Coffee Any1?

"page not found" a wasted opportunity

2010-04-16T21:21:00.000-04:00

From time to time when you're doing a search you may land on a 404 page. You know - the "page not found" error message that causes you to click the back button (or close a window). Sometimes it's because a page has moved, been renamed or was just typed incorrectly. What a Waste! You can create a custom 404 page for your site. That way, if a customer lands on it, they can at least easily

Customize your Blogger Header

2010-04-05T09:45:00.003-04:00

I was surfing sites over the long weekend and saw someones company "blog" on their site. When I clicked the link I was sent to a "google blogger" page that matched their site perfectly. It made their "free" blog more impressive and professional. Make your blogger header into a streamlined nav bar. It wasn't as difficult as I thought and if you have an image editing program and a html editor

Showing Crawl errors in Google Webmaster tools?

2010-03-24T21:39:00.003-04:00

If you have a Google account and a website you most likely added Googles "Webmaster Tools" to your account. If not, you should! It gives you great information.Webmaster Tools is a snapshot of everything you need to know (and it's free). The information it gathers on your site is priceless.Top Search queries (impressions and clickthroughs)Links to your site (who is linking to what page)Keyword

Edit a contact in Joomla

2010-02-11T18:30:00.006-05:00

If you want to edit your contact form on your joomla CMS it's easy!Log into your Joomla CMS admin pageMouse over "Components"Scroll down the drop down menu to contactsScroll over to "contacts"The next window will show you a list of your present contactsClick on the contact you wish to edit (to add a new contact click on "new" on top right)Edit the information and details!If you wish to add a

Adding images to Joomla Articles

2010-02-09T17:10:00.009-05:00

Easy steps for adding images to your Joomla CMS. Click on any images to see them larger.log into adminchoose media manager as seen belowAt the bottom of the media manager window you'll see an empty box followed by a "browse" button, followed by a "start upload" button.click on "browse" and find the image file you wish to upload, then click on "start upload".You should see your image in the

I am NOT Facebook...I swear!

2009-10-08T19:58:00.007-04:00

Like most people these days I have a facebook page. I had a strange thing happen recently and I thought it may happen to someone else, so I'm sharing.View it Here.com - Ring Guards and Ring WrapsPromote Your Page TooOver a course of a month I received a whole lot of phone calls (and posts on the discussion) from people who had issues with

youtube channel...another great marketing tool

2009-09-17T23:25:00.008-04:00

I've had a video on youtube for 3 years now (Since Sept. 19th 2006) and even I can't believe it took me this long to realize I wasn't using it to it's fullest.I've blogged before about using youtube for marketing and how important it is to understand youtubes insights, but I never even thought about the importance of the video channel! You know...I kicked myself when I saw how easy it was and

Your Best Marketing Tool --> Customers

2009-08-22T13:53:00.010-04:00

Here are a few recent examples of why:Hello Frances,I received my package today and put on the ring guards. This is one of the most clever, effective products I've used. I would love to write a review for you if you have such a thing. I think both your customer service and your product are exceptional, and would be happy to tell others about my very positive experience. I plan to take these in to

Four ways you lose me

2009-06-19T22:59:00.011-04:00

It's a fact that you can use twitter for marketing your product. I, myself, have bought an item from someone who I found during a twitter search. I was searching for "paypal alternatives", they happened to have made a post about paypal. Long story short - I saw her website, liked her product and bought one (using paypal). Enough "twits" have lost my interest lately, for stupid things, I just had

Video Insights

2009-06-17T22:32:00.010-04:00

I've noticed a positive development this last week - thanks to youtube insights. What did I noticed? The video, embedded on my website, is slowing going down in the percentage of total views.Your video viewership from your website is going down? And that's a good thing? Let me explain...Out of the 100% of my videos viewers only 68% were from people viewing it directly on my site. That means a

Wake up and smell the...social networking?

2009-06-17T17:32:00.005-04:00

click on image to make it largerI was "catching up" on my friends facebook pages and saw a perfect example of the powers of social networking for those companies who still wonder what it is. I found myself thinking that maybe I'll try this coffee too! 2 of my friends say it's great...I never heard of it before but I TRUST their opinions. Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to figure out

"bing - bong" is that opportunity ringing the bell?

2009-06-06T17:23:00.003-04:00

I have been hearing (or rather reading) a lot about MSN's re-vamp of it's re-branded search engine "Bing". A lot of what is being said is that Bing can not possibly give Google any grief -as people are loyal to Google and have been for years.So? If you have been online for the past few years you'll notice many sites popping up and dominating their goals....look at twitter. I'm sure facebook did

The Positive of Negative Keywords

2009-05-21T18:42:00.010-04:00

Nothing feels worse then paying for traffic...except paying for traffic that you don't want!Google recently upgraded their AdWords interface and thanks to a recent tweet @jordanlebaron,"http://twitpic.com/5ks6i - Just figured out I can see raw queries in the new #adwords interface: Campaigns > Keywords > "See search term..."I was impressed with the importance of this new feature. "Raw queries"

Improving your CTR made easy

2009-05-18T21:45:00.011-04:00

There are so many things you have to do on a daily basis to succeed with your online business. One of these things is constantly trying to reach - in increasing numbers - the right audience.If you know your conversion rate is 15% (15 out of 100 targeted visitors purchase) and you know you'll make an average of $150 profit per 100 visitors then of course the laws of averages says "if you had

Arm yourself with knowledge of search trends

2009-05-16T12:54:00.010-04:00

It's been about a month since I last wrote here. Life has a way of changing direction at any given time. I'm happy to say even if I am not writing - I am doing!I found some interesting tools to tell you about. I may have touched on them previously but as always on the internet - things just keep getting better!More reasons to love Google straight from their labs.Google Trends : Here you can

Can't paypal and google just get along?

2009-04-25T00:57:00.008-04:00

Like anyone I want to be able to track my conversions based on goals I set out. My goal is for people to reach a "thank you for ordering page" right after they submit payment. Simple no? If they reach this page my google analytics "goals" should count that as a conversion. Google is so off from the sales registered in my paypal account that it's not even funny! I mean huge off. So far, if I

Make sure your full message gets across

2009-04-23T23:01:00.005-04:00

Awhile back I decided to add a "how to video" to my Ring Guard site to help customers with our product. It was a short video and I decided to use youtube and embed it on my site. There were many reasons why I went with youtube at the time.Youtube offered an easy way to upload my edited videoIt generated the code to embed the video on my site automatically It tracked the number of viewers so I

What Social Networking means for my business...

2009-04-20T20:52:00.010-04:00

I've been reading up on tweets lately. Searching for small businesses such as myself - selling a product online - trying to learn something new (and I do all the time) from others.But...I've been struggling to figure out what social networking means to me, and how I can use all the tools available to increase my business. After all, that's why I was interested in social networking in the first

How come I'm just learning about google base...

2009-04-19T12:06:00.006-04:00

I was reading "tweets" and came across someone mentioning "google base" (yet another google beta). Google Base? Should I use it? What is it?What is it?"Google Base is a place where you can easily submit all types of online and offline content, which they'll make searchable on Google (if your content isn't online yet, they'll put it there). Users may find their results for searches on Google

google makes a game out of improving image search

2009-04-17T19:21:00.007-04:00

I was looking through my google "webmaster tools" and saw google was looking for help in better indexing their image searches.The Image Labeler Beta makes a game out of what I'm sure would be a tedious task. Two online "players" are randomly paired and for 2 minutes are shown the same images. The basic idea of the game is to "name the image" the same as your random partner. You earn points -

Have you noticed google ppc going down?

2009-04-11T13:37:00.004-04:00

I try to stay on top of my Google AdWords campaigns, ClickThroughRate (CTR) of my ad variations and of course the amount I spend on bidding. I'm always surprised by the amount of $ I spend a month - the kind of surprise you feel when dropping over that first hump of a roller coaster.I went today to check on the results of one of my .20 cent keywords. Usually the CTR on this keyword is a good %. I

5 Customer Service Tips

2009-04-07T11:59:00.006-04:00

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Looking for Your Feedback

2009-04-02T19:13:00.006-04:00

Hello! Hello!Thanks for answering my call for feedback :)I have just completed the design for our new site at ring-size-adjuster.com. If you're not familiar with our previous Ring Guard site please take a look here.This new site will not replace our old one, rather compliment it :)Our first site has been live for over 10 years now - and any SEO specialist worth a grain will tell you the longer a

OpenSource Content Management...it's a wonderful thing

2009-03-27T12:27:00.006-04:00

Ahhhh OpenSource. It makes me smile :)Now I don't use it for my Ring Guard site, because I like to keep it html simple (it works for me), but OpenSource is great for promoting business (or yourself) to the masses.OpenSource is pretty much a nice bundle of PHP programming wrapped up with a nice red bow. Just like a BIG Christmas gift to the layman with a website.A bunch of really nice people,

I hate when my site is down

2009-03-26T21:20:00.010-04:00

Really! I hate it! I really really hate it.I sit there and wonder. How long has it been down? When it will return? Where does it go? Should I panic? Why are my toes cold (easily distracted i know)?Am I addicted to my website? Do I depend on it too much...This is bad. I flash back to 16 yrs old sitting in my room by the phone - picking it up every 2 minutes to be sure it's still working. Maybe my