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A website and a blog and a SHOPPING CART! All-in-one!

July 12, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Last year we began pioneering the concept of using WordPress not only for a blog, but even better using it’s content management system for a full website including the blog. Our clients saw instant search marketing results. Plus the new found ability to manage their own websites with lower costs. The win-win of a web/blogsite.

For the last few weeks I have been working to add a shopping cart to a new WordPress web/blogsite I am creating for a friend. We are doing the full site from art to design to programming/implementation. The purpose of the site is to market Trollbeads. The goal was to have a small business affordable website, that can be managed by the business owner and with superior front page organic search results, so the choice of WordPress was pretty quick.

But what for the cart? Third party shopping carts even from Yahoo or GoDaddy can cost $50 to $100+ a month plus transaction and processing fees. We wanted a less costly option with better styling options. We looked at ZenCart, osCommerce and WPe-Commerce. All of them were good and provided an excellent low cost self hosted cart with the ability extension. I was familiar with ZenCart from some other projects but wanted to try something a little different and that would not have the standard Zencart look.

WP e-Commerce is what we used for Trollbeads Trail. Like many WordPress plugins, it is free with full functionality and the upgrades with a grid layout and really cool drag and drop cart are very inexpensive. It is a little complex to setup (all shopping carts are to some degree), but very straight forward once you understand the application’s terms (the developers are from New Zealand).

The finished look is outstanding and the SEO power over the first 30 days has been even better than expected. So much so that we cloned it for a second site for the same customer replacing the existing website for her jewelry store, Santa Fe Trail Jewelry.

This is excellent for anyone wanting to increase their item sales or rental potential while keeping expenses as low as possible. Take a look at the finished site, remember it is all WordPress even the shopping cart, and let us show you how we can put this feature to work for you -

TrollbeadsTrail.com Screencap

Filed Under: Announcement, Clients, Marketing Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

What Makes a Website a Dialogue-Site

July 10, 2009 By Leave a Comment

It is well recognized that to convert a prospect to a client requires a dialog.  In the past that had to be done with a personal presentation, conversation, a phone call, a series emails or a combination of all.  The website was just a static information resource.  Now we have advanced the website to be a large page of the dialog, to become a Dialogue-Site.

A Dialogue-Site will,

  • Allow for the simple additions of new information, images and files.  Done as easily as creating and sending an email.dialogue
  • Integrate your blog within your website, directly increasing the ranking or your website and reducing traffic leakage due to people’s resistant to click into new sites.
  • Dynamically, automatically display featured content in different locations on main page and other pages within your website.
  • Allow site visitors to rate your content and even post comments.  Even support comment threading allowing true discussions to evolve on particular subjects.
  • Automatically post notifications of any new information to Facebook profiles and page and Twitter.  Yes your website will automatically Tweet your changes and also post your Tweets to the front page of your Dialog-Site.
  • Create XML sitemaps, save them and confirm notification of Google, Bing and Ask search engines to retrieve the new sitemaps.  All automatics every time you make a site change.
  • Built-in social media links on every page allowing your site visitors to bookmark and note your site on their social profiles and within their favorite social media/networks.
  • Site content syndication.  Allow off site subscriptions and reading of your site and its content updates via feedreader or direct email.  At not cost to your or your subscriber.
  • Easily add new features and pages.

See an Example of a dialogue-Site

Filed Under: Marketing, Social Media, Website marketing Tagged With: , , , , , ,

WordPress Chosen as New Website Solution for 200+ Member Event Association

July 9, 2009 By Leave a Comment

When the Tennessee Wedding & Events Specialists Association decided to replace their old website they had a long wish list. First it had to appeal to a very web savvy target market and be easy to use across multiple generations.  It needed to be updatable and expandable.  It needed to be fully optimized for both social media and search and compatible with mobile devices. It needed to integrate membership accounting functions such as membership applications and online renewal. What they chose was a website built entirely on a WordPress platform!

capture

TWESA turned to the experts at the Agency@Think to find a solution. What they got was more than they expected.

TWESA.com is a full website including extensive galleries, blogs, video and member listings all built on a WordPress platform.  It is fully integrated into social media such as Twitter and Facebook, even the calendar has its own RSS feed.  This is just what visitors see.On the non public side, members are able to post to the site as well as update their listings.

The Agency@Think included a member’s only blog that functions more like a Facebook wall or a Twitter feed. Since the private blog is fully optimized for mobile devices, members can use it as an instant way to communicate with each other while working an event. The importance of having a private one to many back channel means of communication on a busy event day is priceless.

Also an important factor in choosing WordPress was the ability to incorporate membership accounting functionality. The site now has the ability for new members to apply and pay online, members to renew or upgrade online and automatically bills members when their annual dues are up. The system generates full reports on member billing and accounting activity; eliminating many dollars previously paid to an accountant for billing and record keeping. Because WordPress integrates so easily with so many plugins, the Agency@Think was able to set the payment function up completely with in PayPal eliminating the need for and expense of a traditional shopping cart.

Search Engine Optimization is important for any website. Previously TWESA had been paying over $200 a month for SEO. With the new site, because it is built on the semantically correct WordPress Platfom the site is virtually self-optimizing. With each new post or listing the site’s search power increases. But at the end of the day it is results that count.  The new Dialog-Site website has increased search engine referrals over five fold in just its first 30 days, with no additional advertising or other time expense.

According to Vicki Sanders, President of TWESA, “When we started this project I don’t think we fully grasped the possibilities. The Agency @Think understood our needs and not only showed us what was possible, but even added functionality that would benefit us that we never even knew existed. Many of our members have WordPress blogs that they loved. So we knew how well WordPress worked for that but we were surprised at how well The Agency@Think was able to use WordPress to build an entire website on those strengths.”

Filed Under: Clients, Marketing, Social Media, Website marketing Tagged With: , , , , , ,

So What Is A Blog Anyway?

April 17, 2009 By Leave a Comment
Blogs and Blogging

Blogs and Blogging

Way back in 1998, blogging was born and in many ways is responsible for the kick off of the whole Social Media shift. Estimates vary from 77 million up to 112.8 million blogs out there. In the Technorati “State of the Blogosphere 2008”, citing the McCann Report it is estimated that 346 million or 77% of internet users read blogs regularly and that worldwide 184 million people have started a blog.(March 2008).

What caused this exponential growth? For one thing, the tools became available to make every man, woman and child, no matter how technically challenged, a citizen journalist. From free to cheap, anyone could now pop their own page up on the web and let their thoughts out into the wild. That single thing began to change our world.

Before blogs, the information available to the average citizen was controlled by big media or entities with deep enough pockets to buy and maintain a website. Today, that is no longer the case. Blogger (Blog Spot in the early days) wasn’t the first blog platform, but is certainly the one that sparked the revolution for the average man. For absolutely no money and in as little as an hour, anyone with an internet connection could have a web presence.

My how that little seed has grown. The technology behind social media has been growing as fast as the number of blogs. Led by the technorati among us, newer, better and faster tools are being launched on an almost daily basis. The brightest constellation in the blogospere today is Twitter, the micro-blogging platform. In posts of 140 characters or less, anyone with a bit of wit or wisdom and a touch of dedication can become a rockstar in their field.

Let’s look specifically at the wedding industry. Today blogs platforms have become sophisticated enough to replace websites. This site is built on a blog platform. For years small wedding vendors have struggled with their web presence, often held hostage by their web designer over any changes. Web sites were an expensive proposition that once launched, rarely were updated. By using a blogging platform, the ability to update a website at the click of a button is with in the reach of anyone willing to devote the initial time to learning the platform. Unlike the old days, that learning curve has been shorted to a few hours. On a simple to use platform like WordPress, anyone can be confidently in control of their own web presence in a few short lessons.

Why do you need any of this? Well we know that our brides are on the web, we also know that the single best way to get them to find us is through search. The best way to get good search rankings is by having lots of great, search friendly content. The more often that content is updated or added to, the better. That spells one thing, blog.

If you read yesterdays post than you already know that blogging is about sharing. My advice is to use these new tools and this new media to share your passions. You have 346 million potential readers.

Here is some further reading on blogs and blog statistics if you are interested.

State of the Blogosphere 2008

Wikipedia

Christine Boulton

Filed Under: Blog, Marketing, Social Media, Website marketing Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Internet Marketing. Do You Just Not Get How Important It Is?

March 24, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Internet Marketing. Do You Just Not Get How Important It Is?

I’m working with a client right now that has me a bit baffled.  I don’t think they quite understand how important their online marketing is.


We sat down and came up with a very simple yet comprehensive plan. Nothing fancy, just a new blog based website and an email campaign. Three weeks later…


I’m still waiting. The holdup is they want to launch the email campaign first since they already have (a very old) website and they are still compiling their email lead list. Ugh. It seems that their leads are all on paper forms that clients have filled out and they have to wait for their son to put them on the computer.


social media graphic

social media graphic

COME ON PEOPLE!
Hire a virtual assistant and have it done in an afternoon. Move forward. This stuff is important. Spend a little on this, OK?


I know that I have been preaching that social media marketing is insanely inexpensive but it’s not free. Yes, compared to conventional advertising; print, TV, radio, it is insanely cheap. If you do it yourself that is. If on the other hand, you are so unaccustomed to computers and the internet that you have to ask what Excel is then you are going to have to pay someone to do it.

Big business gets it. A new report by Aberdeen Group spotlighted by eMarketer shows that 63% of “best-in-class” companies’ surveyed plan to increase their social media budgets this year despite the recession. Another report that came out this year, The Forrester Report stated that “budgets in this emerging category (social media marketing) are still miniscule — three-quarters of marketers have $100,000 or less earmarked for social media.”

OK, admittedly no small business is going to spend that kind of money, but it doesn’t take that kind of money for a small business to buy in to social media. If you look at what you spent last year on advertising, and eliminated one print ad or reduced the size of them all across the board you could come up with more than enough to hire a professional to get you going in social media.


Hire someone to design a plan for your company and get it set up. Hire them to train you or an employee on how to use the applications. Then either take the time yourself to do it or make it the responsibility of a trusted employee. For next to nothing you are creating your own in house marketing department. It’s not rocket science people but you do have to put forth the effort to either do it yourself of pay to have it done. You can’t just not do it; you’ll get left in the dust.

Filed Under: Blog, Marketing, Website marketing Tagged With: , , , , , ,