Orlando Search Engine Marketing Experts

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about permission marketing. We have a client who firmly believes in email marketing, only, it’s not really email marketing, it’s more, email spamming.  I can’t stand spam.  I’ve argued with this gentleman so many times, he is actually going out, scraping email addresses from the web (govt. agencies mind you) and sending out thousands of unsolicited emails. He was annoyed one day when nearly half of his outbound spam messages got sent back due to our server settings.  Needless to say, I don’t think he’ll be PUSHING his wares via email any longer.

But spam comes in many different shapes other than email:

* The stupid unsolicited telemarketers calling and asking me if I have a cracked windshield.

* The realtor postcards that I enjoy so very much in my home mailbox.

* The crappy hideous flyer’s that some putz always manages to get on my car’s windshield wiper.

* The Stupid pizza flyers placed on my home front door.

* The fliers gently shoved underneath my office door.

* The putz who comes into our office, despite all of the signs that prohibit soliciting and tries to sell us oil changes for the next 22 years.

* The PHONE Book stacked 4 books high in my driveway.

Notice the common thread with all of these intrusions? They are all just that.  I gave none of these people to give me anything, or to solicit me, or to touch my car, or to come onto my property and leave fliers on it.  Permission marketing however, gets my permission before and is NOT intrusive, and in fact, is even welcomed.  Here’s an example:  I recently purchased a MacBookPro.  Apple asked me if I’d like to learn more about how to use the machine via emailed tips: my response, absolutely.  It was a new machine, I don’t have a clue how to use one, and now BAM. I get tips from Apple WITH advertisements for the latest products.  It doesn’t phase me in the least, and I welcome it.

When it comes to marketing, are you getting your prospects permission to engage them? Or are you violating their personal space?

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Last night I had the pleasure of speaking at Lockheed Martin in Orlando regarding internet marketing to a team of light measurement experts.  My presentation covered the full range of web related ’stuff’ including internet marketing, good web design, bad web design, basic web site marketing and of course search engine optimization.  At the end of my presentation, I fielded a few questions and had the opportunity to speak a bit more in depth was some of the participants about their web sites and their particular individual marketing methods. I loved every second of it.

It truly amazes me how excited people get about this stuff.  I know how passionate I am about helping companies grow online, but seeing the nodding heads in the audience just really affirms how companies are hungry to embrace the internet and employ a solid online marketing strategy. 

One question that stood out to me from the group last night was related to direct mailings and it’s effectiveness compared to internet marketing techniques. Here are my thoughts on this valid question: Direct mail used to work, and when it did ‘work’ it was about a 1% return which pretty much means it didn’t work.  In contrast, the internet opens the doors to PULL people to you rather than to PUSH information on them.  This PUSH vs. PULL marketing mentality is far less of an imposition and far more of asserting yourself as the EXPERT in your particular industry. Once you are seen as an expert, AND your target market is seeking you, not vice versa, the tables begin to turn.

Thanks for having me Florida Photonics Cluster! I enjoyed our time together.

When things get tough economy wise, it seems that the first budget line item to go is marketing.  What a crazy approach to saving money: at a time when you need the most exposure and market reach.  We would probably be more inclined to cut down on our office jelly bean expenditures, but, to each his / her own.

In my humble opinion, SEO is the most economical method to get your business in front of targeted consumers.  You can steer SEO locally, you can steer SEO globally, you can introduce new products, you can test market with SEO, the sky is virtually the limit.  Rather than purchasing ineffective banner ads and yielding sometimes less then 0.04% of a click through ratio.  If your message is found in an organic search engine search, the click through ratio (compared to adwords, etc.) can be 65-70%.  Getting there, of course, is half the battle.

If your company is looking to reach out or expand it’s online marketing presence, give us a call at 407-830-4550. At On Target Web Solutions, we help you grow online.

It’s new, it’s exciting, it’s easy and anyone can do it!  On Target Web Solutions introduces SEO in five minutes!  You spend the one minute writing a crappy two sentence paragraph, you give us the 4 minutes to put it on your web site and then BAM, BLAMO, KAPOW, instant success and NOW your prospects  find you as NUMBER 1 in organic search engine rankings.

My friends, I wish it was that easy. One of our clients called the other day, we are contracted to do a web design for them, minus the SEO because they have programmers (there’s a joke within itself) that know how to ‘DO” SEO.  They keep reminding us as designers to place the SEO in the footer of the web site.  Their definition of SEO is literally a two sentence paragraph that repeats words over and over. OUCH.

SEO is an ongoing process, Google is a moving target, your demographic and the way that they search is a moving target. Adding a paragraph isn’t going to cut it and get you found miraculously.  When you need professional seasoned assistance with getting your web site found online, call us at 407-830-4550. On Target Web Solutions, the Search Engine Marketing Experts.

This is cool and would be wonderful if it worked:

According To Google:
“Project 10^100 is a call for ideas to change the world by helping as many people as possible”

Read more here and sign up.

One of our clients sent us some samples of web sites that they liked as a normal part of our web re design process.  The web sites that the client chose were are ‘award winning web sites’ and they (the client) would like their web site to be award winning as well, or in the same caliber.  

Well, of course, everyone would love to have a prestigious ‘award winning web site’ but my argument is this: That’s fantastic if your web site has one an award for design prowess, etc., BUT, does it sell? Does it convert? Does it lead people to the desired action? Does it call out and highlight what you sell? If it does, fantastic, but I often wonder who gives out these awards and to what criteria they are judged.  To me, an award winning web site is a web site that serves it’s purpose and improves your visibility as a company, a successful web site improves your bottom line and helps steer your market. A successful web site PULLS people in with a wealth of information and content.

Maybe we’ll start our own award process, everyone else is doing it!

Call us today to start growing your business online: less fluff, more dollars, end of story. 407-830-4550, or visit our web site to learn more.

So many clients and prospects ask me about social marketing such as stumbleupon, digg, etc. and how these tools could help them and their business grow. There is an application for everyone and I’m much more concerned about putting the client’s web site in front of the client’s proper demographic.  For example, am I going to suggest that a Florida Mortgage Companyadvertises or has a myspace presence? Nope. Wrong demographic, it just doesn’t make sense.

When it comes down to stumbleupon, digg and the likes, sure, it can generate some hefty taffic for a day or two, you can hit the mark and quadruple your web site traffic in hours, BUT, what was it worth? If people are just hitting your site to read the blog they found via stumbleupon, they are in it for the quick scan of your article, same with Digg.  Once done with scanning your article, they are gone. No sale, no cash, no contact form filled out, gone.  One potential positive (and of course, this depends on your business) is the branding opportunity. The more times people see your logo, your brand etc., the more potential of becoming a household name.

As with marketing endeavour, you need a plan. Should you be promoting your web site in facebook? Perhaps. Should you be using linkedin? Maybe. It depends on you, your business, your market and your desired goals.  Youtubehas TRIPLED companies’ profits just by utilizing a viral video approach! Speak with an internet marketing expert today at On Target Web Solutions.  Call 407-830-4550 or visit our site and learn more about internet marketing and search engine optimization.

Time for a little server geek speak: Here’s the scenario, you need to move or change a page or page extension on your website and DON’T want to lose any valuable SEO horsepower that the particular page may have had… What are your options?  Welcome redirects:

Scenario 1: Temporary move.  Not honestly sure why you would ever need to temporarily move a page, but God knows there must be a reason or they wouldn’t have invented it.  Use a 302 Redirect in your .htaccess file. This alerts Google that it’s not a permanent move.

Scenario 2:Permanent move.  Ok, the page name has changed, the page extension has changed, you need to tell Google that the x page is now y page.  Use a 301 redirect.  The 301 redirect will tell Google to transfer page rank, etc. to the newly named page. Also, if people still find that page in the organic search engine listings, once clicked, it will take them to the new page automatically. Cool stuff.

How to set it up:

If on a Linux hosting environment, you’ll need to alter the .htaccess file which should be in the root of your web directory.

Step 1: Connect to your web server with FTP, download the .htaccess using ASCII mode with your FTP program.

Step 2: Open the .htaccess in notepad: add the following line for a 301: (make sure you change the URL below)
redirect 301 /youroldpage.php3 http://www.yournewpage.com/newpage.php

Step 3:Save the .htaccess file and upload using ASCII mode to your web server.

Step 4: I’ve learned this the hard way: ALWAYS switch your ftp program back to AUTO or Binary mode for file transfers.  Uploading JPG’s in ASCII mode doesn’t work very well.

So many people think that Google page rank and organic search positioning go hand in hand.  This is simply not true.  Google page rank is basically Google’s valuation of your web site, it’s importance, it’s validity etc.  Page rank is based on many factors, not limited to content, backlinks, outbound links, etc. There is a very common misconception that if you have a higher page rank you should rank higher on a targeted search phrase then a web site with a lower page rank.

Here’s the reality.  If your competitor has focused more on that particular search phrase then you, and Google doesn’t see the relevance of that key phrase on your site, the competitor site would / should be ranking higher in the organic search engine listings.  Page rank is truly important and can determine how often Google comes back to your website to absorb content, but, if you haven’t targeted the proper key phrases / keywords, your site will still not rank high for those particular search terms.

I hear from so many prospects that have one purpose or goal in mind.  Their competition is crushing them in Google, MSN or Yahoo and their site is found everywhere.  They have one goal in mind and that is, how can I eliminate my competition in the organic search engine rankings? My response is always the same: provide fresh and relevant industry related information to the search engines and do it consistently.  Not everyone likes that answer. We all want INSTANT results, instant gratification, with the search engines, it doesn’t happen that way.

It can take months or even years to get the great google bot to pay attention to your site.  Give it what it’s looking for! Content.  Freshly served, piping hot, relevant information.  The more content you create, the more unique articles and interesting information you generate for your prospects / existing clients, the more Google will pay attention to your site and ultimately, help your organic search engine rankings.