Avast matey!

Looking for a great activity this weekend? Stop by the 26th annual Oyster Festival In Oyster    Bay. Great food, spectacular music, arts & crafts, tall ships…even pirates!

http://theoysterfestival.org

How Does Your Site Stack Up?

For most companies, the web has become much more than an online brochure. It has become a communication vehicle that helps you develop and maintain relationships with your customers. Whether the perception of your company is positive or negative can be greatly influenced by the content and features users experience on your site, vs. that of your competition.

If your competitors’ sites have high-end features that make it easier to do business with them, you could be losing customers. A great way to determine how you rate is to do an audit of three of your major competitors. Take a look a their sites vs. yours and ask yourself the following 10 questions to see how you stack up:

1. Is your site designed for your target audience?
2. Does the design support your overall branding message?
3. Does the home page have short cuts to popular pages within the site?
4. Do you have interesting, up-to-date content that your audience will find helpful?
5. Does it have handy tools like searches, product selectors, and sorting capabilities to help users find the product or service that best suits their needs?
6. Can customers find detailed product info and supporting docs like warranties, schematics, and instruction sheets quickly and easily?
7. Does it support a 24 x 7 customer service model by providing self-service information like past orders and shipping status?
8. Does your site have a forum, blog or survey so customers can give you feedback?
9. Does it have a mechanism for your customers to receive regular updates from you?
10. Does it have links to connect with or follow you on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook?

If you answered no to more than three of these questions, you may be losing your edge! It’s time for a serious review of your site and how it fits into your sales and marketing strategies.

For more information or a free consultation, please contact Lyn Nielsen at 631.428.4654 or lynn@desktopsolutions.com.

Bing…the jury is still out.

There has been conflicting reports over the past few months regarding the market share that Microsoft’s new Bing Search Engine has been gaining following it’s launch at the end of May 2009.

The below graph (courtesy of Statcounter) shows how that over the past 2 and a half months, Bing has been gradually building market share from 6% to 12% in the US. During the same period, Yahoo has remained considerably stable, dropping from around 12% to 11%, and Google has dropped the other 5%. Google is still clearly the dominant force, with around 77% share:

Google does display ads

Google is introducing a long-awaited new version of an ad exchange, like a stock market, where advertisers and publishers can buy and sell advertising space, filling spots in Web pages on the fly. Google executives say the new system, called the DoubleClick Ad Exchange, will greatly simplify the process of buying and selling display advertising, allowing many more publishers and advertisers to benefit from it.
Read the entire article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/18/technology/internet/18exchange.html?_r=1&scp=16&sq=google&st=cse

Small Businesses turn to Twitter

A great article in the New York Times about how Mom and Pop shops are utilizing Twitter as their primary marketing resource. Read it here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/23/business/smallbusiness/23twitter.html?em

Facebook Advertising, is right for your business?

Facebook’s sudden popularity, combined with the saturation level of other paid search properties like Google, is causing online advertisers to think seriously about including it in their marketing mix. Here’s a quick review of some of the benefits of Facebook:

Huge reach – Over 200,000,000 users
Although it was considered merely a teen site in the past, Facebook’s fastest-growing user group is adults ages 35-55, who are using it to re-connect with old friends and expand business contacts.

Target your exact audience with demographic and psychographic filters including:

• Location
• Age
• Sex
• Education
• Relationship status
• Relationship Interests
• Languages
• Workplace
• Keywords in profile

Use both text and image ads
Facebook allows you to use both text and images. You can also direct people to your own web page or something on Facebook like a Page, Application, Group or Event.

Pay by either cost-per-click or cost-per-impression
Just like other paid services, Facebook allows you to pay for only those clicks you receive. Cost per Click (CPC) advertising allows you to specify a certain amount that you are willing to pay each time a user actually clicks on your ad. Facebook also allows you to pay for Views (also called cost per thousand impressions or CPM) advertising allows you to specify how much you are willing to pay for 1000 views (or impressions) of your ad. Facebook also provides you with a suggested bid range that shows you what other advertisers are currently bidding to reach people in your target.

Whether you choose the CPC or CPM method, you can set a daily budget that you’re comfortable spending, and schedule your ads to run all the time or only during certain time periods. You can also choose specific beginning and ending dates for your campaign, perfect for timed events.

For more information or a free consultation, please contact Lyn Nielsen at 631.428.4654 or lynn@desktopsolutions.com.

SEO Basics

What does Google want? Contrary to popular belief, there is no secret formula to instantly propel sites to the top of the unpaid Google listings. If there were, Google would not be collecting millions in revenue from AdWords each month.

That being said, there are things you can do to be sure that your site is doing its best to get you to the top of the organic listings in Google. It’s no big secret, Google tells you what to do if you look for it -  http://www.google.com/webmasters/docs/search-engine-optimization-starter-guide.pdf. See a quick summary below. We hope you find it helpful!

Create unique, accurate page titles

• Accurately describe the page’s content
• Do not use vague titles like ‘new page 1’
• Create unique title tags for each page in your site

Make good use of ‘description’ meta tag

• Write a description that would both inform and interest users if they saw your description meta tag as a snippet in a search result
• Use unique descriptions for each page
• Avoid filling descriptions with only keywords

Improve the structure of your url’s

• Use keywords as opposed to database parameters

Improve your site navigation

• Create a naturally flowing hierarchy
• Use text for navigation
• Use ‘breadcrumb’ navigation

Put an HTML sitemap page on your site, and use an XML Sitemap file

• Consider using Google SiteMap

Create good content

• Stay organized around a topic
• Use relevant language
• Offer exclusive content on your site

Write better anchor text

• Anchor text is the clickable text that users will see as a result of a link, and is placed within the anchor tag <a href=”…”></a>

Use heading tags appropriately

• Heading tags are used to present structure on the page to users
• Imagine you’re writing an outline
• Use headings sparingly across the page

Optimize use of your images

• Use brief descriptive file names and alt text
• Supply alt text when using images as links
• Store images in a directory of their own

Make effective use of robots.txt

• A “robots.txt” file tells search engines whether they can access and therefore crawl parts of your site. Place this file in the root directory of your site

Is Your Website Mobile-friendly?

Picture this. A Vice President of a manufacturing company is sitting on an airplane, explaining his company’s product line to his seat mate. He takes out his new Blackberry Storm, pulls up his site, and discovers that many of the pictures are missing or broken. Sound familiar?

Discovering that your site is not automatically viewable on the newest mobile devices is a disappointing fact of life. But as the quality and speed of mobile devices improves, companies are discovering that having a mobile-friendly version of their site is a necessity. We’ve put together some tips to help you develop your mobile web strategy. We hope you find them useful!

• Review your competition. Take a look at what your competitor’s sites look like on various devices. This may be an opportunity for you to create a competitive edge!
• Think about how users will be using your site while on a mobile device. What features will they most need to use while sitting on a train, eating in a restaurant or walking down the street? Do they need to see the ‘News’ section, the ‘About Us’ page? Will users need to see photos of every product in your line? While it might be nice to have a complete version of your site visible on every cell phone imaginable, it might not be necessary.
• Consider the case of a high-end manufacturer whose products are sold through high-end department stores like Nordstrom’s, Neiman Marcus and Sak’s Fifth Avenue. Since consumers must visit a retail store to make a purchase, the most valuable site feature on mobile devices would likely be the store locator system. Creating a mobile version of the site with a cross section of products and a shortcut to the store locator is the most logical choice for users, and is far less costly than a version containing all the bells and whistles of the main site.
• Test your site. There are several sites that allow you to see how your site will look on various mobile devices, and give you ratings as to how it stacks up overall. Some even identify specific problems and make suggestions to improve your results. Try one or both of the following: http://www.enom.com/instant-mobilizer/imobilizer.aspx# or http://ready.mobi
   
• Consider mobile devices when designing your site. Avoid using a lot of Flash and other animation, as it will not render properly on most devices. Also note that sites coded with ’static’ as opposed to data-driven html will need to be manually updated for mobile-friendly versions.
• Consider registering a mobile version of your domain. DotMobi (.mobi) is a top level domain approved by ICANN mTLD global registry, dedicated to delivering the Internet to mobile devices via the mobile web. It is financially backed and sponsored by Google, Microsoft, Nokia, Samsung, Ericsson, Vodafone, T-Mobile, and Visa. The main advantage of .mobi sites is that they are theoretically guaranteed a site optimized for usage on the go. The main disadvantage of using dotMobi is that it promotes creating two separate device-dependent versions of the web, one desktop-based and the other mobile-based. Companies using .mobi have to register and take care of two domains/websites, instead of one whose pages would be adjusted to various devices via programming code.
• Contact a web professional for a free consultation. Desktop Solutions is happy to review your site free of charge, and help you develop a mobile-friendly strategy for your audience. Please call Lyn Nielsen, 631.493.3422 x.101 or lynn@desktopsolutions.com to arrange a meeting.

Hanging Tough

The April 20th issue of The New Yorker published a great article about gaining a competitive edge during a down economy. Just goes to show that problems can sometimes be opportunities in disguise.

In the late nineteen-twenties, two companies—Kellogg and Post—dominated the market for packaged cereal. It was still a relatively new market: ready-to-eat cereal had been around for decades, but Americans didn’t see it as a real alternative to oatmeal or cream of wheat until the twenties. So, when the Depression hit, no one knew what would happen to consumer demand. Post did the predictable thing: it reined in expenses and cut back on advertising. But Kellogg doubled its ad budget, moved aggressively into radio advertising, and heavily pushed its new cereal, Rice Krispies. (Snap, Crackle, and Pop first appeared in the thirties.) By 1933, even as the economy cratered, Kellogg’s profits had risen almost thirty per cent and it had become what it remains today: the industry’s dominant player.

You’d think that everyone would want to emulate Kellogg’s success, but, when hard times hit, most companies end up behaving more like Post. They hunker down, cut spending, and wait for good times to return. They make fewer acquisitions, even though prices are cheaper. They cut advertising budgets. And often they invest less in research and development. They do all this to preserve what they have. But there’s a trade-off: numerous studies have shown that companies that keep spending on acquisition, advertising, and R. & D. during recessions do significantly better than those which make big cuts. In 1927, the economist Roland Vaile found that firms that kept ad spending stable or increased it during the recession of 1921-22 saw their sales hold up significantly better than those which didn’t. A study of advertising during the 1981-82 recession found that sales at firms that increased advertising or held steady grew precipitously in the next three years, compared with only slight increases at firms that had slashed their budgets. And a McKinsey study of the 1990-91 recession found that companies that remained market leaders or became serious challengers during the downturn had increased their acquisition, R. & D., and ad budgets, while companies at the bottom of the pile had reduced them.

One way to read these studies is simply that recessions make the strong stronger and the weak weaker, since the strong can afford to keep investing while the weak have to devote all their energies to staying afloat. But although deep pockets help in a downturn, recessions nonetheless create more opportunity for challengers, not less. When everyone is advertising, for instance, it’s hard to separate yourself from the pack; when ads are scarcer, the returns on investment seem to rise. That may be why during the 1990-91 recession, according to a Bain & Company study, twice as many companies leaped from the bottom of their industries to the top as did so in the years before and after.

Chrysler’s fortunes in the Great Depression are a classic instance of this. Chrysler had been the third player in the U.S. auto industry, behind G.M. and Ford. But early in the downturn it gave a big push to a new brand—Plymouth—targeted at the low end of the market, and by 1933 it had surpassed Ford to become North America’s second-biggest automaker. On a smaller scale, Hyundai has made huge gains in market share this year, thanks to a hefty advertising budget and a guarantee to take back cars from owners who have lost their jobs. Those gains may turn out to be temporary, but in fact the benefits from recession investment are often surprisingly long-lived, with companies maintaining their gains in market share and sales well into economic recovery.

Why, then, are companies so quick to cut back when trouble hits? The answer has something to do with a famous distinction that the economist Frank Knight made between risk and uncertainty. Risk describes a situation where you have a sense of the range and likelihood of possible outcomes. Uncertainty describes a situation where it’s not even clear what might happen, let alone how likely the possible outcomes are. Uncertainty is always a part of business, but in a recession it dominates everything else: no one’s sure how long the downturn will last, how shoppers will react, whether we’ll go back to the way things were before or see permanent changes in consumer behavior. So it’s natural to focus on what you can control: minimizing losses and improving short-term results. And cutting spending is a good way of doing this; a major study, by the Strategic Planning Institute, of corporate behavior during the past thirty years found that reducing ad spending during recessions did improve companies’ return on capital. It also meant, though, that they grew less quickly in the years following recessions than more free-spending competitors did. But for many companies recessions are a time when short-term considerations trump long-term potential.

This is not irrational. It’s true that the uncertainty of recessions creates an opportunity for serious profits, and the historical record is full of companies that made successful gambles in hard times: Kraft introduced Miracle Whip in 1933 and saw it become America’s best-selling dressing in six months; Texas Instruments brought out the transistor radio in the 1954 recession; Apple launched the iPod in 2001. Then again, the record is also full of forgotten companies that gambled and failed. The academics Peter Dickson and Joseph Giglierano have argued that companies have to worry about two kinds of failure: “sinking the boat” (wrecking the company by making a bad bet) or “missing the boat” (letting a great opportunity pass). Today, most companies are far more worried about sinking the boat than about missing it. That’s why the opportunity to do what Kellogg did exists. That’s also why it’s so nerve-racking to try it.

– by James Surowiecki
http://www.newyorker.com/talk/financial/2009/04/20/090420ta_talk_surowiecki

Lyn Nielsen to speak at Vistage All City Event

DATE: Thursday, May 21, 2009

LOCATION:
Mill River Club
103 Mill River road
Upper Brookville, NY 11771-0090

TIME: 7:30 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.

PRESENTATION:
Projecting When Economic Cycles Will Change
The shift in the business cycle that lies ahead, demands that we prepare our businesses for a changed set of circumstances. It’s possible to prosper during this downturn and the eventual recovery, but you need to know what indicators to look for and what major pitfalls you should avoid. Maximizing profits during 2009-2010 will be a function of facing realities of changing Phase Management Objectives™.

This presentation will equip participants with the knowledge needed to make informed, timely decisions about the future, and how to make these decisions with confidence and objectivity.

Alan Beaulieu
Alan Beaulieu has been an economist with the Institute for Trend Research (ITR) since 1989. At the institute, he has been engaged in applied research regarding business cycle trend analysis, growth cycle trend analysis, and the utilization of cyclical analysis at a practical business level. Beaulieu is a featured speaker at corporate and trade association meetings both in the U.S. and overseas.

BREAKOUT SESSIONS:

• Rich Isaac, Sandler Sales – Sales Performance and Business Development
• Deidre Seigel, Pear Staffing – Recruiting and Hiring Optimization
• Lyn Nielsen, Desktop Solutions Software – Website Marketing & Optimization
• Mitch Tobol, CGT Marketing LLC – Marketing in these Challenging Times
• Barbara DeMatteo, Portnoy, Messenger & Pearl – Employee Free Choice Act
• Jane Macina, Merrill Lynch – Portfolio Risk Evaluation

Please contact Vistage Chair, Steve Ramerini, at steve.ramerini@vistage.com or 516.551.5093 for more information on the event.

Vistage International is the world’s foremost chief executive leadership organization, providing unparalleled access to new ideas and fresh thinking through monthly peer workshops, one-on-one business coaching, speaker presentations from hundreds of top industry experts, social networking and an extensive online content library of articles, best practices, podcasts and webinars.