Set Your Business Apart From the Online Crowd

Professional Solutions

Standing out from the online crowd should be a strategic component of your marketing plan.

Your business is special. That is the first thing that must be thought about when marketing a company online. What is it about your business that makes it different from all the other B2B, Business to businesses, or B2C Business to consumers companies in the world.

Yes, you are competing at the world level. The Internet has made the world a very small place indeed. Circuit board manufactures have found that out since the turn of the century. Data for building the circuit boards can be delivered via electronic forms of communication in a matter of seconds to the other side of the world. Circuit boards can be built in China and shipped overnight to anywhere on the globe. Nothing is out of the realm of world competition except for maybe the local food providers or local service providers. But that is changing also.

Throwaway products are coming on to the market place which simply make it unaffordable or not cost effective to repair older things like VCRs and small stereos. The cost of new products has been dropping, in real dollar terms, significantly since the turn of the century. Hard disk drives have gotten cheaper and can store more information than the previous year’s model. Computers on our desktops are more powerful today than what the US Government had 50 years ago. Solid state memory devices can store over 1000 songs on a single USB flash drive. DVD players for the television market place have dropped to where a DVD player can be purchased for below 50 dollars, and that even includes a remote control unit.

Competition is not just in the same horizontal or even in what would be typically defined as a vertical market. Grocery stores for years have increased the types of products they have carried. Forget the days when you just went to a grocery store to buy food. Now you can buy everything from the superstores. Remember that 50 dollar DVD player I was talking about above? I saw one on sale for 20 dollars by using your free grocery store buying card, and that was not even a superstore.

So, this brings me back to marketing. Good marketing services must include expanding your brand market reach online. This requires more creative thinking and good Internet marketing strategies to really promote a company online.

Take a look at any movie that comes out today. One of the first things a movie studio does today is set up the movie’s website. Movie studios understand that not only is their production studio the brand, but the movie is also being branded in the hearts and minds of the consumer. Likewise, your company may very well have a great brand name recognition, but does this brand recognition lend itself to being found by new customers that might not think of your brand for a certain product or service? This is even more important for the company that does not have the type of brand recognition that some of the bigger players have in their respective fields.

What you need for your business today is greater market penetration, across all key markets that your business is associated with. That really comes down to having good Internet marketing strategies for promoting a B2C or B2B business online. Remember, good Internet marketing strategies are keys to online marketing success.

Contact Professional Web Services. Professional Web Services, Inc. is an Internet Marketing Services, Ethical Search Engine Optimization, Online Advertising Strategies, and Web Branding Solutions provider for the B2C and B2B market place.

The ABC of SEO

J. Warholic

Keywords of the Website

Key KeywordsThe prerequisite for any B2C or B2B business website is to use the keywords of the business in the site body text.

Such a simple statement but I would have to say is very often overlooked by the business owner or president of the organization. Unless your business is a Sears, Best Buy, Walmart, or other well known brands, many business owners assume that someone arriving to the website will already know what their business is about before they get there. That is simply not the case on the Internet. In fact, it is a challenge for any businesses to have their website show up in the search engine results pages for the products and services provided. This goes both for the well known corporate brands and the unknown small business company names.

When writing online, the subject matter should be laid out using keywords that customers would use to find a company via the search engines. Both B2C and B2B websites have some very unique challenges facing them. Understanding the target audience are of a prime importance in establishing what keywords are to be placed into the website. Search engines place a priority on the words within the website itself when the search robots crawl or spider the page. Some folks think that the keywords meta tag is enough to get a web page found online. This is the furthest thing from the truth. The keywords meta tag isn’t even used by most of the well known search engines. Unless the copy is written in the pages of the website, and has the words that customers would use for any searches online, the odds are extremely poor that the website would show up in the search engine results pages.

Many folks think that all they have to do is post some pictures and a little bit of text online, as though it were an advertising placard. The bottom line is a website needs to be thought of as a sales and marketing tool, and not just an online advertising billboard for a company’s name. This requires developing keywords, writing copy for information related to your particular industry, service, or market sector, promoting the website through all online marketing channels, and time and effort to do it right.

There are no shortcuts here to developing keywords for your business to be found online. Think about all the millions or billions of web pages that have the same words within their website. Think about how all of those compete with your business online. Even without Google, Bing, or Yahoo! Search updating their search algorithms from time to time, it is an ongoing task that requires an analytical mindset to set your business apart.

Get your Key To Success with an Ethical Search Engine Optimization company, Professional Web Services, Inc.

Building A Better Search Engine

J. Warholic

Google Co-op Provides a Great Way to Custom Build Your Own Search Engine When You Want To Find The Web Pages Important To Your B2C And B2B Business

http://pwebs.net/flash-marketing.swf

Now you can customize your own search engine dedicated to your own needs, or better still, build a search engine for your own B2c or B2b business privately or broadcast it publicly for customers to be able to find the information they need.

With the ability to allow for both results from the World Wide Web, and/or a select group of websites, you can customize it to your tastes.

If you are a non-profit, university, or a government agency you can select the option for ads free display for the search results pages. If you want a totally ads free enterprise system from Google, for users to search your website, they offer their enterprise solutions, Google Mini and Google Search Appliance.

While Google Mini and Google Search Appliance are not free as an enterprise solution, I am sure the two solutions are very robust and built with the Google Search technology to provide very good results for both your website Internet search results and your business’s intranet search solution.

The Google Mini delivers cost-effective, high-quality search for your public website, intranet, and file servers – and you can be up and running in less than an hour. Supports from 50,000 to 300,000 documents. Learn more.

The Google Search Appliance provides robust, scalable and secure search across virtually all the information in your company. Starts at $30,000 for search across 500,000 documents. Learn more.

There are other free Open Source search applications and nearly free apps listed at: Search Tools – Enterprise Search Engines – Information, Guides and News

Depending on your company’s search needs will depend on the type of search product required. If you are a small company with very little information on the web, then you probably do not need to have a search engine and can very easily provide a menu system for navigation for website visitors. However, with very large websites, some form a search engine software or hardware is helpful to the end users. You want your customers to be able to find the information, products, or services offered by your B2C or B2B business. Likewise, internal searches on the intranet are very beneficial to the company at large. Sales, marketing, advertising, engineering, customer service, management, and HR can all benefit by making the documents available through the intranet.

James A. Warholic
President: Professional Web Services, Inc.
Internet Marketing Services
Ethical Search Engine Optimization
Online Advertising Strategies
Web Branding Solutions
Professional Blog Marketing Services

Yahoo! Website Submit Leaves a Lot to be Desired

J. Warholic

What An Internet Marketing Pain In The Behind

Submitting a website to Yahoo! is not that difficult if you already have an email and a Yahoo! ID account with them. However, if you do not want an email account with Yahoo, submitting your website to Yahoo! is quite difficult. “Note: Submitting a URL requires signing in with a Yahoo! ID.” They make you get an email address that is difficult to remember. I tried about ten times before I could create one that would be accepted. Their suggestions for email addresses were not even logical. I tried placing numbers inside of the various combinations of letters and still the sign-up process would not go through. Yahoo! seems to do something very strange with their cookies also. I haven’t been able to figure it out, but with an older version of Mozilla I was not able to start the process. Even if I turned cookies fully on, the system would not accept the information into the system.

So, I had to start the whole process over with Firefox browser that I also have installed on the computer. That seemed to function for registration and login. Once logged in I was then able to submit the websites for the search engine spider to crawl in the future.

Now, Yahoo! is not endearing many folks with such a difficult sign-up process. I forgot to tell everyone that their email has flashing ads on the right side and are very annoying to say the least. If I am trying to read an email, all I see is this flashing graphic image and can’t get rid of it at all.

Yahoo!, if you want to give me ads, please don’t annoy me. Yahoo!, have you considered how this plays out with your users and the competition? I am not one to tell you how to run your business, but how much sense does it make for the long haul, to annoy your valuable users of your services and visitors to your website?

The other two search engines (Google and Bing) make it easy to submit a website for the spiders to crawl it. I don’t have to register for an email address, nor do I have to go through the difficult sign-up process with either of the other two search giants.

Understanding The Search Spiders

If your website is a new website, it can take awhile for the spiders or robots to naturally find it on the World Wide Web through links to it from other places. There are a few things besides submitting to the search engines that a person can do to help get a website in the crawl cue. Google has an excellent set of webmaster tools that can be helpful for building a detailed sitemap that can be submitted, in which every page of a website can be uploaded for the Google spiders to crawl. That way, you are sure to have all your pages included into the search population.

Do you need help with your B2B or B2C website? Professional Web Services can help with all your Internet marketing needs. Contact us today for a free Internet marketing evaluation.

Jim

PS Don’t fall for promises of daily submission to the search engines by some of the Internet marketing companies online. This at best, is a waste of time and money, and at worst, could be considered spam by the search engines.

DMOZ Rising From The Ashes – Maybe

J. Warholic

The DMOZ or ODP, Open Directory Project Took An AOL Dump

AOL had the main server that stored the data and ran the ODP operation go down with no backups.

This is strange in more ways than one. Not having backups of the data or the system seems very strange for a company the size of AOL Time Warner. Granted, AOL has had some major layoffs in recent times but not to have a backup, what’s up with this?

Anyways, many have stated that the ODP was dead a long time ago before this major outage occurred.

DMOZ had 9 lives. Used up yet? (Skrentablog)

Apparently the machine holding dmoz in AOL ops crashed. Standard backups had been discontinued for some reason; during unsuccessful attempts to restore some of the lost data, ops blew away the rest of the existing data on the system. 

Is DMOZ Dead? Author: Peter Da Vanzo

There are various reports surfacing on the web that DMOZ has been experiencing unspecified hardware problems for more than a week, with editors unable to log in, and no eta of a fix. Has the old dinosaur gone belly up? 

This article Here Lies ODP and DMOZ, Please Die Already pretty much summarizes thoughts about the Open Directory Project.

Will AOL allow a Open Directory Foundation? ¤ sorvoja.com

With the information I have today I predict that 2007 will be the year DMOZ becomes independent and goes 2.0 or it will be the year DMOZ dies for real. If AOL decides to kill the project I am certain that there will be several web 2.0 forks of the project. 

The DMOZ Report has some Google insider information on what Google engineers were doing earlier this year with their algorithm ranking of the ODP pages. For those of you that are curious about what the editor application process was like for the ODP and the history of the ODP read more:

What Really Is The ODP – Open Directory Project – DMoz

Editor Application ODP – Open Directory Project – DMoz

DMoz ODP Internet Marketing Abuses

Additional DMoz ODP Analysis

The DMOZ ODP Report

Maybe this latest ODP outage will cause enough of a shakeup in the online world and someone will come up with a better system. The ODP became a system of the haves and have nots in recent times. If you could get your website listed in the directory then this was extremely helpful for your Google rankings in the past. But, if you were new, and in a highly competitive field, your listing in the ODP project may never get reviewed or be placed into the directory. This became a directory of first come first serve and many of those that were/are editors simply decided what sites would be allowed based not on content of the website, but rather on “what could you do for me” attitudes by the editors and the select rejections of the competition websites.

Signed James A. Warholic
President: Professional Web Services, Inc.
Internet Marketing Services
Ethical Search Engine Optimization
Online Advertising Strategies
Web Branding Solutions
Professional Blog Marketing Services
B2B And B2C

Challenges Facing Businesses

J. Warholic

Professional Web ServicesB2C And B2B Are Both Facing Some Unique Challenges On The Internet

First and foremost, customers, whether on the side of Business-to-business or Business-to-consumer, (B2B or B2C) are getting much more search savvy. They are spending much more time on the Internet searching out everything. B2B buyers are using the Internet to track down specialty items that would have been typically researched through Thomas Register just a few short years ago. In fact, the Internet, and specifically search engines have had a very positive affect for B2B buyers, and consumers, while at the same time have had a negative affect on old type of Manufacturing Directories and Encyclopedia book sales. Many of these Directory publishers have migrated to the Internet. However, they are actually behind in their conversion because of the abundance of online information that is published on the Web. Both buyers and consumers know how to type keywords into a search engine and get a wealth of information specific to their needs.

Consumers are doing their research into big ticket items before purchases are made. They are searching for and selling items on Craigslist and eBay, and other online classified areas, to the detriment of the local newspapers. Coverage is local, national, or International in scope. The benefits for the consumer are expanding on a daily basis as new types of solutions for buying and selling items are being developed.

From the standpoint of any business, both on the B2B and B2C side of the equation, developing a strong online presence is not an option any more. Every business that wishes to expand, either vertically or horizontally will need to come up with a strategic Internet marketing and online advertising plan.

Take a look at Professional Web Services today. We offer Internet marketing services, ethical search engine optimization, online advertising strategies, and Web branding solutions. Contact Professional Web Services for a free Internet marketing evaluation today.

Professional Web Service provides online marketing for businesses looking to get more search engine exposure, and more sales for the bottom line.

Google Teams Up With GoDaddy Domain Names

J. Warholic

Great News For Small Businesses

If you are willing to take the time to start building a website by yourself for your small business, Google has a feature called Google Apps for Your Domain Name. Google announced Friday the additional service of anyone being able to register a domain name directly through Google.

For 10 dollars annually, a person can register a domain name privately and start using Google Apps for Your Domain Name. The Google Apps for Your Domain Name includes the features such as a custom start page, web page design, or using the Gmail application with your own domain name.

You can pick any combination of Gmail, instant messaging, Google Calendar, web page design and hosting tools, and the start page. For example, maybe you just want email. Or if you’re happy with your existing mail solution, you can select only calendar and instant messaging tools. Or maybe you want it all — it’s up to you.

Prior to Google partnering with several domain name registrars and offering private registration for your own domain name, it was BYOD, Bring Your Own Domain name and setting up the proper DNS settings for email and hosting at the domain control panel of whatever hosting provider a person was using. Google still provides the DNS information necessary if someone already has a domain name registered with another provider and wants to use the free Google Apps for Your Domain Name, but now it is easier than ever before for someone to register a domain name through Google and be online immediately or just using the free custom email services, free calendars, instant messaging, with free multiuser accounts.

It is important to understand that the free yet extremely powerful service provided by Google is great for email, calendar, online voice or instant messages with others in the corporation and assigned users, and other internal web apps. However, the Google Page Creator is rather simple in its approach to website design. An example of Google Page Creator can be seen at Creating A Web On The Internet. That isn’t to say that the website is not professional, it just means that the provided templates are somewhat of a standard simple format with the abilities to change some of the colors and backgrounds. This can be great for a small start-up business that does not have the funds to invest into website development and would like to get started online ASAP.

Google Page Creator We believe that creating and publishing simple web pages should be quick, easy and free. Google Page Creator lets you choose from a host of templates and customize them with your organization’s content and images, all within a simple what-you-see-is-what-you-get online interface. When you’re happy with how things look, publish your pages to the web with a single click.

Google is coming out next year with a premium version of Google Apps for Your Domain Name. I am not sure at this time what additional features will be included in that service nor has the price been announced. A representative from Google, in a recent webcast did mention that the pricing for the premium version of Google Apps for Your Domain Name would be competitive with other hosting services.

Here is one feature that I would like to see. Google recently updated their blogging service to the New Blogger service. The New Blogger service has some pretty cool features in and of itself for building professional blogs. It would really be cool if the Google Aps for Your Domain Name could include the features found in the New Blogger. It would also be nice if several blogs could be built or used off the main domain name as a file name or as a subdomain to the URL. Right now, as far as I can see, there is no way to have hosting by Google Apps for Your Domain Name and also have a blog under your domain name. Maybe this will be one of the features in the premium service for Google Apps for Your Domain Name.

Professional Web Services is an Internet marketing services company with the emphasis on establishing for B2c and B2b businesses, more online search engine exposure, online advertising strategies, search engine optimization, and web branding solutions for both B2B, Business to business and B2C, Business to consumer organizations. Contact us today for a free internet marketing evaluation and/or professional website design.

Marketing Deja vu

ProWebs

Deja Vu Marketing

This was a very interesting movie. Great marketing of the movie too.

Internet Marketing Deja Vu


Adapt Marketing To The Internet Times


Marketing Creativity Online

Internet Marketing Clues for Your Business on the Web

Marketing Adaptation

Internet Marketing

B2C and B2B Internet Marketing Comparisons

Professional Web Services provides: Internet marketing services, online advertising campaigns and strategies, professional blogging services, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, ethical SEO services, and web branding solutions for B2B and B2C companies. Get started on your strategic marketing now; gaining new customers, quality sales leads, and an increase in sales immediately online. Contact us today for the
Internet marketing solution.

How We Snatched Our Domain Name

J. Warholic

Good domain name news.
Yay, we got our ProfessionalWebServices.net domain name!

I thought I would share this story with everyone about the case of registering an expired domain name.

Just to give a little background information, it is important to understand my thought process in picking the name of Professional Web Services, Inc. in the first place. When I first got involved with Internet marketing, I felt it was important to portray in our name the type of company that we consider ourselves to be. That is, we always take a professional approach to everything we do online and with our customers. Sure, we have some websites that are fun and have a Fridays entertainment value to them, but when it comes to the business of Internet marketing for our clients we honor their trust they place in our services by always giving 100%, to not only publishing the best website possible for them, but also in the ethics aspect of Internet marketing.

So, you can see how we got the first word, “Professional.” The second word made sense from the Internet standpoint. The World Wide Web is all encompassing and growing steadily. I was one of the early pioneers of forging online. So, it was logical that the second word would be the “Web.” Then, the third word just fell into place naturally with the “Services” provided by: Professional Web Services, Inc.

At first, with any name that you choose, it is important to also see what type of domain names are available. This is an area online that is continually evolving into what some might see as a War of Names.

Common names and common words are some of the more interesting stories involved with domain name ownership. The dot com names have been taken for the majority of words in the English language. This is also true for many of the combinations of logical two word English phrases. Internet Marketing, Online Advertising, and Web Marketing, are some of the more highly sought after combinations of online words. Other words like the words for the day of the week have also been registered by various individuals or company organizations. For example Fridays.com is owned by TGI Fridays restaurant chain, but Fridays.ws is owned by me. I actually use Fridays.ws website as our Thank God It’s Fridays fun day outlet. Now, TGI Fridays restaurant chain does not have the rights to every single instance the common word Fridays is used on the Internet or in a domain name. In fact, there is no confusion between our Fridays and their Fridays. Our site even has a disclaimer that we are not affiliated with T.G.I. Friday’s® Worldwide Restaurant chain. However, if we were to go into the restaurant business, and started using the name Fridays as our restaurant name and the domain name, that would be an entirely different story.

As far as the use of Professional Web Services is concerned, there were a couple of individuals that had the .net and the .com names. So, we decided that we would register all the other uses of Professional Web Services that made sense for us. However, early on, we thought that having to type out the long name Professional Web Services every single instance of usage would be exorbitantly long and tiresome. Also, imagine the long email addresses that you would have with both a name and the long domain name attached (InternetMarketingServices @ ProfessionalWebServices.Net). That is where it made logical sense to also grab pwebs.net, and use this one for the website to begin with.

This thought process actually worked out very well, but because of the physical size and amount of information at pwebs.net it also made sense to establish another website, with different information related to our business. We have a very generic placeholder website at pwebs.org which has a short synopsis overview. Not sure at this time, what we intend to do with this domain name for the long haul, but felt it was important for the future.

So, getting back to the story of ProfessionalWebServices.net. GoDaddy.com has a back-order service for monitoring domain names that are taken but if they ever come back into the pot and become available or change hands, this service lets you know by email and in the case of an expired domain name, tries to register the domain name for you automatically. Once this option was set in place, there was nothing more for us to do except wait.

It is important to note, that if the domain had many suitors it might have gone into an after market bidding area online. However, in the case of our name, since we are incorporated as Professional Web Services, Inc. and most of the other domain names are owned by us, we thought it would be unlikely that there would be any type of bidding on this name. Additionally, under domain name laws, U.S. federal law known as the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, a person or company that tries to capture an already established domain name for some corporation or entity that is not rightfully theirs could be considered to be Cybersquatting. The cybersquatter then offers to sell the domain to the person or company who owns a trademark contained within the name at an inflated price.

If the domain name had the potential to be in an after market bidding war, then there are other services online to try and secure a domain name. There was an excellent story by: Mike Davidson: How to Snatch an Expiring Domain, in which he goes into great detail about his quest for a domain name.

Well, back to our story. So I knew that the previous owner of ProfessionalWebServices.net did not renew the domain name and the time frame for reintegration into the domain name pool was coming due. So I set up the GoDaddy backorder service and just waited to the drop date. It was on this drop date that we were hoping to here from GoDaddy that we had gotten the domain name. However, with a sad face I must tell you we did not get the name.

We’re sorry, but the following domain name(s) that you back-ordered was not captured successfully:

PROFESSIONALWEBSERVICES.NET

Changes made to a domain take at least 24 hours to update in the WhoIs database. If you perform a WhoIs lookup on the domain to verify registration information or the status of the domain before 24 hours has passed, the information may appear to be incorrect.

OH well, it was not the end of the world. But, it was not the end of the story either.

Four days later I get another automatic email with this message.

Congratulations! The following domain name(s) that you backordered was successfully captured: 

PROFESSIONALWEBSERVICES.NET

I am not sure how this happened, but I am not one to question good fortune. This was Great!

Our plans for the ProfessionalWebServices.Net website are to really share a little about website customization and website design. PWEBS.NET will continue to focus on the main foundation of what our company’s focus is on, which is Internet marketing services, ethical search engine optimization, Online advertising strategies, and Web branding solutions for B2C and B2B businesses.

If you have a B2B or B2C business that needs help in any of these areas, Professional Web Services is here to help you. Contact us today for an Internet marketing evaluation and/or quote for a customized website design with a built in content management and blogging software system.

Blogging with Professional Web Services Blogs for Your Business

J. Warholic

Improve your B2B and B2C marketing and market reach on the Internet with powerful customer centric blogging tools.

Blogging has now become more of a main stream media outlet for businesses on the Web. The blogging world is growing by leaps and bounds. The powerful, yet easy to use tools for online publishing are making it easy for just about anyone to publish online. If you know how to type a Microsoft Word document, then you can publish an article online.

With automatic RSS (Really Simple Syndication) and atom feeds being outputted from a blog, for people to plug these feeds into their online newsreaders and/or through email subscriptions, companies from the high-tech down to the manufacturing and industrial sectors are able to expand their market reach and involve their customers while doing so.

Blogs have become more popular for businesses to keep in touch with their readers, buyers, and consumers. Consumers have found them to be a key source for news and information. As companies are becoming more customer centric there has been an increase in more interactivity on the Web geared towards two way communications with customers and businesses alike.

Blogging provides powerful solutions for improved Internet marketing reach.

There are all types of examples of online B2B and B2C blogs where information is shared with readers, customers, and businesses. Take for example the founder and CEO of Godaddy.com, Bob Parsons. Bob has his own blog found at www.bobparsons.com in which he communicates with his customers and readers regularly. He uses the blog to share with his readers and viewership the various items going on with GoDaddy and the various aspects of the Internet world. Bob is not afraid to “Tell It Like It Is.” His style of communication is matter of fact, with adding a bit of humor into the mix. Take, for instance, the article: GoDaddy pulls its IPO filing! Where Bob communicates his reasoning for not taking GoDaddy public at that time.

Another example of blogging in the technology world is at News at CNET.com. Their blogs can be seen listed at news.com.com. They have created a blog for different areas of technology. Each is branded with the CNET brand.

Another aspect of some of the blogging software platforms available, is they are now more of a content management system. This makes the difference between a website and a blog relatively minor. The advantages of having a blog for your business for a sales, marketing, advertising, and branding tool are numerous indeed.

Take the next step now, with a powerful Web 2.0 blogging tool. Bring your business to life online. Learn more about how a blog for you company can make a huge online impact for your business, contact Professional Web Services today for professional blog/website designs, SEO, and Internet marketing expertise.