a wide variety of services in search engine optimization and many companies offering website ranking success. Beware of inexperienced “SEO Experts” as well as SEO sharks that are more focused on your ranking than what really matters…your ROI (return on investment)!

Look for an SEO expert who is open about what they do to optimize your website. They should be able to explain SEO as well as its benefits and should never guarantee overnight top ranking.

Max Media

Make your Business Famous

If you read our last two Max Media articles, you are on the right track to getting noticed. You’ve made sure that your content is CRISP and you’ve added your website URL to all your current marketing efforts. Now that you have unique and captivating content and/ or products, what’s the next step? Develop a Strategic Marketing Plan

“Marketing is not an event, but a process... It has a beginning, a middle, but never an end, for it is a process. You improve it, perfect it, change it, even pause it. But you never stop it completely.”
Jay Conrad Levinson

As long as you have a product to market, you should be advertising! In light of all of this work to be done, there is never a wrong time to look at your marketing plan and see how you can make your business famous.  Here are some guidelines to help you generate some ideas.

New marketing:

1. What is your budget?
2. What and where are your target markets?
   (geography, income, demographics, etc.)
3. What are your marketing mediums?
   (local/national, print, internet, etc.)
4. What are your message components?
   (call to action, headlines, benefits, offers, etc.)

Market Revamping:

1. What has worked well for you so far?
2. What hasn’t worked well?
3. What caused the difference between the two?
4. Revisit the new marketing list to revamp your existing marketing with some
   fresh ideas.

There’s never a more perfect time to focus on your marketing plan. Take some time and look at what you have to offer. Go through this short checklist and see what an impact your effort will make. We look forward to seeing your business becoming famous.

For more ideas on how to increase your marketing efforts,
contact Webtivity at 941-753-7574.

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The Lounge

5 Ways to Boost Profits

One of the biggest mistakes made by startups is to confuse making sales with making money. New business owners seem to think that business is about busyness--that is, how many times the cash register rings. They fail to take even simple steps to ensure they earn enough to cover their costs as well as take home a healthy paycheck..
Here are five ways to help generate
peak profit:

1. Take the High Road on Pricing
   Many startups think they need to undercut their competitors to bring people in the door. If your only appeal is a low price, there will be no reason for customers to come back to you if they find a source that's even cheaper. Instead, focus on providing quality products and services for a better value to justify your prices.
   
   
2. Watch Your Product Margins
   Your most expensive product may not be making you the most money. Try pushing lesser know items that cost you less. Often times the quality is comparable to pricier brands, increasing your profit per product or allowing you to offer it at a lower price. Your customers may be pleasantly surprised.
   
   
3. Use Give-Aways Over Discounts
   20% off a $100 product is $20, but the same $20 as a high margin product give-away may help close sales without causing higher profit loss.
   
   
4. Put Your Product Mix on a Diet
   Focus on faster moving items to keep your revenue continually flowing.
   
   
5. Cross-sell/Upsell High-Profit Items
   Picture this, you are a hardware store owner, you create a check list of add-on items like brushes and drop cloths for customers who bought paint. Those items helped improve customer relations as well as your overall profit.

B2B Spotlight

Rick Honish and Jonathan Santiago | Co-Founders Financial Harmony
www.financialharmony123.com

Industry : Financial/Education
Company Size : Small
Target Market : People who want to pay off their debt really, really fast, be really smart about it and stop paying tons of interest to the banks.

What invaluable tools do you recommend to other businesses that would help them market more effectively?

1. Know thyself
2. Know what is right.
3. Be certain your business is rooted in quality, value and integrity.
4. Then, tell people through all means possible.

A strong and dynamic web presence is imperative. For Financial Harmony, our web presence is an ever evolving entity. Our website serves our purposes effectively right now, but there is a strong plan to continue its development in exciting new directions that strongly parallel the growth of our firm and continue to mirror our core beliefsand the overall “vibe” if you will, that we want to convey: Education. Simplicity. Prosperity.

How will your website contribute to your overall success?

Our website was purposefully designed by Financial Harmony and Webtivity to be a tool of information and validation. Our business model at this stage in our companies development does not call for a more traditional commerce site designed to draw hits and fresh eye balls through search or random acts of “find us”.

In its current incarnation, the Financial Harmony site is more of a further explanation of our mission to those we have already had the pleasure to meet and speak with. Because what we do is so difficult to drop into a 10 second sound bite, we needed a website that our clients could go to after they have met with us, or perhaps they have been directed to it by a current client.

Either way, it is a very effective tool that we can rely on to further explain the purpose and mission of Financial Harmony.

With Webtivity, we designed a back office portion of the site that is highly interactive. Our clients and staff use this area of our site jointly as a means of communicating and demonstrating the concepts we employ.

We purposefully designed it to do some very complex things while retaining the overall feeling of simplicity and, dare we say, fun! The tools that we visualized have been actualized by Webtivity in ways that continue to unfold for us, and make everyday on the job a pleasure.

How do you plan on growing your website over the next year?

WOW! Our website is such a major component of the business. The website is really a reflection of the creative partnership between the founders of Financial Harmony and the design and programming team at Webtivity. As entrepreneurs, we have a blank canvas on which to express our dreams and aspirations.

At Financial Harmony, we have a simple litmus test:

• Does our next step further enhance the client experience?
• Does it bring unparalleled value to our client?
• Is it about them first?Really?

IF so, let’s do it. There are definite plans on how the company and the website will grow in unison. I’d say the best way to see how we are going to grow the site is to surf on over and take a look!

Why would your services be of interest to other Webtivity clients?

We are in an unprecedented time historically and economically. The United States has got to get back to fundamentals, financially, or the consequences will be dire at best.

Our processes are built on fundamentals. Earn more than you spend. Retire your debt as quickly and as efficiently as possible. The smoke and mirrors out there that have convinced a great majority of us that debt is a wonderful and necessary thing are being rightfully blown away and shattered.

But it’s not easy for several generations to make a necessary course correction and return to living the right way financially. It’s also unnecessary to spend thousands of dollars or take unnecessary risks to do so.

It takes knowledge and a plan. With that, our clients can succeed financially in ways they didn’t think possible. And they will take that ability with them for the rest of their lives. It’s not magic. It’s math.

Why would our services be of interest? If you are interested in getting out of debt really, really fast and doing it the informed way, then you will be interested in looking at Financial Harmony.

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1893 - Paris issues first license plates
1914 - Germany and France declare war
1935 - FDR signs Social Security Act
1971 - Sonny and Cher debuts
1994 - Carlos the Jackal captured

Please select an event name for more information, pricing, and availability.
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general public.

Sarasota Chamber

First Monday
Mon | 8/04/08 | 5:30 PM

Chamber Partners Meeting
Thur | 8/07/08 | 8:00 AM

TechFast BreakFast Summer Series
Wed | 8/13/08 | 7:30 AM

Sarasota Prime Time
Tues | 8/20/08 | 05:30 PM

MANATEE CHAMBER

Power Connection
Wed | 8/06/08 | 11:30 AM

New Member Reception
Thur | 8/07/08 | 7:45 AM

Ship-Shape Showcase
Thur | 8/14/08 | 4:00 PM

Business After Business
Thur | 8/20/08 | 5:00 PM

Longboat Key Chamber

www.longboatkeychamber.com

Business After Hours
Tues| 8/12/08 | 5:30 PM

New Member Orientations
Thur | 8/14/08 | 10:00 AM

Membership Development Committee Meeting
Tues | 8/26/08 | 5:00 PM

"Wake Up Wednesday!" Member Breakfast
Wed| 8/27/08 | 8:00 AM

Venice Chamber

Monthly Calendar

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The Tech Report:
SEO Tips

Max Media:
Website Design tips

The Lounge:
Social Networking to Boost Your
Online Presence

B2B Spot Light:
Simulated Auto Racing

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