Text, Email and Social Media Marketing Added to Our Services
By Administrator | March 12, 2010
We are proud to announce our partnership with Trumpia.
Trumpia provides text, email and social media marketing integration.
Topics: Services | No Comments »
Domain Name – How To Pick One
By Administrator | May 6, 2009
Picking a domain name should be easy, right? Why, I’ll just use my business name. Not so fast, Sparky. A good bit of thought should be given to selecting a domain name.
A Cautionary Note
Picking a domain name is like getting married. You are going to have to stick with it till the bitter end. People that use your site will come to know it by the domain name. Repeat visitors will often simply type in the domain name to get to the site, better known as “type in traffic”. As an example, do you search for “Amazon” when you want to buy a book or do simply type in amazon.com? If Amazon were to change its domain name to Desert, there would be a lot of confusion. The same goes with your domain. Once you pick something, stick with it.
Your Choices
Well, the obvious choice is your business name, but it may not be the best. There are four significant issues to consider.
First, is there something about your business name that makes using it as a domain an unwise choice? This situation typically arises if you have a long business name or have plural words. “Halstatt’s Rip’n Marketing Campaigns, Inc.” is going to be a horrible domain name. Clients are going to find it difficult to type in such a domain name.
Double letter problems are a second issue that is entirely unique to the Internet. What if Sams Salon wants to use its business name as a domain? The “s” at the end of first word and beginning of the second can cause confusion. Is the domain name Samssalon.com or Samsalon.com? Confusing your users is a bad way to run a site.
The third issue concerns the nature of your site and search engine optimization. If you are shooting for a particular keyword phrase, you may be better off using that keyword phrase in your domain name. Google, for instance, looks at the domain name when evaluating a site. If the words in your domain name are spaced with dashes, many believe it will help in the ranking process. This is why you see so many xxx-xxxx-xxx.com domain names on the net. If your business focuses on a very specific area, strong consideration should be given to using relevant keywords in your domain name.
Finally, your domain name should end in “.com” and I don’t want to hear any argument or see any rolling of the eyes. The simple fact is that when people think of sites, they always type in .com. Yes, there are other extensions and .us, .net, .biz, etc., may seem unique, but it kills your traffic. Pavlov and his dog experiments had it right. People have been mentally conditioned to type in .com, so don’t select any other ending. If you do, a smart competitor will register the .com version of your name to get some free traffic. If you are really lucky, a porn site will do it!
Take a breath before you select a domain name. Like a spouse, it can be either a good or bad choice.
Halstatt Pires is with MarketingTitan.com – a firm providing internet marketing services.
Topics: Domain Names | No Comments »
One Easy Way to Make Passwords Both Memorable and Secure
By Administrator | May 6, 2009
How many of you setup a single password for all of your logins?
And have you ever considered what would happen to your personal information if someone were to get their hands on it?
Everyday we hear nightmare stories of Stolen Identities. One way to avoid becoming the next statistic is to use unique passwords for the websites you visit. Below is one of the many ways to make passwords unique and secure. And all the while, easy to remember.
- Passwords should be at the minimum a combination of numbers and letters.
- The ideal password would also combine the numbers and letters with symbols.
- Passwords should be a minimum of 6 characters long. The ideal length of passwords should be 8 – 10 characters.
- You should use a combination of capitalized and non-capitalized letters in your password.
So how are you going to devise a password that does all of the above and still be memorable? Here is a simple strategy.
- Capitalize the third letter of a password.
- If symbols are allowed, some websites may not allow symbols, convert the vowels to a symbol:
a = @, e = 3, i = 1, o = 0, u = ^ - Start you password with two numbers, if symbols are allowed you can use the equivalent symbol for the numbers
(i.e., 1 =! , 2 = @, 3 = #, etc.).
Examples:
For the website: HomeDepot.com
Pick two favorite two digit numbers. For this example my numbers are 45 & 87.
My symbol combinations for my favorite numbers are: $% and *& respectively.
Example #1 – 8 character password
$%h0M3d3 This password uses symbols, numbers and capitalization. The password is difficult to guess and hard to crack. But if you are consistent with your personal password rules, it will be very easy for you to remember.
Example #2 – 8 character password, no symbols
45h0M3d3 This password should only be used when symbols are not allowed. It is always best to include a symbol. Please note, all the same rules applied without the symbols.
Example #3 – 13 character password
$%h0M3d3p0t*& This password uses symbols, numbers and capitalization. The password is difficult to guess and hard to crack. But if you are consistent with your personal password rules, it will be very easy for you to remember.
In this example, we used both of our favorite number combinations as symbols.
Last Example: 8 character password, symbols and a very short domain(website name):
For the website: Go.com
This provides us with a variation using all of the rules we learned before. For an eight character password, we have to juggle somethings up.
$%g0.C0m Instead of using just the domain name, we also included the suffix of “.com” by using the same rules. When used in combination, all of these passwords are considered to be very strong and hard to guess.
Here are a couple of Do’s & Don’ts
Here are some guidelines about what secure passwords should not include:
- Your name
- Your spouse’s name
- Your parent’s name
- Your pet’s name
- Your child’s name
- Names of close friends or coworkers
- Names of your favorite fantasy characters
- Your boss’s name
- Anybody’s name
- The name of the operating system you’re using
- The hostname of your computer
- Your phone number
- Your license plate number
- Any part of your social security number
- Anybody’s birth date
- Other information that is easily obtained about you
- Words such as wizard, guru, gandalf, and so on.
- Any username on the computer in any form (as is, capitalized, etc.)
- A word in the English dictionary
- A word in a foreign dictionary
- A place
- A proper noun
- Passwords of all the same letter
- Simple patterns on the keyboard, like qwerty
- Any of the above spelled backwards
- Any of the above followed or prepended by a single digit
Good passwords:
- Have both upper and lower case letters
- Have digits and/or punctuation characters as well as letters
- Are easy to remember, so they do not have to be written down
- Are seven or eight characters long
- Can be typed quickly, so someone else cannot look over your shoulder
For addtional resources:
SecurityStats.com This site has a great tool to test the strength of your passwords along with some other useful tips.
Microsoft.com Has a wonderful article about Strong passwords: How to create and use them you can read this by clicking here.
While there are many different strategies commonly used in customizing passwords, I have found this to be the easiest to remember for multiple websites. Another great way of managing passwords is to use a software based program. There are many available for both PC’s and Mac’s. A Google search using the phrase of “password manager mac” or “password manager pc” will provide you with an abundant list of alternatives.
Topics: Passwords | 1 Comment »
How To Write a Company Profile: Keys to Succeed
By Administrator | May 6, 2009
A great company profile can engage and attract the right customers or supporters for a business, or it can bore them to sleep driving them to your competitors which are easily googled in seconds.
For media attention, a business needs an intriguing profile to entice editors or reporters to gain an understanding of the company’s mission, products, services, personnel and uniqueness.
To acquire financing, a comprehensive company profile should be submitted with a business plan to feature unique qualifications of the company or personnel, that aren’t generally outlined in a business plan.
Without a well-crafted company profile, a company may not be attracting the best candidates when posting job descriptions, or even suppliers and vendors to help them grow.
THREE STEPS TO FOLLOW
These 3 steps will help any company craft a commendable company profile that is true to your vision, perception and even beliefs. Visit our site if you just want our tool that writes your profile for you.
- Provide useful information in lay person’s terminology. A profile should include key personnel, descriptions of the company’s products or services in a manner that laypersons, as well as industry personnel, can comprehend. Why?Because, a reporter might be looking for relevant businesses for a story they are preparing. Naturally, including your company could possibly bring great ‘free exposure’ to your intended market (if it’s a positive story, of course). But if the reporter — or anyone else who is googling the product/service you provide — cannot figure out what you offer, your profile won’t help sell your products, nor entice media to interview your company personnel.This does not mean you cannot include high level industry information, just be sure to also include some easy-to-comprehend lay terminology in your description.
- Infuse some personality A great company profile should be filled not only with descriptions of products (or services), but also some sense or personality
of the business’ culture. Adding information about the company’s purpose, community support or mission (not one of those trite mission statements, though) can add human personality to a profile, thus adding interest to the reader.People relate to people. So, add something from a human perspective.Your business could explain how profits benefit local animal shelters or homeless populations or you might even employ a humorous style in the description if it’s appropriate to the company’s products.
My own profile talks about my belief that ’marketing is a spiritual practice’ because in my experience a company thrives the closer it matches it’s values and
purpose that is at the ’soul’ of that company. No, it’s got nothing to do with religion. But it has everything to do with marketing not being hype, but being a deeply felt expression of a company’s core competency, attracting clients who are right for one’s company–that’s the reason to infuse personality.I’ve always enjoyed the clever and silly product descriptions of Benefit Cosmetics–and I don’t even wear makeup. The company’s co-founders are twins who feel they ‘benefit’ by learning from each other. They share this love by, yes, ‘benefitting’ the Big Brothers and Big Sisters of America. Hype or personality? You be the judge. Either way, it grabs a readers attention.
- Claim your unique assets. By explaining a founder’s uniquely circuitous route to the company’s development, or stating the special awards and honors a company has garnered, the donations or volunteering it’s employees provide the community, it gives the reader some grasp of how the company is unique, special or different from others in it’s same category. Elaborating a bit on the education, training, credentials or experience of personnel excites customers and helps them identify the company that fits their own beliefs and criteria.Being generic and obtuse in your company description makes it really hard for any readers to understand why they would want to do business with a company or buy products/services that sound like any others.Above all else, be honest and interesting, since plenty of bland, boring and hype-filled profiles already abound.
Allison Bliss Consulting is one of the top full service marketing & communications firms in the San Francisco Bay Area. Their website has a tool for businesses that writes your company profile for you. Instead of paying a writer $500+ for a profile, this tool ($24.99) asks a series of questions and assembles answers
into a complete, professional company profile.
Allison Bliss Consulting, rebels against misleading, pushy, spam-filled marketing offering Fortune 500 companies and entrepreneurs customized business and marketing services which clients say brings “incredible, measurable results”. With an award-winning background in film & television, the company brings talented teams of designers, web experts, commercial creatives, writers and publicists creating marketing strategy, web optimizing, promotional materials, and one-on-one consulting services. Allison’s “Knowledge is Bliss” differentiates businesses with clear positioning to stand apart from the crowd. 510-864-8500.
EMAIL: abliss@allisonbliss.com.
Topics: Content(Writing), Uncategorized | No Comments »
How to Pick a Good Domain or Website Name?
By Administrator | May 6, 2009
When working with clients, the topic of how to pick a good domain name or website address has come up on many occasions. To answer this question, I have gone ahead and wrote the following article.
So how do you pick a good domain name? Many of the obvious names have already been taken. So it might be time to get a little creative. But first let’s discuss some of the factors that are used when deciding what is or what is not a good domain name.
- Memorability – If a potential customer is driving down the road and spots your website name on your truck, will they remember it? Georgethebuilder.com vs. georgegc.com
- Brand-ability – domains like toysRus.com and babiesRus.com Do you want to build or continue your brand?
- Readability – Here’s one example I found, stoplitter.com vs. killlitter.com
- Keyword value – if you’re a concrete contractor, having the word concrete in your domain name will be very helpful for 1) telling your customer’s what your company is about and 2) and probably more important, will help in the SEO or search engine optimization of your website. In a nutshell, SEO well done allows search engines like Yahoo and Google find your website easily.
- Length – If all things were equal the less letters in your domain the better. People who have your business card or see it on a truck are more likely to enter your website on their computer than not if you have a shorter domain. But, we don’t need to get too carried away with this, after all the majority of the people who will be visiting your site will be coming via a search engine.
- Unintended meanings – here’s a fun one…Pen island combine the words and add a dot com and you have…penisland.com (enough said)
- Syllables – long names can be shortened with commonly used abbreviations. TomsDoorCompany.com could easily be shortened to TomsDoorCo.com
- Legality – make sure your domain isn’t trademarked, if you can even get it.
- Don’t even think about – naming your company’s website RonaldMcDonaldPlumbing.
- Availability – your potential website name must be available for purchase. One easy way to check is to go to goDaddy and enter your proposed domain in the “Start a Domain Name search” box.
- Lastly, your first and frankly only priority is to find a domain name with the .COM Most of you make a living from your companies. Having a domain with the .BIZ is considered by most to be a low level domain and not worthy of a professional organization. The other domains like .NET, .ORG, .CC, .INFO all have a purpose, but for the vast majority of you, stay away.
Talk among family and friends and ask their suggestions. I’m sure you will find a whole list of options. Unless of course you are one of the lucky ones, and your company name is available. And if you get stuck, here are a few helpful websites that provide tools to help you pick out a great domain name. instantdomainsearch , domize and Bust-A-Name
Once you have picked out your favorite domain name, go ahead and register it with a company like goDaddy. Now some people would like you think it’s necessary to capture all other TLD’s (Top Level Domains) for the chosen domain, for most, it’s an unnecessary expense.
Topics: Domain Names | 1 Comment »