This is a special guest post courtesy of our Payroll company Olde Florida Payroll. We’ve been using their services for years (thanks for saving us big dollars over PayChex!), but they always send these helpful email newsletter. With the launch of our new site we’ll be working together to bring you the best of their helpful information. As always if you have any questions or comments, feel free to add your two cents below!

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) issued additional guidance for employers on reporting health care costs on an employee’s Form W-2. This new guidance (Notice 2012-9) changes some requirements and provides additional details that employers and payroll providers will need to understand as they prepare to meet the new informational reporting requirements.

Who cares? Does this apply to me?

Most readers of this newsletter work for small employers. If your business filed fewer than 250 W-2s last year, you’re exempt!

We’re a big company — what should I do?

Read through this summary, or consult the official IRS bulletin by CLICKING HERE.

Next, consult with your health benefits broker.

Your broker should be skilled at navigating clients through the myriad changes in U.S. healthcare law. You’re paying for that expert advice, so seek it!

Once you’ve obtained a solid understanding of what benefits need to be reported and how you’ll calculate them over the course of 2012, contact our firm. Olde Florida Payroll will design the perfect reporting mechanism to post these contributions on employee paystubs (if you wish) and appropriately on this year’s W-2.

Summary of IRS Bulletin

The Notice reiterates that this reporting is informational only and does not cause employer-provided health care to become taxable to the employee.

• Effective date. The requirements remain effective for 2012 Form W-2 reporting, which generally will be issued in January 2013, and reporting is not required on any forms furnished to employees prior to January 2013. Small employers (those filing fewer than 250 W-2s in 2011) are exempt from reporting until further guidance is issued, not merely for 2012 as previous guidance had indicated.

• Which employers must comply? The general rule remains that all employers that provide health coverage are subject to the reporting requirements, except Federally-recognized Indian tribal governments. The notice expands this exemption to cover employers that are tribally chartered corporations wholly owned by a tribal government, until further guidance is issued.

• Which employees are affected? All employees are still generally included in the reporting requirements, except individuals who would not otherwise receive a W-2 (i.e. retirees, COBRA participants).

• Coverage to be reported. The notice further clarifies and defines the types of coverage that must be included in the amount reported on Form W-2.
• Notably, EAPs, wellness plans, and on-site medical clinics only need to be reported if the plan is subject to COBRA (or other Federal continuation requirements) and the covered individual is charged a premium for the continuation coverage.
• Also excluded from the reporting requirements are vision and dental plans that are excepted benefits under HIPAA (generally with policies, elections and/or premiums that are separate from those of major medical coverage). Previous guidance used a somewhat different standard for excluding these benefits: whether the plan was “integrated into” a major medical plan. This new standard is more familiar and generally understood by the benefits community.
• The Notice emphasizes that an employer may include on Form W-2 the cost of coverage that is not required to be reported, such as coverage under a Health Reimbursement Arrangement (HRA), a multiemployer plan, an EAP, wellness program, or on-site medical clinic, provided such coverage constitutes applicable employer-sponsored coverage and the cost is properly calculated.
• The Notice clarifies that the reportable cost does not include excess reimbursements of highly compensated individuals that are included in income because a self-funded plan violates the nondiscrimination rules in Code Section 105(h) nor taxable coverage due to an employee being a 2% (or more) shareholder in an S corporation.

• Calculation of amounts to be reported. The Notice retains the availability of several calculation methods that may be used to determine the reportable cost of coverage. For insured plans, employers may report the amount of the premium charged by the employer; self-insured plans may use existing COBRA calculation methods.

As a special offer we’re offering all attendees (and anyone considering attending) a special gift…

Free Website Review!

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EXCLUSIVE EXHIBITOR ONLY NETWORKING & EXPO Noon – 2pm
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Introduction to Conversions

This initial introduction to tracking conversions will cover what a conversion is, why you MUST be tracking conversions, and finally an introduction to technically setting up conversion tracking on your website, blog, or shopping cart – using Google Analytics. Future articles will include some advanced tips and techniques on how to get the most of your existing traffic and audience, for now – let’s start with some basics.

Before we get to the actual tracking, let’s talk about conversions for a second (be they Google Analytics Conversions, Google AdWords Conversions, or Pay Per Click Conversions).

I’m guessing you’re in one of two boats – you’re either a publisher – you have a sweet site and want to place some ads on it in an attempt to bring in some cash. Or… you’re an advertiser, you have a product or service that needs to get out to the masses.

In both cases tracking is important.

As the old saying goes…

NOTHING MEASURED, NOTHING GAINED

And there is no place where this holds truer, or more completely than online, in fact I would argue that the reason the online space has grown so quickly, and completely is the fact that nearly EVERYTHING is measurable.

WHAT IS A CONVERSION?

I find it funny that the owners of new websites roll their eyes when “conversions” are mentioned. Odds are that you’re a sophisticated web entrepreneur if you’re reading this blog – but I’ve encountered too many business owners who equate online success to simple viewership (the number of visitors). But the truth is, this couldn’t be further from the truth. I was actually reading a book just yesterday about sales, and I draw a connection with great websites and the conversion process.

Your Website is the Greatest Sales Tool Ever Invented – Besides You of Course

In this book one of the contributors draws an analogy between the sales process and rainbows. One end of the rainbow – the “beginning” – is full of tire kickers, people simply shopping around, not truly interested, or not the best fit. At the other end of the “sales rainbow” is the close, the final process of shaking hands, closing a deal, and getting that post-sale high as you deposit a check – the proverbial pot of gold, sans leprechaun.

Okay… you can have a leprechaun if you want.

This translates nicely online.

You may have noticed in your own dealings that much of the website marketing/design process concentrates at the start of this rainbow. Concentrating on traffic does not necessarily spell success. Concentrating on conversions does. Tracking conversions is like teleporting to the end of the rainbow. Kind of like Thor and the Bifröst (sans the Warriors Three).

You need to jump to the end of the Sales Rainbow – you need to concentrate on – and track conversions!

So back to the original question, what is a conversion?

It’s whatever you want it to be… for the first camp out there (you publishers with content that you desperately want to monetize), a conversion may be a contact from an advertiser, or the clicking of an existing ad on your website.

For an advertiser, a conversion is most likely a visitor from a website you’re advertising on, a lead or contact form submission, or an actual sale.

You decide.  Every business, every website, is different – so when setting up your conversion tracking tools (which we’ll get to in just a second) you’ll also setup a few or many “conversions” actions your visitors take that you want to record, measure, and grow.

Why Track Conversions?

We’ve defined that conversions are simply goals, or milestones (most likely contact form submissions, signups, or purchases) made through your website. So why track conversions?

Again – nothing measured, nothing gained. Through conversion tracking we can see how effective various changes to our site are, or analyze the effectiveness of a particular marketing effort.

Measure and track conversions so that you can grow your website and company!

How to Track Conversions

There are an infinite number of ways to track conversions on your site. The first step involves making sure you have a good piece of analytics setup (software to track visitors, how they come to your site, and their behavior on your site).

I’m going to assume you have analytics installed on your website. If not – check out: http://knol.google.com/k/how-to-install-google-analytics-in-5-minutes-or-less (I prefer Google Analytics – and I would also setup “ecommerce tracking” – even if you don’t have a shopping cart!).

Tracking conversions involves two equally important steps:

Tracking the actual registration (the physical contact, lead, or sale)

Tracking where the conversion comes from?!

Lucky our analytics software pretty much does both of these things without any tweaks or setup – although there are some things we can do to help us (they’re called setting up “goals” which I’ll get to shortly).

General conversions can be registered as easily as visiting a “thank you” page in your analytics. Most contact forms will re-direct users to a page thanking them for their contact submission to you. To see this conversion you simply have to login to your analytics account and pull up the information on that page. Take a look at the attached image.

Here you can see an example of a small website’s conversion “landing page.” In this case – after a visitor has submitted their contact information they are directed to the page /join/thanks/. This takes care of the first step in total conversion tracking – tracking the registration.

For the second step I prefer to actually setup analytics’ tools for conversion tracking or goal tracking.

To setup conversion tracking in Google Analytics it’s as simple as:

1. Login to Google Analytics
2. Select “Edit” next to the website you wish to setup
3. Scroll down to Goals and select “+add goal”
4. Give your goal a name – get specific – you may have very similar goals, but the more specific and more you can break them up the easier it will be to track in the future
5. Make sure the status is set to “on”
6. Select a Goal Position – this is kind of like a “bucket” simply a tool for you to stay organized
7. Select “Goal Type” – for 99% of you this will be URL destination (remember we want to track when people sign up or purchase a product)
8. Type in a Goal Url – As google explains, here you are to type in the final destination that, when visited, you want a goal marked as “registered.” In the above analytics example, we would put /join/thanks/ – as this is the page that users are taken once they submit a contact form.
9. Turn on Case Sensitivity – Check to see if case sensitivity matters on your server (most linux servers will be case sensitivity) you can check by simply pasting the “Goal URL you just typed in above after the web address in a web browser and visiting the address
10. Select a Goal Value – this is completely optional, but may help you measure the return of your website marketing over time
11. Goal Funnel – For the purposes of this example a goal funnel is overkill, however a goal funnel allows you to track a series of pages leading up to your final goal (for example checkout pages in the purchase process of a shopping cart).

And you’re all done!

In the example below we’ve filled in all of the above example details into analytics:

From now on, as soon as you login to Analytics you’ll be able to see total number of completed goals right from the main screen as well as be able to access some more advanced features within analytics.

Tracking Conversions Step 2 – Tracking Where the Conversions Come From

Okay, simple part is done – you’re tracking conversions, let’s analyze where they are coming from (much of this assumes some familiarity with Google Analytics). You’ll notice in your Google Analytics account (once you’ve click on an actual website), there is a tab on the right called “goals” this contains a bunch of information on your conversions.

However, I prefer staying OUT of the GOALS section of analytics and instead clicking on “advanced segments” at the top right of the screen and scrolling down and selecting “visits with conversions”. Select APPLY!

Google Analytics’ segments is a helpful tool for viewing ONLY sub-sections of the people on your site, in this case we only care about those people that contacted – we want to see where they came from, what they did, etc.

With only conversion traffic now showing you’re now the master of the universe.  (and Dolph Lundgren didn’t even need to get involved).

Now as you click around analytics you’ll only see information pertinent to those that contacted you or converted. Of particular interest to many business and website owners here is the “traffic sources” tab. From here you can see what source led to the conversions. By selecting anyone of the drill down options you can learn a deeper and deeper understanding of how people came to your site. Now you can see for example:

• What day a conversion happened
• From what physical location conversions happened
• From what keyword a conversion happened
• And so on…

The possibilities – and minutia – are endless.

Which brings me to my final point, don’t get caught up in all of the data. The Internet and this kind of conversion tracking can be daunting both at first, and even seasoned professionals have trouble sorting through all of the data. Determine what is important to you, and try to grow that metric month-over-month. If you notice for example that a particular website is sending traffic that is converting – try strengthening that relationship. If an ad you purchased on BuySellAds.com is doing well – explore other advertising options or purchase more/larger ads on that web space. Record that change and track your changes over time. Google Analytics makes that very easy too – with their “compare to past tools.”

In future articles we will discuss tracking social media conversions as well as some best practices when measuring results when tracking conversions over time.

I asked a “nice” young lady for her number. Let’s call her Lucy. After a few phone conversations, and coffee I invited her to my place for dinner later that weekend (I cook pretty much all of my food anyway).

She excitedly accepted.

Saturday night came with no call or knock on the door and, after hours of waiting, I finally finished my meal while Lucy’s salmon sat cold and uneaten.

It’s true, I’ve been back in the dating world – and at times it’s been difficult. Although I feel more prepared than ever for success in dating each scowl, unreturned phone call – or extra cold dinner plate – stings.

But, it’s not all gloomy. I must admit for every failed interaction there’s been 10 positive interactions, and as I continue on this quest, as many of us are on – to find someone to share your world – it has helped me stumble upon life, business and marketing lessons.

What Dating Can Teach You About (Internet) Marketing

1) Don’t Put All of Your Eggs in One Basket (or why you can’t stop)

I’ve been reading (and re-reading) Guerrilla Marketing Remix by Jay Conrad Levinson and suggest you do the same.

(I consider this to be the best book on small business marketing I’ve ever read!)

One of the basic tenants in the book is consistency and continuity. It reinforces the idea that a budget of $100/month spaced over 2 years is much better than marketing yourself in one lump sum of $2500 for 1 month. Being consistent and continuing your marketing helps.

Having a consistent presence is much more important than having a huge presence.

I’ve found the same to be true of the dating world.

If you’ve put all of your time and effort in one woman (and I caution this with INITIALLY) then you’re bound to fail and behave in an unnatural and unattractive manner. You don’t want to seem needy so just go about your daily life and when you both find time and availability then meet and move forward (this sounds a lot like the sales process specifically too). This is equally true of a new client. There’s a fine balance between wanting a job (in the service industry), and providing stellar service prior to an actual contract – and appearing needy.

If either of you is trying too hard, odds are something is not compatible.

2) Laser Target Your Focus

First define your audience, then go after them.

Don’t waste your time where you may or may not be able to get in front of your audience. In particular, don’t waste money on marketing pieces/spots that are ambiguously targeted.

3) Fortune Favors the Prepared

Harry (my business partner) and I have gone back and forth for years on philosophy. Luckily, we’re both pretty similar when it comes to many of our views on religion, money, and life.

One area where we’ve butt heads is the course of life’s events.

Why did Bill Gates become the richest man in the world? Why did/do so many people love Steve Jobs? And yet why do so many mean people or shysters seem to have so much?

How do these stories and observations gel with a world where so many are unfed or don’t even have a decent roof over their heads or clean water? Just look at some of these stats:

• …80% of humanity lives on less than $10/day
• …22,000 children die each day due to poverty
• Around 27-28 percent of all children in developing countries are estimated to be underweight or stunted

I’ve known about this quote for some time. But just recently researched it – and learned it was coined by Louis Pasteur, the inventor of germs and pasteurization process (if you like Milk – and great quotes – you can thank Louis).

I’ve found “[being] prepared” equally important in the dating world as business. Having a process, a plan, or at the very least materials to hand out to respective customers goes a long way – as does working out, eating right, or simply grooming oneself (which is great for business AND your dating life).

So you want more business? Simply clip your nails and clean your pits.

I exaggerate, but the point is that luck is not enough to secure a prize, you must know what to do with an opportunity when it lands in your lap (figuratively AND literally *nudge nudge wink wink).

4) You Have to Go Out & Get It

Speaking of quotes James Altucher helped me remember one by Woody Allen the other day.

Allen famously said:

80% of success is showing up…

So simple, but SO IMPORTANT!

Your clients, or lovers, aren’t going to show up while you’re at home wearing sweat pants, sitting on the couch, and eating a combination of your own tears and spoonfuls of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup Ice Cream… you have to actually go out and get them.

And what are you doing eating Reese’s Ice Cream any way… didn’t we just address working out and eating right in the previous post?!

5) Do Your Homework

“Getting in bed” both figuratively, and literally, with a client, or a lover, is a potentially risky investment. Although, risk does imply reward.

But, in dating, as in business, it’s always best to do your homework before starting together.

I believe it was in Tom Gegax’s “The Big Book of Small Business” in which he tells a story about a CEO hiring another executive. At the interview the CEO simply asks this new exectutive about his personal life. After the interviewee wonders why they’re not talking about the position or skills the CEO responds, “I’ve already done ALL my research on you – I know you’re technically the correct person, but I just need to know if I’ll like working with you before I hire you.”

He had done his homework.

If you do your homework on a prospect, and are slow(er) to pull the trigger, at the very least you waste some time. At the most, you solidify a relationship, or avoid a potentially problematic, and expensive one that could cause stress for years to come.

 6) Listen (or What Therapy Means for Your Business)

Understanding why listening is important it’s best to remember, as Bruce Turkel pointed out yesterday morning in his post about Why Write a Blog - why people go to therapy:

The reason people go to therapy is not so they can listen to someone suggest solutions to their issues. The reason people go to therapy is so they can get someone to listen to their issues.

If you train yourself to listen you can learn a lot about your fellow man, new business acquaintance or fling.

I’m always surprised at networking events (and at bars), where – after a few questions and a tiny chunk of shared life experience – people will explain every detail of their business (or personal life) and in particular where they feel their problems lie.

In sales, they talk about “getting to the pain” (or at least the Sandler Sales Institute does) – this is equally as true in your marketing pieces, your sales approach, and your dating life.

If you can present a solution to that persons pain (after listening) either through your sales pitch or your marketing perhaps you’ve just met your next client – or future ex.

7) Be Elegant

Speaking of marketing – in love, in life, in business – I recommend elegance.

“Strange for a 20-something male to be talking about elegance?”

This word probably brings to mind ballroom dancing, jewels and rich mahogany (and leather bound books). But, you may be surprised to learn the true definition of elegance:

Elegance is a synonym for beauty that has come to acquire the additional connotations of unusual effectiveness and simplicity…

Combining elegance with marketing can have powerful effects.

Whether you’re marketing a million dollar brand, or marketing yourself to that girl (or guy) across the room, you must figure out, with words, imagery, body language and a refined message – what will most effectively and simply communicate what you want to communicate.

And remember, all that’s important is the message that is received – when this matches what you’ve set out to communicate you’ve succeeded. 

Can you draw any parallels between dating and business or marketing?

*Disclaimer (as we don’t want any of our relationships – in business or the whole of life to be reduced to a simple transaction) – I don’t think human relations are quite as cut and dry as even the best and most sophisticated systems, paradigms, or books on psychology like to pretend. And, even the best of these can not possibly take into account the trillions of possibilities, interactions, or strange circumstances that can throw off predictable human behavior. We’re all beautifully unique, but unbelievably connected through our similarities.

1. Determine Your Keywords

Know your keywords! Every person at your organization involved in marketing, particularly the CEO/President (as much as you may not like technology!) must know:

1. What Keywords Are/Why They’re Important
2. What Keywords You Rank For And Provide Value to Your Business
3. What Keywords You’re Trying to Rank Higher For

Many businesses put up a website without thinking about the keywords they need to rank for. This process starts from the very beginning – your business name even affects your search engine rankings! For example, if you’re called “Bonita Bikes, LLC” and your domain is bonitabikes.com – odds are you’re going to rank well when people search for “bikes in Bonita” or “bonita bikes”.

Looking to do your own quick research? 

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordTool External  is a good start to generate ideas on what terms people are searching for when searching for your business type.

This will show you how many searches were conducting locally and worldwide. One of the major factors in getting the most SEO juice from the organic listings, meaning non paid listings is to find the specific,  what is referred to as “long tail keywords” that are search phrases that are very specific to the exact thing that the searcher is looking for and create articles and blog posts that include these exact terms in your content on your site.

For example if I were a chiropractor in Naples Florida and wanted to target people looking for relief from back pain instead of just having words on my site such as Naples Chiropractor which is too general, I would use the keyword tool and look for 3-5 word search terms related to back pain such as back pain treatment options or treatment techniques for back pain or alternative treatments for back injuries. When you come up with some ultra specific search terms such as these you can then create your web content to directly address these issues through your web content. With just a few well written blog posts or articles of 400-700 words explaining these phrases you can easily end up in the top 5 search results on Google and bump your competition onto the second and third pages of the search results on Google and dominate in your local market.

2. Local is Important – So is Social

Have you done a search at Google (or any search engine recently). Most likely you’ve seen 3 kinds of results (if not more)… General Search Engine Results, Paid Listings, and Local Listings. In many cases, and for nearly ALL searches for local goods/products/services Local results are actually larger, and more prominent than the good old fashioned results. The point is – you need to tell the search engines about your LOCAL BUSINESS – add your information, and in particular your address/location. We’ve provided links below…

Social Networks

Like it or not. Social networks are here to stay.  Every business should consider at a minimum claiming their business listings on the following sites:

• Google business listing: www.google.com/local/add/businessCenter
• Yahoo:http://listings.local.yahoo.com/
• Bing : http://www.bing.com/local/
• Yelp: http://www.yelp.com
• Merchant Circle: http://www.merchantcircle.com/signup/
• Yellow Pages: http://www.yellowpages.com
• Facebook Fan pages: http://www.Facebook.com

3. Links Are UNBELIEVABLY Important

What is a link (or backlink)?

A link is when another site features a link to yours. This is a link (that goes to Google.com).

Links play a huge role in helping search engines understand what’s going on. They are essentially a vote of confidence. Much like a radio dj that talks about a product or service, or a friend that recommends a great burger joint, a link represents an endorsement.

The more links you have (and we’re abbreviating a lot of details here) the better.

But, that’s not all – relevant websites links help a lot – as do more “powerful/large” website links. They play a big role in helping boosting your search engine ranking on Google especially if the links come from relevant sites that are high quality and have a lot of good content closely related to your sites content. The most common ways to start to build more high quality backlinks is by first having high quality content on your site that other website owners see as beneficial to their readers and giving you the thumbs up as they link to the articles and other content on your site. Another great technique is to network with other website owners that have similar audience profiles and interests and offer to write informative articles that can be posted on their site.

If they agree this is a win/win for both you and the site owner as it adds great content to their site thus attracting more traffic, and it gives you a high quality backlink and traffic to your site that results from piggybacking off their traffic. Also finding industry authority sites and adding value through value added comments with your website address in the signature part of your post will help you build more and more backlinks over time.

4. Site Structure

Every day the search engine spiders scour the internet and all the websites looking for new content that is on a site. One of the biggest mistakes made with sites is that the website when it was set up was not configured correctly in terms of the search engine spiders being able to find and categorize the main topics of the site. Many times it is just a matter of making sure that the title tags, meta descriptions, and picture descriptions are labeled correctly so that when Google visits your site it can read it correctly and give you the correct Search Engine Optimized credit for having a well laid out site.

For a Free Customized Website review that will give you a great analysis of your website please visit
http://www.atilus.com/free-website-review

• Amazing Facts About Mobile Internet Use
• Mobile Searches Have Grown 500% in the Last Two Years
• 61% of Mobile Users Call a Business After Searching for it… 59% Visit Their Store
• By 2013, More People Will Use Their Mobile Phones than PCs to Get Online
• There Will Be 1 Mobile Device for Every Person by 2015

How Can You Go Mobile?

Going Mobile with your web presence and marketing requires considerations of just those two elements:

1. Making sure your website is mobile…
2. Targeting mobile users with your marketing

Luckily AdWords makes that simple and…

ALL ATILUS CLIENTS USING PAY PER CLICK ARE ALREADY TARGETING MOBILE USERS!

(it’s part of your management! – we’re constantly working to bring you the most visitors/customers/leads)

It’s true as Google suggests – a mobile optimized web presence is no longer just a “nice to have” in fact, in most of the world a phone is the only way to access the web. With the cost of smart phones going down, and power going through the roof – coupled with tablets (which employ similar design considerations) and the facts above – it’s clear mobile is not just an afterthought – and at the very least can differentiate you from your competitors. At the most – it can, and in some cases has, become one of the greatest sources of new business.

What is a Mobile Optimized Website?

A mobile optimized website is one that is formatted for the mobile device. You may have noticed that there are some differences between your phone (or tablet) and your computer. The screen on your computer is larger, there are more “pixels” and you manipulate it differently (using a keyboard and mouse). Mobile devices are different… they’re laid out differently, have much smaller screens, and are manipulated (generally) with touch/fingers.

Additionally users expect fast sites. This is a little easier to accomplish on a desktop where connections are larger and processing power greater. On a mobile optimized site it must be as small as possible while balancing attractiveness with simplicity for the sake of speed. According to the numbers on Google’s website, 60% of users expect a site to load in less than 3 seconds on a mobile device – no small feat on many phones/networks.

As Louis CK said… GIVE IT A SECOND! IT’S GOING TO SPACE!

If you’d like to know more about mobile sites and marketing at large – take a look at the very helpful GoMo initiative Google is promoting – or if you’d like more information about how we can help, feel free to leave a comment or contact us.

I don’t know about you, but I’m very particular when it comes to my pens. And, as much as I love – and use – technology, there are just moments where nothing beats a good old fashioned note – jotted down on a piece of paper, a sticky, and all scribbled with a great pen.

Our client, Power Purchasing specializes in providing businesses like Atilus’ with great deals for the business tools we use all of the time. One of the most recent  – and most amazing deals they’ve been able to negotiate – is a Free Paper Mate Inkjoy Pen offer.

It’s simple – just go to their blog, leave a comment – and they’ll ship you out a pack of pens. (They would like to hear about your experience afterwards too so make sure to save their web address!)

Paper Mate is trying to spread the word about their latest pen – the Inkjoy – and they’re using one of their oldest and most established partners – Power Purchasing, to spread the word.

About The InkJoy Pen

I’ve been able to use the InkJoy, and as an art and business geek I have to say it rocks. According to Power Purchasing’s website:

First, you may notice it’s an entirely new technology, not a gel, not a rollerball. This becomes apparent after only a few seconds of use.

This new technology allows the pen to start quickly and last a long time. Unlike many pens that can sometimes be difficult to start (who hasn’t cut through a piece of paper trying to “start” a brand new pen), and it doesn’t get backed up after just a few minutes or hours of writing. No, instead Paper Mate’s InkJoy™ pens glide over paper allowing you to focus on your ideas and doesn’t cramp your fingers or leave nasty smudges.

• additional training
• coupons for new AdWords customers’ (so we can pass along some coupons to you our clients!)
• marketing tools for the promotion of AdWords

We feel this is a step in the right direction and after speaking with a few AdWords representatives during the application process, it seems Google plans on integrate all of it’s systems – the AdWords Professional Dashboard, the Certification and Training Sections, as well as this new Engage system, underneath one roof – the Engage System to help simplify and streamline the process of providing agencies and certified partners/professionals with all of the training and information they need  to best service AdWords customers.

Various members of our team have been certified AdWords Professionals, which is one of the pre-requisites to becoming an AdWords Certified Partner. Partner status is dedicated to full firms only, and only when they meet certain criteria and thresholds.

The Only Firm in South Florida With this Designation!

Atilus is proud to be the ONLY FIRM IN SOUTHWEST FLORIDA – between Tampa and Miami to have received this designation. It proves as a true qualifier of our skills in all of Google’s marketing tools – and in particular AdWords, which we consider to be one of our most powerful tools in our arsenal of ways to market and grow your business online!

View Atilus’ Certified Partner Page on Google >>

About AdWords Certified Partners

According to Google’s’ Partner website:

Distinguish your company as skilled in managing AdWords programs with Certified Partner status. Attaining Certified Partner status is rewarded with marketing supportincluding use of a Google Certified partner badge, entry into Google Partner Searchwhere potential clients can locate you, new business coupons and opportunities to attend exclusive Google events. Below are some benefits enjoyed by certified partners:

• Build team skills: industry recognized training to improve performance across search and display programs.
• Demonstrate proficiency: use profile pages to illustrate training achievements and certified Google skills
• Marketing support: gain new business and be visible to marketers looking for help through Google Partner Search - the online directory of certified partners

To attain certified partner status, companies must meet eligibility criteria which includes one team member passing a minimum of two certification exams, illustrating practical expertise in managing accounts, and agreement to terms and conditions of representing AdWords. Learn more about membership criteria.

What exactly is a free video website review?

Well, we’ve noticed, in working with clients all over the company that one of the first questions many businesses have is – where do you currently stand? How good is your existing website? And there a million different ways of evaluating this including:

• What is your exposure on Social Media?
• How much content do you have?
• How well do you perform on search engines?
• How do you fair against your competitors’ websites?
• Is your site attractive, well built, and search engine optimized?

These are just a fraction of the questions you should be asking yourself when considering a redesign. And – when your web development company isn’t next door – a physical meeting can be hard to come by, and explaining certain visual items over the phone can sometimes be difficult. So we’re now offering free website reviews for all interested companies – no limitations, no catches (we just hope we can keep up with the response!).

One of our new client experts which are trained in everything from HTML, pay per click, and search engine marketing – will go through your site and record the whole process using a screen capture program to reveal to you exactly where your website is lacking, where it excels and what you can do to have it bring in more business.

You Want More Business Don’t You?

We just ask for your name, email, phone, and website to start the process and we’d love to have you as a part of our helpful newsletter where we constantly inform our clients about new tips and directions in this ever-changing online marketing world!

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