Internet Marketing, Online Advertising, Search Engine Marketing, SEO Industry

Google Increases Internet and Intranet Search Productivity and IT Cost Savings

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Warholic) — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 16:25:00 +0000

The implementation of various Google business solutions for making things better, easier, faster, more efficient, more productive, improved cost savings for businesses looking for ways of searching for data within corporate intranets, and improving online collaborations between workers was the focus at the Google Innovation seminar.

Cloud Computing The Google Way

Wow, What A Google Day!

I got a chance to attend a really informative half day Google Innovation seminar held at the Santa Clara Marriott today. The conference theme was how Google is innovating for businesses in the form of cloud computing applications and passing cost savings through some really wild changes for IT departments to save tons of time and money over traditional ways of finding, sharing, and the securing of all internal data, along with major improvements in the productivity of workers and huge cost savings to both big and small enterprise companies.

Read more about the cloud computing concepts at the Google Innovation for Business seminar, along with a first hand look at what the opposition (Microsoft) had to say.

Improve your online search engine exposure for your business website with professional Internet marketing services from Professional Web Services today.

Online Advertising For Today

noreply@blogger.com (James A. Warholic) — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 00:10:00 +0000

Good advertising is a natural extension of marketing.

Marketing and advertising go hand in hand. Doing one without taking into account the other is like eating a steak without a good baked potato. Edgar Watson Howe, an American novelist and a newspaper and magazine editor in the late 19th and early 20th centuries put it this way, "Doing business without advertising is like winking at a girl in the dark. You know what you are doing but nobody else does."

When the internet was in its infancy, with only a few million pages of information, getting your message in front of the right audience was much easier, as compared to today. Why the difference? The bottom line is that it mainly has to do with the billions of new webpages online today. In fact, the number of websites going online is very difficult to calculate at any given moment. But, at the midpoint of 2007, the total base of domain name registrations worldwide was 138 million across all of the Top Level Domain Names. This represents a 31 percent increase over the same quarter last year. (VeriSign) Every country has its own top level domains, with over 840 domain name registrars worldwide. Keep in mind, that while the number of Domain Names for all Top Level Domains are able to be counted, this does not accurately reflect the true nature of the actual number of websites online today. With subdomain names being considered as separate websites, the true number of websites online is substantially greater. Many Second Level Domain names have thousands if not millions of subdomains, each having hundreds or thousands of webpages. Take for example, www.blogger.com. The .com represents the top level domain name, and Blogger represents the second-level domain (SLD) names, and the www and all others represent third or higher level domain names and are also known as subdomains. Here are two other examples of subdomains on top of second-level domains. See Advertising.pwebs.net and B2B.SalesAndMarketing.ws both of which are separate websites.

How Are Search Engines a Marketing Force Factor?

So, it really comes back to understanding search engines and how they will display the results for any particular search query. Imagine how many times your particular keywords of your business are used throughout all of the webpages online. Google gives an estimate as to the actual number of pages that have a particular keyword or keywords within the webpages themselves.

As you can see, to display any business online, within the natural search results takes quite a bit of webpage and website optimization to develop the keywords within the site, and the time and Web patience in developing quality links back to the pages of a website. Quality links back to webpages effectively provide a type of authority vote online that the page represents what it is talking about. During this period of time when the website is being optimized for its keywords, there is another way of quickly getting a business found online. This is through online advertising models.

Online advertising for today represents a viable solution to bringing in new customers and leads through the internet. Advertising online also is a great tool for testing and evaluating additional horizontal or vertical markets for any business today. Advertising campaigns can probe the market places quickly and help determine if there really is an additional horizontal or vertical market or markets in which to concentrate your company's Internet marketing dollars and other forms of marketing efforts upon.

Professional Web Services is a company that has the experience for developing new markets through effective online advertising solutions and internet marketing know-how to bring in new customers via the Net. Contact Professional Web Services today for a free internet marketing evaluation of your business website.

Google, Yahoo, or Microsoft Advertising?

noreply@blogger.com (James A. Warholic) — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 17:47:00 +0000

Where to place your advertising dollars online...

The following chart is showing where most of the searches are occurring. When deciding where to invest your online advertising dollars, it might look like Google is the only place to invest, however, depending on your particular business, whether technical oriented, business oriented, or consumer oriented; it is probably a wise decision to try some test advertising campaigns in Yahoo and Microsoft also.

In October, Google Sites increased its lead atop the core search ranking with 58.5 percent of U.S. searches, gaining 1.5 share points versus the previous month. Yahoo! Sites ranked second with 22.9 percent, followed by Microsoft Sites (9.7 percent), Ask Network (4.7 percent) and Time Warner Network (4.2 percent).

comScore Core Search Report* October 2007 Total U.S. – Home/Work/University Locations Source: comScore qSearch 2.0



Core Search Entity	Share of Searches (%)
Core Search Entity	Sep - 07	Oct -07	Point Change Oct-07 vs. Sep-07
Total Core Search	100.0%	100.0%	0.0
Google Sites	57.0%	58.5%	1.5
Yahoo! Sites	23.7%	22.9%	-0.8
Microsoft Sites	10.3%	9.7%	-0.6
Ask Network	4.7%	4.7%	0.0
Time Warner Network	4.3%	4.2%	-0.1

* Based on the five major search engines including partner searches and cross-channel searches. Searches for mapping, local directory, and user-generated video sites that are not on the core domain of the five search engines are not included in the core search numbers.

In October, Americans conducted 10.5 billion searches at the core search engines, marking a 12-percent increase versus September. More than 6.1 billion core searches were conducted at Google Sites during the month (up 15 percent), while Yahoo! Sites recorded 2.4 billion (up 8 percent). All core search engines posted solid gains in search query volume in October.

Contact Professional Web Services for help with your Internet marketing today.

Local Internet Marketing

noreply@blogger.com (James A. Warholic) — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 15:40:00 +0000

Local Home Builders are Tapping into the Internet to Increase Home Sales

This story reflects the true nature of what is happening with the Internet and sales generated. Other homebuilders need to look at the following results of what has happened with Lennar and apply those lessons learned into their own home building domains.

For example, in June, Lennar had 251 Internet generated leads and 255 live chat sessions (roughly 7.5 per day). By the end of the month, the internet team helped drive 20% of the total homes sold. In July, the number are even more impressive with internet leads reaching 439 and roughly 25% of sales impacted by one of the internet avenues of communication. The most recent results indicate that the internet channel played an active role with just over 40% of home sales in August.

Read more Local Internet Marketing for Home Sales

In the age of the Internet that we live in, all businesses would be wise to consider the importance of using Internet marketing to get their message out. Local, National, or International searching for products or services provided by your company may be missing the buyers' eyes in the search engine results pages.

What is your business about? Business Services, Consumer Services, Electronics, Technology Services, Biotechnology, Industrial Equipment Supplier, Manufacturing, Computer Products, Medical Equipment, Health Care, Real Estate, Wholesale and Retail, B2B or B2C, or Small Business; if your pages are not found online, how will customers discover your business on the Internet?

Contact Professional Web Services for the Internet marketing solution.

Sales Oriented Internet Marketing

noreply@blogger.com (James A. Warholic) — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 03:47:00 +0000

Is Your Online Marketing and Business Website Sales Oriented?

With much online talk about having information for the search engines to find, and information from a marketing and advertising standpoint, many times the overlooked area for Internet marketing are the call to action items or lack thereof.

Information is certainly one of the prerequisites for any website to have today. But, it is important to consider that while a web page can be an information provider, it should also have a call to sales oriented action item.

Call to action items as the name implies requires something for the reader to do. For example, having a web page and not giving a link to provide more information is leaving your reader hanging. If a visitor reads a page and finds it interesting, then provide a call to action that is creative, engaging, and highlights the topic at hand. Simply saying contact us is not the best way to do it. Having a hyper link to a contact page is good, but an even better solution is to engage the reader to interact with the page topic itself. If you are talking about your product or service then provide a colorful means of enticement to click a link. Consider using the words of the product or service in the call to action item.

If you are offering a free consultation then hyperlink the words free consultation.

With billions of web pages on the Internet, a business needs to get a little more creative in their marketing approach to Internet marketing. Engineers, buyers, and consumers are tired of the same approach. Give them something different, something that is of perceived value, and the contact conversions will occur much more frequently.

This also factors into another topic of online advertising. Online advertising in the form of Pay-per-click (PPC) and Pay-per-thousand views (PPM) are two of the more common types today. Each of these forms of advertising require some form of landing pages. Even banner ads, when clicked on take a web surfer to a landing page. If your landing pages are not sales oriented, it is likely that your business will not have very good sales conversions. Each click of the mouse is a step in a potential customer becoming a true customer. Don't leave them hanging on a page with them saying to themselves, "that's nice but now what?" Don't make them scroll to the top of the page in order to contact the sales department. This is especially true for the B2B Business to business buyer, because chances are they are ready to get more information if they clicked on your ad in the first place.

So, before you spend a ton of money on an online advertising campaign, make sure your website is properly set up with call to action items, with hyperlinks in the copy of the pages, and engaging text that is sales oriented.

For your B2B and B2C business solution, contact Professional Web Services for your free Internet marketing evaluation.

Search Engine Strategies Week In Review

noreply@blogger.com (James A. Warholic) — Sat, 25 Aug 2007 07:32:00 +0000

SES San Jose, CA

Professional Web Services attended the annual SES, Search Engine Strategies Conference in San Jose, California this week. The conference was filled with the mega search companies Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft, new upstarts, and many other companies selling their wares.

The show is always a good opportunity to talk with numerous experts within the industry and see some of the new ideas in marketing and advertising online, website analytics, and various affiliates.

The highlight of the SES Conference in the past has been the Google Dance, and this year was no exception.

See more on the Google Dance below.

Here are some of the pictures from the Search Engine Strategies Show.

Professional Web Services provides the solution for your business. Our business is helping your business grow.

For promoting your business through Search Engine Strategies, contact Professional Web Services, your Internet marketing solution provider.

B2B Marketing Strategies - Teamwork

noreply@blogger.com (James A. Warholic) — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 23:57:00 +0000

Strategic Marketing a B2B, Business to Business Company Involves Teamwork From The President Down

Getting everyone on the same page for B2B marketing strategies can sometimes be the toughest part of a president's job. As Internet marketing specialists, Professional Web Services needs to get the feedback from our business customers, concerning their customers through the sales and marketing personnel of what is happening with online advertising campaigns, website landing pages, information requests, referral leads, and current and future products or services. In addition to this direct information from sales and marketing, there is a need from the engineering department to provide the nuts and bolts information of what is being designed, manufactured, or fabricated for their business customers. All of this information must be taken into account when maintaining a website.

As technology changes, or improvements are made in the manufacturing processes, it is important to share the information in a way that does not directly divulge intellectual property rights of either the business being served, nor of the company processes themselves. Simply staying quiet is no longer an option for businesses today. B2B Businesses jump ship as quickly as they can do a search online for the next manufacturer, fabricator, or the technology expert that can solve a problem with a (Wow I didn't know I could do that!) new solution.

In addition to the competitive nature of just about every industry on the planet today, there is an international competitiveness, that the Internet has made our planet into a very small world indeed. China for one example has become a powerhouse. With their low overhead in labor rates, along with their relatively week adherence to pollution controls, companies in the developed sectors are having their products, OEM parts, and components built in China at a fraction of the cost of what any of the developed countries in the world can build them for.

Take for example, the PCB industry. As recently as ten years ago, the United States was king in the manufacturing of printed circuit boards. However, the Internet has made the United States a past performance item for PCB manufacturing. I have visited many printed circuit shops and can tell you that the United States can't build a circuit board at the prices that are quoted from China. The raw materials, laminate prices, copper costs, and carbide drills alone are more than what many of the boards can be built here in the USA.

The Internet has also made it easy to transfer information at light speed from one end of the globe to the other. Computers process the data in a fraction of a second. Software programs are used in India to generate the circuit board data from Gerber files. Drill and rout programs can automatically be generated and then transferred to a Chinese manufacturing plant where labor rates are a fraction of anywhere else in the world.

Businesses have squeezed their suppliers so much, that many of them have simply gone out of business. Is there any doubt, in anyone's mind that we are living in a very competitive landscape? For this reason alone, it is important to maximize a business's exposure online.

The Online Landscape

But, that brings us back to the teamwork scenario. A B2B business has to work as a team from all facets, in order to maximize the marketing potential available through the online landscape. The online landscape is ripe for opportunities. To take advantage of the situation is like playing a baseball game. Everyone must work together in order for the team to be successful. Take for example of managing an online advertising campaign. Web metrics can only do so much. Sure a person can figure out the conversion from impressions to clicks, but can a person tell with Web metrics alone, how many of these clicks became actual customers? No way. Web metrics can give you an idea of what percentage of people that click on an online Ad go to a specific page, or sign up for a specific item, but Web metrics alone can not tell you for sure if they became a customer later on down the line. The only way to get exact details is to ask.

Why is the Concept of People Metrics so Foreign?

This goes to the first contact principal. When dealing with a customer for the first time, does anyone ask the simple question how they found your business? So, a person says they found your business on the Internet. Great, but did they click on an Ad, did they click on the website in the search results, did they come from an online directory, did they already know your name and search for your company using the search engines, or what was the keyword, keywords, or key phrases were typed into the search bar at Google, Yahoo, or Microsoft Live Search to find your company on the Internet?

The importance of feedback can not be overstated. Without feedback, a company has no way of knowing of how successful anything is. This requires the first or second contact person asking the simple question, and documenting that information for upper management, sales and marketing, and the person or group in charge of Internet marketing and online advertising campaigns.

With solid marketing information, the Internet marketing specialists can make adjustments to online advertising campaigns and improvements to the website design for better overall customer conversions.

Engineers Need To Tell Stories

Many of the businesses that are looking for solutions for manufacturing of their products, or technology solutions to a particular software or hardware issue, often converse with the resident engineers of many of the manufacturing, fabrication, or software technology companies in the world. How often are these stories being shared between what an engineer has talked about with a customer and the sales and marketing staff, or the Internet marketing team? If everyone is just doing their own job mode, your business is missing a wonderful sales and marketing opportunity.

Internet marketing experts do not magically know the inside scoop from each and every business in the world. Every market sector has its own unique set of keywords used. The only way online marketing personnel can learn about that information is for it to be shared with an individual or the Internet marketing team. Companies that supply technology services, or various OEM products to a wide variety of fields, will have a different communications language with the engineers from those market sectors. That is why, it is important to share that information with the team.

Teamwork is your B2B key to success.

Make Professional Web Services part of your marketing team and we will go above and beyond what your expectations are with Internet marketing services designed to produce results for your company. It's all a matter of Results Oriented Internet Marketing Services.

Marketing Business To Business Websites

noreply@blogger.com (James A. Warholic) — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 23:40:00 +0000

Website Information Is Required.

The number one thing required in a business to business website is to provide pertinent information for customers and future customers to find via the search engines online.

While e-commerce B2B websites must be focused on providing an easy means of order taking and checkout, and also secure shopping carts, there are large numbers of businesses that sell to other businesses in which true e-commerce is not a factor. These business websites that are structured for information, marketing, and advertising purposes, are really about how well the information is marketed online.

Are You A Good Story Teller?

Marketing a B2B business today, especially online, requires good story telling to bring a marketing message alive on the Internet. When marketing online, creativity is a must. Sure, it is wise to keep a message simple, but keeping a message simple from a search engine standpoint simply will not do. There are some things that can be done from a best practices approach for both the graphics presented and the website text copy that can help in this area.

Here is one question that is important to consider. How many businesses compete in your market sector; five, ten, fifteen, or more? How many of these businesses have websites that look like the others. Does your business website look like the competition? If the website looks like all the others, what will set it apart? More than likely, it will get lost in the search results.

Having a website online forces you to write down the key points about your business, and this is good. If you are going to have a web presence, then you should try to make it all it can be. Don't skimp on what is said. Don't dismiss the importance of a website either. The old ways of doing business with just advertising in the Yellow Pages, simply will not produce the same results that it did fifteen or twenty years ago. You must have a web presence to compete in most markets today.

Everyone is searching online. Businesses are no different than the rest of us. Engineers and buyers are using the Internet and specifically the search engines as the new B2B Exchanges. Tell me, why would any company want to be left out in the cold. Maybe you are thinking, "my business is such a specialty market, and everyone knows me throughout the whole market place, there is no need to have a web presence." These types of thoughts are not very logical today. Even if you are correct in your analysis (which I highly doubt), don't you think existing customers would want to find your phone number or email contact information online?

OK, now your thoughts say, "I am convinced that a website presence is required. Where do we start?" you might ask. Well, I'll bet that you probably have brochures or something in writing that talks about what it is that your company does. That certainly can be a good starting point for prompting you into writing some items down. Once these thoughts are written out, a good copywriter can come up with the essence of what to say in a website. Writing something down in an idea form has been some of the toughest hurdles to overcome for many businesses. Years ago, where "word of mouth" was everything for many businesses to promote themselves, will not necessarily work the same way as before. There is too much competition, from the local markets and the international markets in which price seems to have more of an impact today than ever before in all lines of business.

Having a website published is not the end. Don't make this mistake into thinking that you never have to update your website. Your competition will surely not sit idle with their websites, and more importantly their marketing efforts online. Evaluating the impact of every marketing strategy, will be important for the next move to be made. Just like in a chess game, where competitors are looking five or more moves ahead, so to must a business evaluate the next moves ahead.

It is important to note that many of the marketing moves online will not have an immediate impact on a businesses bottom-line. There are however a couple of things that can make an immediate impact. Search engine marketing, also known as online advertising is a quick way to get a business started. This is because keywords can be bid on through the search engines themselves. If you bid high enough for your keywords then you can get your ad to show up in the search results pages on the right or top side of many of the search engines. These results are paid for through this bidding action. The natural search results generally take more time and Internet marketing efforts to establish a website in the general population of search results. This is due to search algorithms making an automated calculation of the website's importance through a multitude of variables which each search engine keeps tight lipped about.

Search Engine Optimization, SEO is another one of those words that has many meanings, depending on who you talk to. The basic idea is to fine tune a website, optimizing the pages, to have the website rank better in the natural search results. Many individuals will say this is a one time process. I don't believe this to be correct. Search engine optimization must be ongoing. Much like an article written, there is usually more than one draft as time goes on. Even the simple things in a website much be updated annually. For example, copyright dates should be updated to reflect at least the attention to a website details. This can quite possibly make a bad first impression. A potential customer that comes to a website, with old copyright dates, tends to think that maybe the business does not pay particular attention to details. Even though they might not say it, the question is now in the back of their minds.

There are many other factors that also must be addressed for a business website on a regular basis. But, you need to take the initiative, and start today with a website presence if you do not have one, or develop and improve what you already have online.

Contact Professional Web Services today to find out how our Internet marketing services can make a difference in your business's bottom-line.

Marketing B2C Begins With Information And Trust

noreply@blogger.com (James A. Warholic) — Sun, 13 May 2007 19:17:00 +0000

What Does The Consumer Want In A B2C Website?

The first thing a consumer wants in a new B2C website that they are visiting for the first time, is to be able to find the information that they were searching for in the first place. The Web simply is too easy to use the back button on the browser to not focus on supplying the information in the first place.

For example, if a company were to talk about a particular product and not show or have any information related to the product then that company is not likely to hold the customer's attention but for a second. There is a prerequisite for a landing page, (the actual page a consumer lands on when arriving from an Web based ad or even a page through the search engines) that the page needs to stay focused on the topic at hand.

That is only the starting point for the website. Once a consumer decides to make a purchase using some form of eCommerce they want to know two very important things. How secure is their credit card data that they are prepared to give, and are they going to receive spam or have their personal data or email address shared with outside sources.

Not showing, or having quick access to the privacy policy of a website sends up a Red Flag with many consumers online. Consumers are getting much more Web savvy, and are beginning to understand that some websites have better forms of security than others. They want to be reassured that the information will remain private.

Certainly there are other aspects of a company selling online that a consumer would want to know about. Like the product return policy, and can the customer talk directly with a business representative. But while these are important from a customer service perspective, they are later thoughts in the mind of the consumer in regards to the company.

The process of making a purchase online involves a kind of pipeline. If the pipeline from the beginning to the end is not solid, but has holes in it, a consumer is likely to fall out of the pipe before they actually become a customer. So, think like a consumer when having your website designed and ask yourself the questions that will be going through the consumer's mind.

Once you focus on the foundation of the website, then it will be much easier to send the customer flow through the pipeline, converting browsers into buyers.

Signed Jim

If you need help getting your company website found online, Professional Web Services is never too busy to help you out with an Internet marketing evaluation of your website today. We provide Internet marketing services, Online advertising strategies, ethical search engine optimization, and Web branding solutions for your business online. Contact us for the Internet marketing services B2C and B2B global business solution.

Smart Forms For Websites, Blogs, and Email

noreply@blogger.com (James A. Warholic) — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 00:18:00 +0000

FormLogix Is A Really Cool And Powerful Free Online Form Builder

Tired of getting spam with your email address published on a website or blog? Well, using an email form mail solution might be just the ticket for you.

FormLogix is a free online program that you can build custom forms online and then publish them on any website, blog, or provide a link, url, or mail to anyone in order to collect information of all types.

Some examples of uses would include to get more information about a company, product, or service. Use a form to sign up for a newsletter. Collect information for email updates and other reminders.

With FormLogix, a company, person, or organization can customize their own form that will automatically respond back to the sender and collect the information in a database file for future reference by the creator of the form.

For an example of how a form can be embedded into a blog, take a look at the form below. This Web form is used on some of Professional Web Services, Inc. various Web sites in order for readers and visitors to request various forms of additional information including: Internet marketing services, SEO, Search Engine Optimization information, Website customizations, professional blog creation, online advertising campaign management, and quality link offers.

To embed this in the blog posting, use the form in an Iframe output. Don't worry if you don't know what an iFrame is. Simply create the form and select publishing options, then copy and paste into the blog itself with the iframe option.

Forms of publishing include: URL, Iframe, Link, Javascript, and Mail.

Forms can be created from scratch using the provided online template editor and creator program. Templates are also provided in which full customization can be used to fine tune the form to a particular need.

From a standpoint of being able to communicate online, using an Internet form provides great versatility for delivering information to someone interested in what ever is being offered. Forms help eliminate a great number of spam messages that would be generated to a publisher when that publisher provides an email address on the Internet. This is an ideal Internet marketing strategy of having online forms, and can help prompt the reader into requesting the pertinent information as quickly and succinctly as possible.

Give it a try. I think you will be pleasantly surprised how well Formlogix works.

Professional Web Services, Inc., provides Internet marketing services for Business-to-business and Business-to-consumer companies in all types of business and consumer markets. Contact us today using the form above or from our Internet information contact page. All information is private and not shared with outside sources. See our privacy policy for further information.

Setting Your Business Apart Online

noreply@blogger.com (James A. Warholic) — Sun, 08 Apr 2007 00:08:00 +0000

Presenting Your Business On The Web

Standing out from the crowd on the Internet is one of the most important things you can do for your business. With sometimes millions, or billions of websites all competing for your keywords, there has to be something different about you that will really resonate with your customers and future customers.

It is this future customers base that your business really needs to focus on. If you provide top quality service, existing customers will return for more because your brand is good in their minds. However, with customers that do not know your name, you must be able to sell your company products or services in such a way as to not turn off potential customers. This is where your website may be the first Web contact point a potential new customer makes with your company. It is important that the website be all that it can be. How the website is presented to a new visitor can make a grand first impression, or it can also be a one second hyperlink click gone away.

Presentation comes in many different forms. Pictures can be used to add a little bit of symbolism if done with the correct approach. Writing style is important too. Cold dry writing simply will not do. Even if you are writing to the technical engineering crowd, they too get tired of the drab writing approach. Creative writing that is based on sound marketing and advertising principals must be used to engage your audience. Remember, your audience is anyone that reads your website.

So get creative today with a website design approach by Professional Web Services. Contact Professional Web Services for a fresh web site design face for your business. Need a brand new website? We can help your business there too with a customized template, branded exclusively for you.

Technology For The Masses

noreply@blogger.com (James A. Warholic) — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 05:26:00 +0000

Everything Is Driven By Technology

The US and other developed countries are fueling the world with the power of hi-tech. This very same technology that consumers love to have in their homes here in the US, brings to the third world countries jobs by the millions. Due to the demand through out the consumer world for lower prices, more powerful computers, cell phones that have games, built in cameras and mp3 players, faster online access, Internet apps, satellite radios, smaller, faster, and bigger electronic gadgets, gamers, hybrid autos, GPS systems and a whole host of other built in electronic items has created the driving force behind the world's economy.

Scores of jobs could be said to have been lost to China. But, has the US market place really lost those jobs to China? Would we really be buying all the stuff that we do today if the prices were ten times higher? If things were ten times higher would the US economy be better or worse? There certainly are two schools of thought here. If you talk to two economists, they can't even agree on the facts. That is because the what ifs come into play and it is impossible to prove the facts beyond what already has occurred.

Internet technology has affected the world in both the good and the bad. Identity theft or just the stealing of credit card information has created a virtual web based crime ring that extends to all corners of the globe.

Businesses are finding that they can no longer operate the way they once did. Newspapers and publications are loosing market share to free online channels of information. Profits are being squeezed with manufacturers because of the pressures of cheaper and cheaper labor and electronic components. Large Super Stores like Wal-Mart are dictating lower pricing of their suppliers and forcing companies to build their products offshore to meet the lower pricing demands. Which means more lost jobs for the United States.

Everything is tied together. It is impossible to stop the universal flow toward the lowest prices in the world. The Internet may turn out to be both the biggest asset and our worst nightmare at the same time. The world is beginning to become as one.

So, where do we go from here? This requires wisdom and understanding.

Professional Web Services, provides Internet marketing services, SEO, ethical search engine optimization, online advertising strategies, and web branding solutions. Get your business discovered on the Internet Final Frontier.

Strategic Marketing From an Internet Perspective

noreply@blogger.com (James A. Warholic) — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 20:42:00 +0000

What is Strategic Marketing?

Strategic Marketing attempts to determine how an organization competes or how it will compete against its competition in a market place. In particular, it aims at generating a competitive advantage relative to its competition. From Wikipedia.

Various marketing buzz words abound online. The above definition for strategic marketing is probably one of the most concise and defines it in a manner which can be easily grasped.

There are strategic marketing firms that will analyze the market place for the entire business structure and come up with a marketing strategy for their clients to compete on a global scale. While this type of service is needed to help determine a direction a company wants to go, there are however requirements for more specific strategic marketing evaluations that can have a major global marketing impact.

Understanding Internet Marketing

It is imperative for companies, as part of their strategic marketing, to understand the relationship the Internet has on a company's market reach in both vertical and horizontal markets. The Internet provides a wealth of information, tools, and potential to expand a company's sales through the use of the company website, online advertising, and Web 2.0 technology. Learning to use the Internet to fine tune (optimize the website) for various market segments are one of the keys to having more penetration both horizontally and vertically online.

Developing the penetration into these markets is what Internet marketing really is all about. A company can be all over the Internet, or not at all found online, but if it is not found in its industry specific area for engineers, buyers, and consumers searching for the products or services provided by the company, it will have little impact on the bottom-line sales generated.

Strategic Internet Marketing Evaluation

Marketing has what is know as a SWOT analysis tool. The acronym SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. It is a way of evaluating the direction a company wishes to go. For example below is a SWOT Chart courtesy of businessballs.com

Subject of SWOT analysis: (define the subject of the analysis here)

strengths

Advantages of proposition?
Capabilities?
Competitive advantages?
USP's (unique selling points)?
Resources, Assets, People?
Experience, knowledge, data?
Financial reserves, likely returns?
Marketing - reach, distribution, awareness?
Innovative aspects?
Location and geographical?
Price, value, quality?
Accreditations, qualifications, certifications?
Processes, systems, IT, communications?
Cultural, attitudinal, behavioral?
Management cover, succession?

weaknesses

Disadvantages of proposition?
Gaps in capabilities?
Lack of competitive strength?
Reputation, presence and reach?
Financials?
Own known vulnerabilities?
Timescales, deadlines and pressures?
Cash flow, start-up cash-drain?
Continuity, supply chain robustness?
Effects on core activities, distraction?
Reliability of data, plan predictability?
Morale, commitment, leadership?
Accreditations, etc?
Processes and systems, etc?
Management cover, succession?

opportunities

Market developments?
Competitors' vulnerabilities?
Industry or lifestyle trends?
Technology development and innovation?
Global influences?
New markets, vertical, horizontal?
Niche target markets?
Geographical, export, import?
New USP's?
Tactics - surprise, major contracts, etc?
Business and product development?
Information and research?
Partnerships, agencies, distribution?
Volumes, production, economies?
Seasonal, weather, fashion influences?

threats

Political effects?
Legislative effects?
Environmental effects?
IT developments?
Competitor intentions - various?
Market demand?
New technologies, services, ideas?
Vital contracts and partners?
Sustaining internal capabilities?
Obstacles faced?
Insurmountable weaknesses?
Loss of key staff?
Sustainable financial backing?
Economy - home, abroad?
Seasonality, weather effects?

The table above can be used for all types of analysis. Using the four main keys and applying it to an Internet marketing plan is beneficial for helping visualize and evaluate what needs to be done.

While the particular example above is more general in nature, it can be applied to specifics. For example when determining how a website needs to be optimized and/or the Web presence, a person needs to look at the four keys. Some of the questions that can be asked are: What is the company's online strengths in meeting their marketing goals? How well is the website designed? Does the website provide quality information for readers, visitors, and the search engines? What types of links point to the website? Are these links quality links? What opportunities exist in the types of niche markets that the business can expand online? What are the current weaknesses with the business's Web efforts? How can the business improve their brand recognition online? Does the website provide a solid tool for the sales and marketing departments? What threats are faced from the competition and other market factors online? What other tools are available to take advantage of online opportunities? Is the company advertising online? Is the competition advertising online? All of these items and more can be written down or verbalized to help develop an Internet marketing plan to help grow and promote your company.

Once the market analysis is performed then a strategic plan needs to be developed, and then implemented. Certain items can be quickly changed or applied, while others on the list will need substantial time and effort to attend to. All of the items will factor into the viability of the company competing across the Internet.

Developing a quality web presence is one of the most important items a company can invest in. It is very shortsighted to think in terms of "the cost" of developing a website. It is a business investment, and it is an investment that has the potential to bring forth many returns.

Get the Business Solution today from Professional Web Services. Contact us today for a free Internet marketing evaluation or other Internet marketing services.

Great Balls Of Fire Marketing Strategies B2B B2C

noreply@blogger.com (James A. Warholic) — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 17:44:00 +0000

What Do We Have Here?

Powerful Internet marketing forces for your B2B or B2C business.

I'm not joking. In today's high-tech world of Internet communications, in which information travels at light speed on the Web, a
B2C or B2B business can make a huge impression online with customer centric Professional Web Services communications tools.

There are many good Internet marketing tools that a business can use to significantly help establish a brand image on the Internet. One of those items is the company website. The website is one of the key foundation items for marketing and advertising a business online. A professional website can also be a source for online new customer lead generation as well as a tool for sales and marketing to use on a daily basis. Investing in the integration of the corporate website into all aspects of a strategic marketing plan can pay loads of dividends in a short amount of time.

Another significant tool for businesses today is the corporate Web blog. Corporate America is starting to adopt the professional blog as much more than a personal website. Furthermore, a blog may actually be a more powerful tool then the corporate website itself. Very few of the companies on the Web understand how these blogs can be utilized as powerful customer centric communications tools. The companies that have embraced the blog as an online communications tool are jumping ahead of the competition in each of their respective fields. The longer a company has been writing and publishing information online, the more likely they are being found on the Internet for various aspects of their business.

Companies that cover a wide area of OEM support, in the way of manufacturing, assembly, technology, engineering, and other broad markets, have a particularly difficult position in reaching their targeted market segments online. Technically speaking, the reasons for this have to do mainly with the sheer numbers of publications on the Internet. Each and every website, and web page that uses your company's keywords are in direct competition with your business. College term papers, research papers, essay papers, news media reports, and other unrelated websites are your competition. Some of those web pages and web sites are more competition than others. Never the less, keyword phrases used by even the news media outlets and off topic websites can affect a company that is trying to establish themselves for a particular market segment. Hence, it really comes down to establishing a theme for a particular website. The stronger the overall theme, the greater the chance others will want to link to it for additional information. However, a company that chooses to somewhat dilute their main topics, runs the risk of what I would refer to as out of context content dilution and getting lost in the mounds of publicized data.

Search algorithms have to crunch huge amounts of data from each and every website on the Internet. These algorithms look at more than just the keywords in the website itself. There are hundreds of variables that are looked at when evaluating each and every page on the Web. Taking just two of the factors that are within complete control of a company, content on the corporate website, and content on the corporate blog, or I should say corporate blogs, are very significant for establishing corporate brand identity on the Web.

Why Does Having Both A Corporate Website And A Blog Make A Strategic Marketing Difference?

Each and every published posting can be a key source of information on the Internet for your company. New customers are more likely to find you by doing searches on what it is that your company builds, manufactures, or produces. It is a way of expanding your market reach online.

Yes, it does take a fair amount of time to write, edit, and publish good information that will ultimately result in new links to your corporate website. Once someone else finds information helpful and informative, they are much more likely to link to specific posted pages of a blog.

Feed the blog, and the blog will feed you. This has more than one meaning. Having a basic understanding of how a blog works is beneficial in this area. When a blog is published, a ping is sent out to various services online that monitor when new postings are published. This ping provides a means for special search engines to log in the information to their database. At these search engines, a blog becomes searchable or can be seen in the current results as soon as it is registered and published. Additionally, there are also RSS and ATOM feeds from a blog that people can automatically subscribe to. The new article is quickly picked up by everyone that is on the subscription list, and can be read with their online news readers. This has the convenience of providing the information directly to the end user, without the user having to check back daily to see if any new information has been published.

Blogs are ideally suited to be customer centric. This is because the blog has the feature of allowing comments or no comments (if you choose the no comments option). But, by allowing comments from users, readers, and subscribers; a corporation can gain valuable insight from those that are reading the information online. All comment feedback has the potential to being valuable from a strategic marketing and online advertising perspective. While the concerns over having comments that are off color or of a spam nature are justified, there are excellent controls for monitoring or filtering the comments before they are posted.

All of these items provide a major Internet marketing and online advertising impact for your company online.

Get started today with professional blogging services by Professional Web Services. We can get you set up with your professional branded image that will reach out and touch new customers on the Internet. Contact us for the professional business solution.

Internet Marketing Forces

noreply@blogger.com (James A. Warholic) — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 13:28:00 +0000

You will be magically transported to another dimension. A dimension that is built on the Internet Marketing forces beyond the great divide. A place where only those that dare travel can realize their force upon the planet.

So where is this great divide? Take me to the great divide. Let me see the Internet marketing forces now. OH no, you'll have to click the Internet marketing forces link yourself.

In the meantime, enjoy this movie:

MiniTru, Chicken Chair by Bassam Kurdali made in Blender

Consider the video that you just viewed and how this can be applied on your own professional B2C or B2B business website. Imagine having an introduction about your company, or better yet, if you manufacture machines or other products, a video is a great way to show off your company online.

Get your business plugged into the Internet. Contact Professional Web Services today to find out more information about Internet marketing services.

Blogger Labels and Categories

noreply@blogger.com (James A. Warholic) — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 06:45:00 +0000

Using Labels In Your Blog Postings

When writing your blog, it is nice to be able to segment the postings in a logical manner for future reference. Labels have now been provided in the new Google Blogger software to do just that. Now, online newsletters created using Blogger can be sorted based on these labels. Imagine being able to have a listing of real estate Homes Sales Prices posted monthly along with other information. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to view all the sales stats for all related postings? Or, how about Marketing or Internet information grouped together in one location as though it were one single posting online.

This can be of a benefit in more ways than one. Users, readers, buyers, and visitors to a website blog can now get to and read related information quickly. This can also be used as a sales tool for the sales and marketing department. If products or services are grouped together in a logic format, then a single hyper-link can be produced in an email to send a potential customer to the information all in one place.

Additionally, postings can have more than one label. Many times a posting will have more than one subject matter. By being able to label postings with more than one label, this provides the information in various layouts to the reader, depending on what they are searching for.

Take the time to add labels to older postings. Your readers will like it. Think of labels as an online filing system. Try to think in a logical manner and create your own categories.

For more Internet marketing tips go to our online newsletters. Subscribe to newsletter via email.

Need help expanding your business on the Web? Professional Web Services has the Business Solution for you today. Contact Professional Web Services for your Internet marketing solution.

Video On Demand Marketing For Business Websites

noreply@blogger.com (James A. Warholic) — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 14:22:00 +0000

Make a Major Marketing Impact With Video On Demand

Make a marketing impact for your business with a video. If a picture tells a thousand words, then a video is magnitudes greater, if done in a creative and smart marketing way. The business website is a great place to incorporate the essence of your business and share it with the online world. An unveiling of a product, with a video introduction of the actual product in use, is a cool way to spice up a website and provide a reason for customers to come back. As is common in the B2B, Business to business world, the process of making a sale is many times, significantly longer than the B2c (business to consumer) counterpart. Various levels of management typically get involved with large machine purchases or any type of major capital investment. Having a video of the capital equipment in action can help make the sale.

A video can also be used to highlight the importance of your product or services provided. There are many videos online that make a stunning marketing impact to provide the detailed understanding of what your business is all about.

Here are a few websites with videos that I think capture the essence and ideas of what online marketing is all about.

Actually, I am a little biased on some of these websites, because they are related to Professional Web Services, Inc.

First off, the design and customization group, that has taken great designs, and customized them for various customers to promote their brands. Many times simply changing a heading picture on many of the professional open source designs will set the business apart. Take a look at our Professional Web Services designs for a creative marketing video that has been incorporated into the website.

Second, we have our Marketing Forces in force. This particular website has been incorporated with another video that we discovered that is really cool animation. The creator put a lot of time and effort into creating a super quality artistically designed video using another open source program. It is simply amazing at what can be done.

Last But not Least From a Business Industrial Perspective

This website incorporates several marketing concepts that provides information in a particular market segment, just by viewing the short video online. The clip is educational about the circuit board industry and how PCB CNC drill machines actually drill holes in the circuit boards. It also provides an inside look to show other related industries of the types of CNC machines and electronic equipment serviced and maintained by Probe Industries.

Consider using video on demand marketing for your company. For more information, contact Professional Web Services today to have powerful marketing strategies make an impact for your business online.

The Most Important Question On The Internet

noreply@blogger.com (James A. Warholic) — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 00:15:00 +0000

Are Customers Finding Your Global Or Local Business Online?
By: Jim Warholic

Internet Marketing and Advertising on Google, Yahoo!, and MSN Search engines.

In the competitive business world we live in, a business must be proactive with 20/20 business vision when it comes to marketing their company online. Any business that is selling products or services to other businesses in the case of B2B, or selling to consumers in the case of B2C would not dream of going without hiring some good sales people. Many times these businesses will be paying top dollar to get the best sales person they can. But, some businesses will neglect what I would consider the most important salesman for their company, their corporate website.

Presidents And CEOs

The buck stops here, with the president and CEO of a company. I am going straight to the top on this one. These are the people that are the ultimate decision makers. They provide the guiding force and direction for a company. While a president and CEO does not have to be a marketing genius, they do have to understand the marketing basics, at a fundamental level, for the health and well being of an organization. In essence a good president and CEO knows the importance of hiring the right people for the job. They know that good marketing is key for business success.

Many of the presidents and CEOs know hiring good people is key to corporate growth, but have not really grasped the importance of the Internet search engines, Internet marketing, and online advertising. They themselves use the Internet on a regular basis for searching all sorts of things but there is a disconnect between the searches they personally do and other people searching for what their business does. Small business company owners seem to be especially guilty of this Internet shortsightedness. Simply put, they are not seeing 20/20 business vision, and sadly they don't even recognize their poor business vision and the need for good business glasses. They have the misplaced idea that a website is just something you are forced to have in business, instead of wrapping their arms around it, promoting it, and realizing that the website is, or should be, one of their most important assets a company can have. This business mentality is not strictly limited to small businesses. Corporate America has a certain segment group that is just as guilty as their small business counterparts. They have gotten fat and happy doing business the old way and have not adapted to the changes taking place online.

Embracing Internet Marketing

Grasping the potential the Internet has for your business is absolutely paramount to focusing a fair amount of your marketing and advertising dollars online. A salesman can not be available 24x7 but the website can operate round-the-clock, and be accessible to customers that are looking for those frequently asked questions (FAQs) about the products or services your company provides. In addition, detailed information can be available to your customers at their browsing finger tips. Information such as application notes, drawings, manuals, material properties, and type specifications can be made available to customers.

The website is so powerful that it can do most of the work of all your sales force combined. This allows your sales force more time to concentrate on closing sales and building better customer relations. The fact of the matter is the website can help support the structure of the company and provide excellent tools for the sales department to use. Simply having the information at both the customer's and your sales department's fingertips will make everyone's job much easier and will result in more sales. Email's written can then be linked back to the specific information being requested. Customers will come to rely on your company's website as being a good source of information. This helps promote your brand and keeps the customer's focus on you, instead of the competition.

B2B, Business-to-business customers are becoming much more demanding in what they want from a source provider. They demand the information now. If you don't provide that information, it is just a matter of time before they go somewhere else. Maybe you have worked hard to build up customer relationships in your business. But in today's business climate, where the weather changes quickly, and customers are likely to get blown off course quickly by the competition, it is imperative to set aside a marketing and advertising budget and focus this toward providing a solid online presence.

Forget the smoke and mirrors approach with the website design. You must have substance, and that substance involves work, time, effort, and a fair amount of financial investment. To be sure, the website is really only the starting point from an Internet marketing perspective. The website must be promoted in the form of quality link building, continued website development in the form of new content and regular site maintenance updates, along with regular detailed evaluations and analysis. With billions of pages online, not to mention the online directories with sometimes hundreds of competitors lined up and down the pages there has to be marketing focus with ongoing keyword development and targeting of new market segments to really standout online.

The businesses that standout on the Internet, and standout first online with the search engines for their specific industries' keywords, will be in a position to capture those early sales leads and new customers.

As the owner, president, or CEO of your organization, you can do only so much yourself. Start today, set aside an Internet marketing and online advertising budget to promote your business on the Internet.

Professional Web Services
Internet Marketing Services
Online Advertising Strategies
Search Engine Optimization, SEO
Web and Website Branding Solutions
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comScore Releases January U.S. Search Engine Rankings

noreply@blogger.com (James A. Warholic) — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 08:31:00 +0000

RESTON, Va., February 21, 2007 – comScore Networks today released its monthly qSearch analysis of activity across competitive search engines. In January 2007, Google Sites captured 47.5 percent of the U.S. search market, gaining 0.2 share points from the previous month. Yahoo! Sites maintained its second place ranking with 28.1 percent of U.S. searches, followed by Microsoft Sites (10.6 percent), Ask Network (5.2 percent) and Time Warner Network (5.0 percent).

Share of Online Searches by Engine December 2006 – January 2007 Total U.S. Home, Work and University Internet Users Source: comScore qSearch
	Dec-06	Jan-07	Pt Chg vs. Previous Month
Total Internet Population	100%	100%	N/A
Google Sites	47.3	47.5	0.2
Yahoo! Sites	28.5	28.1	-0.4
Microsoft Sites	10.5	10.6	0.1
Ask Network	5.4	5.2	-0.2
Time Warner Network	4.9	5.0	0.1

• Americans conducted 6.9 billion searches online in January, up 2 percent versus December. Annual growth rates in search query volume remained strong with a 26-percent increase since the same month a year ago.

• Google Sites led the pack with 3.3 billion search queries performed, followed by Yahoo Sites (1.9 billion), MSN-Microsoft (733 million), Ask Network (361 million), and Time Warner Network (342 million).

Get your business discovered on Google, Yahoo, MSN, and other search engines with Professional Web Services, Internet Marketing Services. Contact us today for a free Internet marketing evaluation.

Marketing Home Runs With Custom Domain Names

noreply@blogger.com (James A. Warholic) — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 07:36:00 +0000

Marketing On The Internet Has Taken Off In Amazing Ways.

This article has multiple thumbs up Internet marketing solutions. Google, Blogger, Open Source Web Sites, Website Designers, Marketing, Advertising, and Sales, for your business solution.

Website designs, blog designs, website marketing, and blog marketing are making headlines these days. Why do I mention websites and blogs in the same sentence? The reason is because of the power that is in both. Just sit back for a moment and bear with me on my little story.

Both of the following statements are true. There is no difference between a blog and a website. There are major differences between blogs and websites. In fact, we have a convergence going on online today between website marketing and blog marketing. Management at the highest level needs to throw out their misconceptions for understanding about blogs vs websites. Blogs are powerful websites. Blogs may be one of the most simple and most powerful B2B and B2C website solutions on the Internet today. With RSS feeds and world wide subscriber-ships, a business can stay in contact with their customer base.

Well, Google came out with a cool new powerful marketing and branding solution for any B2C or B2B business or C2C person on the planet. Free of charge blogging services have been around since the early days of blogs, using the Blogger driven software engine by Google. Google has provided anyone the ability to create Good website addresses and then if they want point it to another domain file name with FTP publishing. Now there is an additional power feature that was launched this year by Google. Bring your own domain name (BYOD) to your free online blog and Google software will host your blog for free with all the links and published articles functioning as though they were published from day one as your own website without the blogspot.com domain suffix. See Blogger Custom Domains

Here is an example. I created a free blog website by the name of mondayswebsite.blogspot.com. I then published several articles on this site. I had a parked domain name by the name of Mondays.ws and decided to turn it on. So, following Google's instructions for custom domain name publishing, I pointed my GoDaddy registered domain name Mondays.ws to Google Hosting Services. Then I went into the blog control panel and turned on Custom Domain name and set it to Mondays.ws. Low and behold, when this was finished, now Mondays.ws is displayed instead of MondaysWebsite.blogspot.com. If someone tries to go to MondaysWebsite.blogspot.com they are permanently redirected to Mondays.ws. Try it. Click on the two links. Now, to be sure the links of the articles themselves still function, from the old to the new, I tested the following URLs. Before clicking on the links, place your mouse over each of the links and look at the bottom of your browser to confirm the website address. The first one is the old address at:
http://mondayswebsite.blogspot.com/2007/02/thumbs-up-for-we-design-it.html
and the second at:
http://mondays.ws/2007/02/thumbs-up-for-we-design-it.html

Both links end up at the same place. The importance of this is that if anyone links to a specific article, it will still direct them to the article at the new website location.

I am testing a few other items related to subdomains. More to come in the future.

I would suggest you try the service out with one of your parked domains. If your business is like most businesses, that have extra domain names, with variations of a business name or even using the .net, .org, .info, .us, or others to test the service out. Domain names are so inexpensive today that it is wise to sign up for another domain name related to what your business does instead of only concentrating on the company name.

Get started today. Need help along the way? Professional Web Services can provide you with professional Internet marketing services and Blog marketing services. Contact us for a free Internet marketing evaluation.

Jim Warholic, President of Professional Web Services, Inc.