When Unleaded Software released its Kindle book on Amazon entitled “NONSTOP: Uncommonly Good Advice About Taking The Internet To New Levels,” we hoped to influence a global SEO Internet audience. We never seriously expected that our audience of promoters would extend to New Dehli (as in NOT pastrami), but today we learned that our online resource book is being promoted by the Indian experts on internet SEO.
Thus, while we stand proudly behind our American roots and we are loyal to protecting jobs and careers keeping all of our productivity inside the U.S.A., we’re getting global props. And frankly, nothing feels, well, more deserved.
Our only outstanding question: how much is $6.95 in rupees?
For SEO that ranks, contact ryan@unleadedgroup.com.
To purchase “NONSTOP,” go to: http://www.amazon.com/Nonstop-Uncommonly-advice-Internet-ebook/dp/B002RL9KWY%3FSubscriptionId%3DAKIAJZO3MQ7Q5AC567OA%26tag%3Dsoftishop-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3DB002RL9KWY
Unleaded continues to invest in technology to do business better so that our clients can enjoy improved positioning on web searches. Using Urchin gives Unleaded 20-20 insight into real business metrics.
It’s not enough today to just have a website; it’s got to show up on web searches so that customers can find your business and services. With fewer Yellow Pages left on your doorstep today (even the bigger printed directories are filing bankruptcy), it becomes ever more important for businesses to actively engage in SEO efforts that will let their key words rise to the top of the search.
Urchin is just one of the tools that can improve that ranking and Unleaded has invested in this technology so that its SEO experts can best manage its clients’ positioning on the search engines.
Urchin allows Unleaded’s SEO team to see ROI while accurately measuring conversion rates. The addition of these valuable metrics to Unleaded’s SEO offerings means that tactical positioning of well-chosen keywords as well as detecting errors will improve clients’ optimization.
Contact Unleaded today to initiate an SEO campaign that will work in your favor. 720-221-7126.
In a down economy, cost of service is a diversion. Actually, it’s bigger than a diversion; it becomes the entire topic. And it extends to every level of our life strategy. Where once we might not have given a second thought to planning ahead for Tuesday Burger Night ($4.95 off of the regular $8.95) offered Tuesday nights only; now we make a plan to forego Saturday night out and smugly remind ourselves of the savings on Tuesday, relishing it like a second course on Saturday in front of the TV at home with a bowl of microwave popcorn.
The diversion comes in when cost results in our making choices that later on we may regret.
Take the Internet for instance.
To a fledgling business, the idea of getting a website designed and hosted for only $50/month sounds enticing. There are several online options to get exactly that at only $50 a month. The catch is that the $50 a month is a commitment to 3 or more years. And not only small mom-and-pop businesses are getting caught, by the way. Sometimes a marketing director in a growing concern, a marketing director who has too much on his/her plate and needs to get a website up fast without all the rigmarole that can be inherent in such a big decision as a website, turns to one of these cheap commons as a Band-Aid solution.
Only trouble is, the Band-Aid becomes a tourniquet if the business decides to change its Internet plan prior to the end of the contract term.
Recently we assisted a large enterprise in regaining ownership of its domain name held hostage by a design+hosting company. Our client’s former marketing director had elected to go with a $50 a month website design + hosting for a term of 3 years. Our client’s products and changed over that time as had their position in their market sector: combat armor and law enforcement armor. They wanted a new and impressive website presence and it wasn’t possible with the limitations of the web company they were bound to by a contract.
The cost of the buyout: $1200 to get out of the contract early and to release their domain name. Not to mention the nearly 40 hours of the new marketing director’s time trying to make the switch happen.
Talk about stalling: the web hosting firm required that the marketing director sent them a color copy of his driver’s license…just one of dozens of hurdles in the transfer process. The hosting company demanded that the marketing director fax them the color copy of his driver’s license.
Whoa, think about it. Faxes only fax in black ink whether or not the driver’s license is 4-color.
At the end of the day, the website got transferred, thanks to Unleaded Software’s team. Go to our client’s website www.kdhdefensesystems.com.
If you’re caught in a similar bind—held hostage by your hosting company—contact Unleaded today at 720-221-7126.
Are you in an industry that matters in 2010? Check your SIC code against the IBISWorld ranking of Growth/No Growth industries by revenue to find out:
Best Performing Industries in the Coming Decade of 2010 – 2019
VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol)
Retirement & Pension Plans
Biotechnology
eCommerce & Online Auctions
Environmental Consulting
Video Games
Trusts & Estates
Search Engines
Recycling Facilities
Land Development
Once you’ve vetted your industry against Wall Street’s projections, contact Unleaded Software at 720-221-7126 or email jarod@unleadedsoftware.com for a proposal to advance your website to meet the demands of this next generation Internet success.
I included in the circle of love…that being Obama’s inner circle of White House communications. That’s because I get daily updates via email from David Axelrod, White House Senior Advisor. How do I rate this first-hand news? I’m chalking it up to the letter of complaint I sent the President in July. Fed up with credit card company abuses and increases in health care costs, I had to have my say. So I emailed and snail-mailed my letter of complaint.
Suddenly, the White House knew how to find me. And they did…via continuing email updates from Axelrod on the state of our nation plus a letter on White House stationary, real embossed White House stationery from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue with a signature that looks every bit like President Obama’s.
Whether you’re aligned with Obama’s politics or not, you’ve got to admit that he’s the master of communications. The fact that he’d respond (okay, I’m fairly certain it was his staff) to my letter illustrates that he understands not just the power of the presidency, but the power of communicating.
He used Twitter, Facebook and YouTube to campaign in 2008. The proof is in the keyboard: he now occupies the White House and he’s recently issued his second Twitter message just prior to the Massachusetts election for Senator to replace Ted Kennedy (D).
More important than the Presidential Tweet, is the fact that the metrics used to predict that the GOP would win the vacated senate seat were the number of Facebook Fans and the number of Tweets on Twitter prior to and the day of voting. In the neck-and-neck election, Scott Brown ® won the U.S. Senate Seat by 51.9% of the vote compared to Martha Coackley (D) at 47.1%. -
Submitted by Nancy Clark 1-23-2010
Get your campaign-business to politics-geared up to win using social media with the help of Unleaded Group. Contact us today at 720-221-7126 or visit us on the web at www.unleadedgroup.com.
In a down economy, cost of service is a diversion. Actually, it’s bigger than a diversion; it becomes the entire topic. And it extends to every level of our life strategy. Where once we might not have given a second thought to planning ahead for Tuesday Burger Night ($4.95 off of the regular $8.95) offered Tuesday nights only; now we make a plan to forego Saturday night out and smugly remind ourselves of the savings on Tuesday, relishing it like a second course on Saturday in front of the TV at home with a bowl of microwave popcorn.
The diversion comes in when cost results in our making choices that later on we may regret.
Take the Internet for instance.
To a fledgling business, the idea of getting a website designed and hosted for only $50/month sounds enticing. There are several online options to get exactly that at only $50 a month. The catch is that the $50 a month is a commitment to 3 or more years. And not only small mom-and-pop businesses are getting caught, by the way. Sometimes a marketing director in a growing concern, a marketing director who has too much on his/her plate and needs to get a website up fast without all the rigmarole that can be inherent in such a big decision as a website, turns to one of these cheap commons as a Band-Aid solution.
Only trouble is, the Band-Aid becomes a tourniquet if the business decides to change its Internet plan prior to the end of the contract term.
Recently we assisted a large enterprise in regaining ownership of its domain name held hostage by a design+hosting company. Our client’s former marketing director had elected to go with a $50 a month website design + hosting for a term of 3 years. Our client’s products and changed over that time as had their position in their market sector: combat armor and law enforcement armor. They wanted a new and impressive website presence and it wasn’t possible with the limitations of the web company they were bound to by a contract.
The cost of the buyout: $1200 to get out of the contract early and to release their domain name. Not to mention the nearly 40 hours of the new marketing director’s time trying to make the switch happen.
Talk about stalling: the web hosting firm required that the marketing director sent them a color copy of his driver’s license…just one of dozens of hurdles in the transfer process. The hosting company demanded that the marketing director fax them the color copy of his driver’s license.
Whoa, think about it. Faxes only fax in black ink whether or not the driver’s license is 4-color.
At the end of the day, the website got transferred, thanks to Unleaded Software’s team. Go to our client’s website www.kdhdefensesystems.com.
Anyone in business today is bombarded with calls by supposed SEO experts wanting to sell them google words or SEO services. The sales reps make it seem that any moron can write SEO that works. Some of their job descriptions insist that the writer have “at least one year’s experience.”
If you understand SEO at all, you know that it takes a greater skill level than one year, as well as a deep understanding of how the Internet Search Engines work.
A marketing-SEO copywriter is used to write copy that gains prime search engine placement. Compelling content converts site traffic into sales.
Unleaded Software is a leader in providing organic SEO content that not only drives traffic that converts to business (translation ROI), but also grows the value of the website organically by adding to the content in an SEO-conscious manner.
An exceptional SEO writer knows how to:
Develop SEO-friendly web content to include strategic key-phrase placement within compelling marketing copy, maximizing opportunities for indexing, ranking, click-throughs and conversation
Writing and editing articles
Writing and editing press releases
Writing blog posts
Creating content to increase organic search engine traffic to websites
Continued research into search engine operations and preferred techniques
Conducting keyword research and competitive research to target popular keywords
A good SEO author must also know how to work in Microsoft Office, Word and Excel. They have to be able to multi-task and think. Work ethic, that’s a given.
Bottom line, you can’t achieve optimum SEO if you’re doing it like the next guy. At Unleaded Software, we write compelling press releases with keywords and phrases built into the copy, almost like a puzzle in order to achieve top rankings in google searches and on other search engines. Alternatively, we write blogs for clients weaving essential keywords into the copy.
If you’re at a loss as to the keywords that are king in your own industry, talk with your receptionist. They’re the ones who take the telephone inquiries about your business and the same kinds of words callers use can be inserted into effective SEO.
First came mobile phones; then Mobile web. This nascent industry is growing faster than anticipated simply due to convenience. We eat on the go; isn’t getting information on the go simply second nature. And who’s got the money to make repeated calls to 411, especially when the automated systems can’t hear your call, routing you to a live person who will 9 times out of 10 insist that “There is no such listing for your criteria.”
You could be standing in front of your bank and the mobile 411 operator will tell you that no such telephone number exists. If you insist on elevating the question to someone with authority, you get put on hold. With 411 calls costing what they do today (even the sweetest mobile phone plan makes its bucks off your 411 back), the only sensible thing to do is go mobile with your internet.
Increasingly cell phones support Internet browsing. The additional applications flooding the market make an Internet-ready the biggest opt-in in communications today. The number of websites geared up for mobile devices will most certainly increase dramatically. Google wins hands-down as the one mobile website on everybody’s fav list. This greatest search engine in history can function as a homepage for your smartphone while delivering you stock quotes, movie times and tomorrow’s weather forecast.
Unleaded Software has just released the hottest new mobile site for anyone living in Colorado. www.cherrycreeknorth.com and the Cherry Creek Mall are truthfully Number One on the tourist hit list for all of this beautiful state. On the one hand, it defies logic when you consider the state has a panorama of snow-capped peaks, purple mountain majesty and amber waves of grain. On the other hand, shopping translates to stimulus. Somebody’s gotta do it.
Contact jarod@unleadedgroup.com to learn more about how Unleaded Software can turn your website into a mobile magnet.
What with the struggling economy, businesses everywhere are looking for more “bang for their buck” in marketing efforts, and there is no better place to begin than with an e-newsletter.
An e-newsletter is a great vehicle to reach out regularly to a businesses’ chief source of new revenue: existing customers. While it is possible to reach out for new customers, e-mail Spam regulations place some restrictions on these efforts, but with existing relationships there are little or no barriers to entry. Businesses, trade associations, merchant groups, and any others with affinity marketing needs, use e-newsletters as a way to stay in touch, tout specials or events, provide a forum for ideas, and just as a reminder of the special relationship a customer or member has with the business or group. They are usually prepared and distributed as often as every week, or monthly or quarterly, and they are excellent tools to maintain and grow relationships.
If you’ve been paying attention to advertising on radio, TV and even in print, you’ve probably heard of several companies reaching out to sell the wonders of e-newsletter marketing and, of course, their services. Chief among these new services is Constant Contact - a big, multimedia advertiser of late - and another service which we find more easy to use called iContact. There are others, of course, but these appear to be the leaders in the emerging field.
Essentially what they offer are boilerplate and generic templates, platforms, or formats, for e-newsletters, and email address management systems that handle the distribution of the newsletters. Additionally, these services can also provide platforms for email promotions, event invitations and e-surveys. These platforms and formats can run from very simple to those which include such sophistications as RSS feeds, and links to flash and video.
What these services lack, in the opinion of our team here at Unleaded Software, is readily available custom capabilities that allow the e-marketer the ability to better brand its marketing efforts. In other words, these boilerplate formats are limited, so many of the e-newsletter created through the services look strikingly similar; this, we believe, will only exacerbate as more small business, and even larger firms, sign up.
However, Constant Contact and iContact don’t require that a company use their templates. It is not only possible, but we believe prudent to custom-design an e-newsletter, and the other, complementary components, to better brand the effort, and then use the services for e-mail address management. That’s where Unleaded Software comes in.
We have already created many custom-designed e-newsletters on behalf of clients, and we believe they cut through the clutter of e-mail, while at the same time supporting the web home pages of these marketers. We are in the business of creating, building and maintaining dynamic web sites for scores of businesses, and we firmly believe that expanding the power of a web-site presence through the use of a complementary e-newsletter enhances the effectiveness of both efforts. They are synergistic.
In one example of our work in this area, we created the website for the Cherry Creek North, the highly popular shopping, dining and service area in central Denver. Each merchant member of the group has a page on the web site to tout their services, and to provide the vital location and contact information, often to their own web sites, and this is all within a comprehensive association web site that speaks to Cherry Creek North and organizes it offerings. In support of this, we created an e-newsletter, distributed twice a month to a wide range of e-mail addresses representing customers of the various shops, services and restaurants within the area, regularly giving shoppers and diners updates on specials, events, and opportunities. It has been overwhelmingly well received.
In another example, we have created an online trade magazine, called Corporate Apparel Magazine, which is a twice-a-month, custom-designed educational tool for more than 64,000 promotional products distributors throughout the United States. Recipients appreciate the editorial content, of course, and apparel-supplier advertisers love the reach, however the biggest single reaction we have found in the early going is that people love the design - it stands out from the pack.
There are lots of rules and regulations regarding e-newsletters - opt-in, opt-out mandates, for instance - but also many opportunities to expand the reach of a company’s web site and, most importantly, it’s brand, through the thoughtful design, launch and maintenance of a great e-newsletter. Here at Unleaded Software we offer a full range of e-newsletter services - custom design, writing, assistance with distribution, optimization strategies - to make any business a winner at e-marketing.
Unleaded Software’s “mega-branded” website (www.unleadedsoftware.com) was named to the top five in internet space in the “Web Designer’s idea Book” by Patrick McNeil, creator of www.designmeltdown.com. As one of the foremost internet analysts, McNeil included Unleaded Software’s website met the criteria for mega branding because of use of color, theme, style, type, element and structure.
McNeil refers to mega brands as having the “wow factor.” At Unleaded Software, a member of the Unleaded Group, we like to call it “woo woo.” We design our website and our clients’ sites to be memorable. Our own site showcases what we can do—applying that to the needs of the client.
Our goal is to give a site character so that visitors feel as if they get opportunity to know the business-owners or vendors. It’s a comprehensive process layered on starting with a logo and consistency. Consistency is the backbone of branding. It’s what allows you to know that a yellow letter “M” is a beacon of a McDonald’s franchise no matter where you are in the country or the world.
Ways to achieve the woo woo:
- Create a dynamic and easily recognizable logo.
- Use a green screen technology to go “live” as you meet your new customer via the web.
- Add a video. It is the hottest thing going on the web. You can also use it to promote your site on social networking sites like youtube.com, myspace.com and facebook.com.
- Simplify. Sites that are easy to navigate are the most convenient. In our instant gratification-driven world, guests turn to search engines like google to find information immediately. Use search engine optimization to make sure your site is at the top of the search results list so you can get the info out to the target market.
- Use succinct copy that gets the message across without taking too much time to read.
Remember: personality reigns. On the web your personality can be anything you want it to be as long as you know how to create it. But, just like in person, if you don’t cultivate it you will be lackluster.
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