Online Branding – What it Means for Your Business

J. Warholic

Branding, exactly what is it?
By: James A. Warholic, President of Professional Web Services, Inc.

It seems as though everyone has an opinion of what a brand or branding is all about. We are going to delve into this a bit and add our two cents worth of information to the topic.

Let’s first start with the premise that branding matters for a B2B, Business to business, or B2C, Business to consumer company. If you subscribe to that statement then hopefully you will find some useful information here.

Secondly, we need to at least give a generalized description of what branding really is, at least from this author’s perspective. The following has been quoted by many, “A brand is a collection of perceptions in the mind of the consumer.” That same phrase could be stated for not only the perceptions in the mind of the consumer, but in the case of B2B businesses; buyers, purchasing managers, owners, partners, CEOs and all the decision makers also have perceptions of their own brand as well as the brands of others.

In these branding matters series of postings, we are going to take a look at how the Internet is affecting the brands of companies along with a more thorough understanding of the various interactions between Internet marketing, Online advertising, sales and marketing, and Web branding. We will be analyzing the differences between the image you have of your company verses the image a customer has of your company. You may be surprised to find out that these are not always the same.

Learn more about Internet marketing services, online advertising strategies, and B2B and B2C Web branding solutions from Professional Web Services, Inc. Email Professional Web Services today.

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Online Branding Matters for Your Business

Web 2.0 Advertising Means More Sales for Your Business

J. Warholic

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The Internet is all about interactivity

Interactivity can take many online forms in marketing a business through a website, click through emails, call to action items, enticements, free offers, games, challenges, and other various forms of algorithm learning and software items built into the web site.

Get Found OnlineNow with the new 2.0 Web that is upon us, advertising can have more interactivity built into the ads themselves. Defining Web 2.0 is rather difficult because the Web is in a constant state of change. New technologies and software are continually being developed and deployed throughout the Internet. Software applications such as Google Calendar and the online Writely company (now Google Docs) that came up with a powerful online word processing application that can save documents in Microsoft Word format are starting to change the Internet landscape.

Advertising is also becoming much more interactive especially as online streaming audio and video are becoming more and more popular for both the advertiser and the viewer. Google has recently started experimenting with video advertising through their AdWords campaigns. The advertisers have created the ads in such a way, that the ads do not irritate a person viewing them. Actually to fully view the Ad, a play button is placed at the bottom of the ad itself. By including this type of interactivity built into the advertisement a viewer can make a choice to view it fully or not. Other forms of the interactive advertisements are simply when a button is clicked more information can be displayed.

Now, a further refinement of the selling or buying process can take place with an advertisement that draws the reader/viewer into the next step along the path of completing a sale. Remember, the better you can communicate your message, and understand your target customers’ needs, the more likely you are to fill those needs and complete a sale. With an interactive advertisement, a company can now share more information than would be typically shared with a single static ad. This really makes it a very powerful tool for communicating to prospects.

I suspect as readers and viewers become much more accustomed to these new Web 2.0 Ads they will gravitate toward more interaction with the online ads, and thus the advertiser will have higher, and more qualified click through rates. This will likely be good for both the Internet Surfer as well as the Internet Advertiser. The Surfer will certainly be more trusting of a company if they can find out more information along the pathway from prospect to customer.

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Google Gmail Update Report

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I know this is going to sound cliche but I am not sure what I would do with out the Gmail Service.

I would venture to say that my usage is at the Internet power level mode. Not that Google has the power level mode but I use it for most of my day-to-day email solutions.

The reality of being able to go on any computer without having to lug a laptop around and check and respond to emails along with being able to have all the information at my finger-tips, makes this online application a truly remarkable achievement.

Gmail Power Level Mode

With the massive amount of daily research being conducted automatically online from Google News Alerts the ideal situation is to use a Gmail account for saving, searching, grouping, reading, and documenting the findings. I am one of those users that does conduct ongoing Internet research into a vast amount of different subjects. By subscribing to the news alerts one can quickly scan the subject lines or click open the alert and review the latest up-to-date findings. Once the email comes into the inbox it can be archived or remain in the inbox. A star can be placed for important emails. The emails can be grouped by labels and filters. A label is essentially a name assigned to a group of emails. Multiple labels can be linked to any email. Filters are customizable and are a type of automatic action that can take place when an email arrives.

Some other Internet power level features are the ability to have multiple email accounts forwarded into one Gmail account. Plus, the Gmail account can be set up to send as though it were coming from the associated account. This can be extremely helpful when trying to keep track of multiple email accounts without having to log in to each one. If an email arrives from one of the associates, a reply can be sent as though it were the main account.

Internet SearchIf you would like to try out the Gmail account ask for an invitation. Visit our website at Fridays and send us a Gmail Email request invitation. We would be more than happy to send you an invite.

For a couple of different B2B, B2C, and C2C blogging websites visit the Life and Times and the Wild Wild West. And, remember it is always wise to have 20 20 Business Vision with Professional Web Services, Internet marketing services.

Web Applications or Web Apps and Web 2.0 Apps too

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Web Applications or Web Apps

This is an example of a document that can be written Online using Writely. Writely is now part of Google Docs.

Writely (now Google docs) is an online set of applications for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, forms, drawings, collections, and even large file sharing of all types of files.

Some of the features include:

* Word processing document includes the ability to run spell check.
* Online collaboration with others.
* The files can be saved as a Word document.
* The documents can be published online with their own unique web address.
* Documents can also be set to private.
* Pictures can be included in the documents.
* Upload large files to share with others.
* Graphs and charts with the spreadsheets documents.
* Microsoft Word plugin.
* Build information gathering forms that can be linked to or embedded into a website.
* Convert documents to PDF.
* Import PDF documents, graphic image files with written text, and use technology called Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and convert to a Google Docs document.


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* The writer can publish directly to a blog using the application.
* Various fonts and colors can be applied.
* Hyperlinks can be included in the document.
* Revision tracking.
* Documents can be imported from MS Word and others.
* Save as a PDF document.
* Document can be printed from the application.

The strength of online applications is the freedom that is delivered to the user. As more Web applications become available, there will be less of a need for the business user to have to lug around a laptop in order to stay in touch with customers and other employees. The consumer should also realize a savings through not having to buy expensive software in order to write various letters to friends, relatives, or even consumer complaints and other forms of letter communications.

For more information about Professional Web Services visit the business solution website today.

Say hello to Jim at, Professional Web Services, provider of SEO, Internet marketing, online advertising, and Web branding solutions. Email us today for B2B & B2C Internet marketing services, Online advertising strategies, and business Web solutions.

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Glib On Privacy – Use Online Tools to Check Now!

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I have seen the Internet grow from its infancy to where it is today with billions of pages of information.

Many individuals, both older and younger take online privacy very lightly. The younger crowd is using the MySpace.com, Facebook.com and other areas online for sharing way too much personal information in my opinion. This younger group of people haven’t a clue how this could possibly affect them in the future when prospective employers will be doing online background checks on these prospective employees. The older group of individuals also are unaware of the power of online search and what type of discovery can be attained by advanced searches using the search engine tools available.

To really understand the implications of privacy online, one only has to do a Google , Yahoo, and Bing Search on their own names. To do this may require a little advanced search engine search techniques, especially if you have a common name like, Joe Smith.

Here are a few helpful insights into doing a search for yourself.

We will use Joe Smith as our example for Google Search.

First try just doing a search for Joe Smith. In this particular example it shows a large number of Joe Smiths. To filter it further try doing a search with “Joe Smith” in quotes as shown. This will bring up the exact results for the name in quotes. This produces less search engine results but does not exactly break it into just one particular individual. Try adding a middle initial or middle name to the search criteria. Then filter it down even further to the area of the country or world. For example, let’s say that your are a Joe Smith, living in Washington. Then just add the word Washington after your name in the search box. “First I. Last” State

Most people are surprised by the number of online results for their names. This might be OK for individuals that understand the privacy aspect, but have chosen a high profile profession. Others on the other hand might not understand the implications of writing online, publishing personal content, or having their names posted in an online company directory, or postings in forums, or being a member of a local soccer or softball club in which their name is picked up by the search engines.

A little advice for those wishing to maintain as much privacy as they can. Consider carefully where you post your name online. If you are a member of a club or if your company has an online directory ask that your name or even your email address be kept offline. Do regular background searches on yourself to verify your brand image online. Use all of the major search engines to double and triple check the results.

Writers and journalists, be careful of who you quote, even in newspaper reporting. Consider the privacy of individuals. News stories are picked up and published online. Consider the ethics aspect when reporting information in news stories. Bloggers too should follow ethical standards when publishing information online.

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It Pays to Fight the Good Fight

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In a victory for privacy, Google stands up to the government

Google Wins Ruling on Turning Over Search Queries to Government

March 18 (Bloomberg) — Google Inc. won a partial victory in a battle with the government when a federal judge ruled yesterday that the company didn’t have to turn over customer search queries to the U.S. Justice Department.

As far as I am concerned, this is a major victory for everyone.

As time went on, the government’s demands for search information had dwindled down from asking for billions of urls and a entire week’s worth of search results, then “1 million Web addresses and a week’s worth,” then “50,000 Web sites indexed by Google and the text results of 5,000 random search requests,” and finally they wanted “10,000 of the Web sites and 1,000 of the search requests.” Fed’s Google Search Limited

In the ruling the only thing that Google has to give is a random sample of 50,000 web addresses.

US District Judge, James Ware, San Jose, California ordered Google and the Justice Department to come up with a method to randomly select the 50,000 Web addresses in a way that would not force Google to disclose any confidential information. He gave both sides until April 3 to raise any problems with the confidentiality requirement.

This is a win for Google and online privacy rights. No other search engine even considered standing up to the government and say No. The other Search Engines simply handed over all the data requested by the government a long time ago.

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Internet Privacy Concerns and Your ID Information

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We got Your Number, and Then Some

No matter what your take is on the ACLU, I think they certainly have a point with this one. As Internet technology continues to expand, the reverse occurs with a decrease in our privacy. Click the Privacy Concerns video above for a Web look at the amount of ID information that is at the government’s fingertips.

Privacy must be protected. So, you think you have nothing to hide, think again.

Defense of Controversial Internet Law Does Not Justify “Fishing Expedition,” ACLU Says Plaintiffs’ Response to Motion to Compel Google

Privacy & Technology:
The tremendous explosion in surveillance-enabling technologies, combined with the ongoing weakening in legal restraints that protect our privacy have us drifting toward a surveillance society. The ACLU’s Technology and Liberty Project fights this trend and works to preserve the American tradition that the government not track individuals or violate privacy unless it has evidence of wrongdoing.

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SEO School And Internet Marketing School

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Internet Marketing And Search Engine Optimization School

When it comes to developing your business, and building a quality online presence, there are some things to consider from an SEO and Internet marketing standpoint in order to maximize your return on investment of time, money, and resources. Let’s start off by answering the following question:

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What are the advantages and disadvantages to implementing business 2 business or consumer keywords and keyword phrases in the website that are seldom used?

There are two online schools of thought here. One SEO school says that the keywords selected to be used throughout the website should be the least competitive keywords and misspellings included, so it is much more likely to be found in the search results. The other SEO school says to develop the natural keywords throughout the website along with logical variations of keyword phrases including plural uses of the keyword and various tenses using proper writing syntax and grammar.

If we follow the first SEO school, a website may start showing up in the top results for very seldom searched for keyword phrases. While in the other SEO school, because of the numbers of pages with the same keywords, web pages are less likely to show up due to excessive competition.

Natural Language Writing vs Keyword Search Variations

Internet Marketing SEO Help

Actually, I believe that both SEO philosophies have ideas that are both right and wrong. First and foremost, I believe the emphasis should be on natural language writing and logical uses of the keywords. This will no doubt require extensive research, reading, and writing of quality content. It will certainly take an extended period of time to make a marketing impact in the various keyword market segments. At the same time, it is important to also develop other lesser used variations of those keywords and keyword phrases to help establish an online site theme or a type of Internet marketing trend in what a website is about. In essence, you have to write the way your customers think for the search engines to pick up on the keywords and keyword phrase syntax used throughout the website.

Are There Search Engine Optimization Shortcuts?

SEOs have used extensive Black Hat search engine shortcut tactics in the past for getting a website to the top of the search results. As search engine algorithms have improved, these black hat optimization tactics are becoming less effective. The emphasis today should be on developing good content, proper link building throughout the website, proper titles and meta tags, ethical search engine optimization strategies, unique marketing and advertising messages, and certainly strategic link building with various related topics and websites.

How Should we Measure Search Engine Software Algorithms?

No search engine company is going to come out and tell you exactly what is required to get your web page or website up to the top in the search engine results. Though they will give you some best practices guidance for webmasters to follow. First off when it comes to the Internet presence, every search engine company wants to have the best results possible. If a search engine tells you exactly what to do, then everyone would try to do the exact same thing. There are a multitude of variables involved in page ranking, that are factors in attaining top standing in the search results. We can not control what Google, Yahoo!, or Microsoft Bing Search do in their search algorithms. So, what we can control is the content and layout of websites under our control.

Present Relevant Information for the Search Engines and Users (Customers)

The number one goal of any website should be to provide quality content to get found online. Algorithms and software improvements at the Search Engines have made great strides in evaluating keywords throughout the page and site, along with Natural Language Processing (NLP), Text Analysis, and Automatic Classification Systems are some of the key areas for establishing what a website is all about. The days of just pasting a whole bunch of keywords over the entire page or hiding the keywords in the underlying html code to get a website in the top search results is all but over. Sure, there still are websites in the search results list that do this type of Black Hat SEO tactic, of hiding keywords, but that is only because other parts of the software algorithms might give higher Page Rank [Google PageRank™] to these pages based on the number of pages that link to them on the Internet. Read more insights into the Google PageRank perspective.

Developing a Keyword Search Engine

It becomes exceedingly difficult for Search Engines to say how much is too much for certain types of keywords in the body text. There are an infinite number of variables for establishing the density of a keyword. Certainly, the difficulty becomes even greater when one considers the use of certain words having different meanings for different industries. Then there is the aspect of how the word is used in the context of the text itself. Natural Language Writing has different styles, such as Argumentative, Narrative, Enunciative, and Descriptive Styles; along with different uses of grammar and even the proper spelling and even misspellings can significantly alter how a search engine responds to the classification and Keyword Density of the page.

What Additional Factors are used in Keyword Analysis?

Keyword Relationships

Graph Showing the Keyword Relationships in a Document

Search Algorithms need to be able to filter through all of the other words in a website. Every single word that is placed on a web page can have some degree of influence over the whole of the page and even the website itself. Simple words like: them, your, you, it, or, AND even and, need to be filtered and evaluated. Too many uses of those words in the web page can throw off the algorithm. Relationships exist between all words. The proximity of the Online words relative to each other, will also significantly influence the software algorithms of what the page is about (See Keyword Graph.) Writing on the Web has to be tightened up and more structurally focused toward the subject matter, in order to become more successful in establishing new pages online, especially when it comes to the highly competitive Internet keywords.

Search Algorithms Analyze Capitalization, Bold Text, Font Size, and Font Placement

To grasp the degree of difficultly that Search Engines face in cataloging a website is to consider what needs to be analyzed from their perspective. By somewhat of a Reverse Engineering Marketing aspect we can gain Internet marketing insight into what is looked at for establishing the ranking in the search engine results pages. Capitalization, bold text, font size, and font placement are all factors in page analysis. For example: as Google Search algorithms have improved, and certainly expanded over time to include other on-site and off-site website factors, the weight factor given to each of these hundreds of variables has changed slightly, and in some instances drastically affected the search results.

Understanding Search Engines and the Online Marketing Learning Curve

I believe that we are all on an online marketing learning curve. Search engines are continually learning about the World Wide Web by constantly traveling the Net with their Robots that catalog the pages. Then with analysis software, the companies can determine the so-called Mean, Mode, and Median of any particular criteria within the page or group of search results they wish to analyze. With such detailed analysis, they then can tighten or loosen a set of parameters to slightly change or drastically change the search results. Every update to a search engine algorithm in-turn creates a new round of learning by all the SEO Webmasters of the world. Through this type of online school teaching, the SEO is constantly being trained toward better content writing and layout quality. The whole of search is also trained, because as creativity and new technology are implemented into websites, along with the popularity of other types of online content sites, the search companies can continue to upgrade and improve their algorithms to reflect these new changes. Sure, there may be the law of unintended consequences that occur along the way, but in the long run, everyone will benefit with better content, websites, and search engine results pages.

Professional Web Services, Inc., is a SEO strategies, Internet marketing services, online advertising strategies, and a Web branding solutions company. Contact us today for Internet Marketing Services for your B2B or B2C business to be found in the search engines. Turn your business into a great online sales tool with a Pro. eBusiness Online marketing solutions with Professional Web Services. If you are serious about gaining more customers now, getting more online sales leads, and learn how we can help your business get discovered on the Web, then send us an email today for your online marketing solution.

Article by: Jim Warholic

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Google For The People, Government Against The People

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In a follow-up story from E-Commerce News: Portals and Search: Google Playing for High Stakes in Fight With Feds are some additional insights involving privacy, security, and business privacy.

First off, we should all be backing Google in this fight. I don’t care what the reasons for Google standing up to the government. I honestly believe that there are numerous reasons why Google is taking this stance.

First, for the government to say that no personal information would be reveled is ridiculous. For example, the government could look up how many times someone has searched on the name “James Smith”. What if by some strange situation that your name were to fall into another website that was not even related to what it is that I do. This happens more often than people would imagine. People steal information online simply by copying whole texts in order to try and get their websites to the top of the search results. This in turn gets copied, and copied again to hundreds and in some cases thousands of websites all over the world. What if one of these websites were on the government’s list of potential problem areas for anything at all. Would you want your name showing up on some government list? What if in the process of Googling yourself or your friends, and your name, or their name is in one of those questionable web pages through no fault of their own, and you click on that website page, are you now a marked target by the US Government?

The government is saying that it is not asking for individual names or searches. But, with the right algorithm built to extract certain key data, the government could match up certain patterns for just about everything. Details of your lives, details of your business, what patterns are searched for and when, along with a myriad of various possibilities. They could extract what Christian sites are visited and when. The government could even group searches by conservative and liberal. They could determine how many times the word gun or other keywords are used online along with what websites have that keyword in it. Think about your friends and relatives that have written blogs about all types of personal data with a keyword here or there, that might trigger the “Red Flag”. Even accidentally clicking a spam email could hyperlink to an off-limits site. Additionally, individual IP addresses do show up in searched for results. Many times bloggers and other websites are displaying their search results online and these would certainly get cataloged by all the search engines. These could be traced back if the government chose to demand the IP records from the ISPs, Internet Service Providers.

From E-Commerce News article

“Companies are at risk too. Think about what employees search for in the course of the day. That information can reveal a lot about what is going on at a particular company — whether it is preparing for a product launch, or researching a new demographic, or preparing for a lawsuit,” said Andrew Krcik, vice president of marketing for PGP.

Global Passwords And Online Security At Risk

This type of action could even reveal security passwords and other private information such as your personal and business email addresses, or banking, and securities, and investments. The Google Search bar has been used more and more by people doing all types of actions. Actions such as typing in phone numbers, addresses, and sometimes even typing a password in by accident to the search bar as opposed to another area of the web browser.

I for one am backing Google 100% on this one. The other search engines have already given in to this without even a fight. I think it is in the best interest of everyone in the country, no matter if you are a conservative or liberal, Republican or Democrat, to seriously think about the implications of this latest government action. Talk about it with family and friends, write about it online, send an email or FAX to your congressman. Do what ever it takes to support Google with your privacy.

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Advertising On The Internet With Style

J. Warholic

New Style of Interactive Online Advertising

Internet Marketing and SEO ServicesIn the advertising world much of a message is lost in the delivery. Other times an advertisement is so unique that it can really give a “that is cool” aspect on the message delivery. This can be a message that will stay in the mind of the viewer for quite a long time. Through the right advertisement message, the brand can stand out no matter what.

Take for example Nike, and their branded message, “Just Do It”. That simple statement is their branded image, that when seen or said, reminds me of Nike.

Internet Marketing Interactivity

Internet marketing is about interactivity. Many times this interactivity is designed to bring a reader to take the next step. For example, when a Web advertisement is created with the intention of taking a person to a landing page with additional information, this is only one step in the conversion process.

PPC Conversion Pathways

The conversion process has many small steps along the pathway to having a interested party become a active prospect, and then into a paying customer. They may need to become better informed prior to ever contacting the company. This could extend out several website visits and/or months of time.

If the subject matter is quite involved, then there might actually be a need to educate the prospects on the various aspects of the business before they are to even consider calling or emailing you. A website can be an excellent way of doing this. But, many times a website is a very static environment. Static in the sense that the information just sits there with little interactivity taking place with the reader. A website needs to have a certain degree of marketing creativity to really spur the conversion process on toward filling the need of the customer, even if the customer does not now understand their need.

I have read some great information on the Internet ever since I had my first Apple Power PC 6100 computer in the mid 90s. Today, there are some excellent stories online, but some are quite static in their nature. The simple hyperlinks are missing. The writer knows all about the subject matter, but assumes the reader does too. The research for the story could have been built right into the writing with simple hyperlinks to other pages with relevant information, in which the reader would be able to find out more about a particular subject.

In the online advertising world, the same static message often applies on the landing page (page transported to when clicked). There is no interactivity built into the web page. The reader is often times left hanging and saying to themselves that was interesting but I did not understand what all the words meant. The advertiser assumed that a reader would automatically know what the details are. This sometimes can be a wrong assumption.

Most advertisements online have been designed with a static delivery system. For example when an advertisement message is shown, by either the words displayed or the graphic image on a website, only one of two courses of action can take place. Either, a reader can move their mouse over the Ad and click, OR not. Up until recently, those were the only two choices.

Different Advertising Strategy

I believe that a new and different type of advertisement strategy could offer much more interactivity then previously thought. Instead of two choices: One to click, Two to not; we could have far more choices in a single Ad through a new type of menu system built right into the ad itself. For example, a single graphic ad could have different areas that are hyperlinks for taking a reader to unique content pages for each specific category.

Let’s say that Best Buy, one of the largest consumer electronics retailers, is running a special on televisions, and at the same time also has sales discounts on a certain line of laptop computers. By building in a menu area on the graphic image, with several different categories the reader could be transported directly to that specific landing page from one single advertisement. This would have the unique benefit of taking out at least one extra step out of the conversion process. Because, when a reader clicks on an ad for a multitude of products, they then have to weed their way through the forest to get to the page they were most interested in, in the first place. Sure, Best Buy could make up lots of different ads for each specific targeted market, but with hundreds or thousands of consumer products why not take them there with a menu system now.

OK, so maybe my strategic advertising and marketing plan is way out there, but just imagine the sales possibilities.

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Oh, by-the-way, if you have not gotten the hint to explore the advertisement message in this posting, I suggest you run your mouse over and see and click the International advertising flags interactivity in store…