As they began looking for ways to share their passion, they decided that a company blog would be a great way to share articles and techniques about sustainability and green architecture.

Through a mutual friend, they connected with The Third River, an Oregon web design and marketing firm, and decided to create a new blog that became a less formal extension of their existing web site.  They contracted with The Third River to design a custom Wordpress blog that reflected their design preferences and to integrate it into their main site. We’ve heard that some of Nathan’s well-known sketches might even end up on the site. Check it out their Architecture blog.

In addition to the Wordpress installation, The Third River is also working with Nathan and his team to create a more effective social media marketing strategy and additional search engine optimization.

Platform:  Wordpress

Project Budget:  $2500-5000

Screenshot:

With over 1000 mortgages in the last 4 years, The David Chandler Team at Prospect Mortgage is one of the Oregon’s best home mortgage providers.

Platform:  Wordpress

Budget: Under $2000

Key Features:

• Content Management System
• Featured Content Section
• Dynamic drop-down menus
• Very search engine friendly
• Email Newsletter
• Integration with Social Media
• Live quote request
• Customize header and Wordpress theme
• Ability to feature videos
• Easy navigation

Screenshot:

As their business grew, they knew that they needed a web site but couldn’t seem to find the time to get it done.  So they hired The Third River, Inc., a Salem web design company, to design and build a web site.  Their two primary objectives are 1) showcase the services they provide and 2) showcase local coupons from their advertisers.

Because the coupons will change each month, they needed a content management system that allowed them to change the coupons out quickly and easily.  We selected Wordpress for the job because of it’s flexibity and ease of use.

We also setup an email marketing program for them that allows customers to sign up to receive an email each month when new coupons are available.  Coupons are currently on the site from merchants in Salem, McMinnville, Sherwood, and Newberg.

Platform:  Wordpress

Budget: Under $1500

Key Features:

• Content Management System
• Drop-down menus
• Ability to click on coupons and print out just the coupon
• Email Newsletter
• Contextual sidebar (allows for different sidebar items depending on where the user is in the site)
• An ongoing maintenance program to keep things updated

Screenshot:

While we were at it, we also built a new web site for the lawn care company too!

So when I was approached over the holidays about a new company called ShopBest.com, I decided, reluctantly, to take a look at it in detail and see if it was just another shiny little object passing over my desk, or if actually passed my “Opportunity Filter” and was something that I felt I could share with others in my circle of influence.

>>>>> If you are just ready to start getting cash back on your online purchase, go now to ShopBest.com <<<<<< (Please note, this is an affiliate link.  If you make a purchase through the link, we will get paid)

I must admit, at first glance I was not interested in the least.  ShopBest.com looked like another ‘me too’ product offering in the way too crowded world of ‘click and save’ online shopping malls.  It reminded me immediately of a recent product launch of an online shopping mall / portal called Blastoff , which, quite frankly, I wasn’t interested in either.

So let’s begin our review about the company with a discussion about online Affiliate Marketing.  Many people have heard of affiliate marketing, but most do not understand it.  Amazon.com is one of the pioneers in the industry, and they offer the ability for just about anyone with a web site to make money by promoting their products.  I have been around the affiliate marketing industry since 1996, when I was one of the charter merchants with a company called Linkshare.  Here’s a brief video that explains how affiliate marketing works;

So affiliate marketing is a simple way to earn some extra cash by doing what Joel says, “selling other people’s stuff”.  Thousands and thousands of online merchants have affiliate programs.  I believe they are a great way to help grow sales as a merchant, and can become another income stream the little guy. The challenge is that in reality, it isn’t as simple as it sounds.  Here’s why:

a) As a web site owner (commonly called a publisher),  you have to drive the prospective buyer to the merchant’s web site through a special affiliate link on your web site.  However, in most cases, online shoppers already have their favorite merchants that they shop at, such as HomeDepot.com, Dell.com, Macys.com, or BestBuy.com, and they will usually just go directly to that site when they want to buy something.

b) Traditional affiliate programs rely entirely on the efforts of each individual affiliate.  This can be difficult if a person lacks online marketing experience … heck, it can be difficult even for experienced online marketers.  So it can be tough to make any real money.  So while I am a huge fan of affiliate marketing, it can definitely be more difficult than most people want to admit or spend their time on.

ShopBest.com changes this in a very innovative way.  It is setup as an affiliate program of sorts, except for the fact that they’ve done all the heavy lifting for you.

1. They’ve setup the affiliate relationships with thousands of merchants so that you don’t have to.
2. Instead of having to have a web site to publish the affiliate links, you simply have to download a ShopBest.com toolbar.  This toolbar installation takes about 3 minutes and tracks shopping activity at all of the participating merchants.  Even if you turn your toolbar off, it still tracks the shopping activity and rewards you cash back points.
3. The toolbar has built-in tools to be able to share it with others via your favorite social media links… so it is not a difficult process to setup affiliate links, etc.
4. You don’t need to rely on just your efforts.  You can share the toolbar with others … and get a percentage of their transactions as well.  This is where it starts to get really interesting.

The second thing you need to know about ShopBest.com is that it is set up as a network marketing company, which in a simple way is an affiliate program, but just with multiple levels of payout.  Now, I am a very cautious fan of the network marketing model.  There are so many fallacies and problems in most of the programs out there that most people don’t think about, including some of my favorites below:

• “anybody can do it” – not true… it takes hard work, the right mindset, and tremendous dedication to make anything work
  
• “everybody needs this” (ie their product or service) – again, not true
• “you can make tons of money” – some people have, but the vast majority of network marketers struggle to break even
• “we’re going to be bigger than Google” – this is one of my favorites … often stated before the company even launches by unknowing distributors.  How do you know you’re going to be bigger than Google? Do you realize how big Google is and how much they are worth?
  
• premium prices which are way more than most people would pay for the product – very common
• a complete change of buying habits in order to participate – customers and distributors usually have to completely change their buying habits to take part in the business

So while the model does have a lot of problems with it … it also has some real strengths as well.  It is definitely a model that provides leverage, and given the right product, can be a valid way of doing business.  In fact, it can even redefine entire industries.  One network marketing company that we believe in and promote is SendOutCards.  It is a great product and actually makes it easier and usually less expensive to send greeting cards to your friends, family, and business clients.

Back to Shopbest.  Here’s what I like about it:

1. You can benefit from it without spending a dime. There is no upfront cost or monthly fee to use the basic Toolbar.  You can simply download the toolbar, shop online at your favorite participating online merchants (there are over 1800), and you will get cash back points.  When you earn the equivalent of $15 or more,  you will actually get a check in the mail.  Once installed, you can basically ’set it and forget it’ and it is still working for you.
2. It doesn’t force people to change their buying habits if you’re already shopping online. You don’t have to go to a specific ‘portal’ or ‘online mall’ to start your shopping.  Just download and install the toolbar, and the system takes care of the rest.  Quite frankly, I already have my established portals, social networks, etc… I don’t want another one.
3. There are no inflated pricing models. You shop directly at your favorite online merchants’ web sites.  Plus, there are often super saver deals that can potentially save you even more money.
4. You can start earning additional cash back points when you share the toolbar with others.
5. If you want to share the toolbar with lots of folks, there is an affiliate marketing opportunity that allows you to make even more money.

Here’s what I’m not going to tell you about ShopBest.com;

• It’s going to be bigger than Google: I have no clue how big it will be, but it does look like they have done pretty innovative things and could become a big company.
• You can make save gobs of money by earning cash back and taking advantage of the super saver deals that the merchants make available:  I can’t tell you that because I don’t know what your shopping habits are now.  While many of my friends shop online at least for some things, some prefer to only shop locally.  Being actively involved in my local chamber of commerce, I am a fan of that as well, but there are some things that I definitely buy online on a regular basis due to convenience and pricing.
• You can make a million dollars this year:  I can’t tell you how much you are going to make if you sign up as an affiliate.  I’m not going to promise you the moon.  I’m not going to talk about islands in the Caribbean that you’ll be able to visit at your leisure because you were in ‘early’ and are now part of the ‘billionaire’ club.  I can’t promise you anything.  I can only point you to the income calculator on the site … and let you determine if it is worth it for you and your family.
• Your kids can become millionaires by the end of the year.  (cool, sign me up right!)
• In case you’re wondering … I’ve heard all of these over and over again about other recent ‘opportunities’.

Closing thoughts:

If you shop online at all, it probably makes sense to download the free ShopBest.com Toolbar.  It takes about 3 minutes to download and install.  You can set it and forget it.

If you’re looking for ways to make additional money in 2010, check out the videos and the earnings calculator on the ShopBest.com web site to see the eight different ways the company allows you to make money by sharing this free toolbar with others.  For me, it fit my opportunity filter.

Here’s to a fantastic 2010.

For anybody not familiar with Touch of Mink, they have been around for 28 years, located in West Salem.  If you’ve been to a home show in Salem, you’ve seen Touch of Mink.  Their primary marketing strategies have been shows, where they do demonstrations of their product, mail order, and their web site.

However, their web site had not been updated in several years and was badly in need of an upgrade.  After taking several months to outline their objectives, they came back us in mid-Fall and hired us to completely redo their ecommerce enabled site.

Their objectives were as follows;

• create a clean, updated website with easy navigation
• integrate their new company branding and color styles that were completed over the summer
• create a more modern shopping cart system
• develop a comprehensive ‘back end’ admin area to manage orders, customers, and marketing
• set the foundation to dramatically grow online sales in 2010

We went to work, and we’re excited to announce the brand new Touch of Mink web site.  In addition, phase two of the project will integrate modern online marketing strategies such as social media integration, additional search engine optimziation, an email newsletter, an affiliate program, and online video.

Platform:  Volusion

Budget:  Under $10,000

Key Features:

• completely revamped design and layout
• easily tell your friends about our products
• product reviews
• categorized product listings
• fully functional “MyAccount” section where you can update your information, track orders, and more
• ability to create your own “Wishlist”
• live shipping rates
• affiliate program (coming soon)
• … and much more

Screenshot:

Broadway Books, Portland Oregon

It is a story about blogs, burritos, and books, (I know – a seemingly odd threesome)  and how it saved Broadway Books, an independent bookstore in Portland.

You can read the entire article here.  It is a great read and made me want to stand up and cheer.

A couple of interesting things stood out for me in the article.

1. Turning to social media to help the business was more of a knee jerk reaction than a planned marketing campaign … therefore it was very authentic and heartfelt.  A good reminder for us who use social media for business that sometimes the best laid plans get trumped by total authenticity and passion.
2. It brought a different set of buyers into the store than they usually got.  A great illustration of how you can start connecting with entirely new audiences using social media.
3. The power of ‘going viral’.  What was posted by just one person … ended up being shared with thousands.  Who could ask for more?

While the local bookseller still has challenges ahead in this economy and social media is not necessarily a magic bullet, it looks like they are fully embracing it and it has made a real difference in their business.  Way to go Broadway!

I’d love to hear your stories of how you’re using social media in your business to attract new prospects and clients.  Just leave me a comment below.  And if you’d like to discuss your social media strategy, give us a call at 503.581.4554.  I look forward to the conversation.

~ Tim Fahndrich is the President and Chief Relationship officer with The Third River, Inc. a Salem Oregon web design and marketing firm.  He is passionate about people, technology, and relationships, and loves to help his clients harness the power of the web.

1. Is it relevant?
2. How do I find the time?
3. How do I ‘do it’?
4. Where is the return on investment?

During my presentation I talked about 4 steps to getting started and maximizing your social media efforts for your business;

1. Get started: sign up for accounts at Linkedin, Twitter, Youtube, and Facebook (both a personal profile and setup a Fan page). Setup keyword-rich profiles at each one and brand your presence to match your current branding.
2. Start connecting:  Reach out to others who may want to connect to you.  While each of the sites provide a tool for you to import and invite your entire address book – doing so is probably not necessary nor is it appropriate.  You can use these tools, but be selective when you invite.  Remember, you are out to build relationships, not numbers.
3. Setup a routine that works for you:  Don’t feel like you “have to” tweet, post, or nudge a certain number of times per day or certain content just because somebody else says you should.
4. Continually promote: put your social media icons on your web site, in your email signature, forum and blog signatures, and anywhere people might see it.  (Link to your Facebook Fan page, not your personal profile).

I didn’t realize how close #3 had hit home until later after the presentation.  You see, I had started out on a lighter note with the following slide (No offense intended with the politically-incorrect ‘R’ word)

One of the attendees, Fred Molesworth, a Salem Oregon photographer, mentioned how he had recently attended another seminar in Salem where the presenter was talking about how you should get up in the morning and Tweet what you are having for breakfast, and keep tweeting throughout the day exactly what you are doing.   Really.

Really?? My slide was intended to be funny, not a statement of what you should do.  Now I’m not going say that I’ve never posted about food (especially my daughter’s brownies) but I don’t make a regular habit of it.  And neither should you.  If you are trying to use social networking for your business, focus on things like the following;

1. Building relationships by engaging in conversation
2. Providing value for those connected with you
3. Keeping people abreast of what’s happening in your company (and life, but don’t overdo it)
4. Positioning yourself as an expert

While we are all certainly interested in the details of each others’ lives (to a point), and the occasional posting about food isn’t going to hurt anything … we can only handle so much detail.  If you’re doing it every day … pretty soon it just becomes overwhelming and we begin to tune it out, which doesn’t do anybody any good.

Usually, I end my presentations with my one and only rule “Never, ever post something you wouldn’t want your spouse, kids, boss, or colleagues to see” …

but now I’m adding a new rule.  “Just because you can …. doesn’t mean you should“.

If you’d like help with your social media strategy for your business, give us a call at 503.581.4554.  We’d love to chat.

Tim presenting to Chemeketa Small Business Management Group

Since we provide search engine optimization services for our clients, we get asked a lot of questions about how to improve rankings.

One of the steps we take to improve your search engine results is to make sure your meta-titles, meta-descriptions, and meta-keywords are accurate and descriptive for the key words and phrases that you are trying to get ranked for.  Now … what exactly do I mean by that?

I’ll review what each one is below;

Meta-Title:

When you do a search on Google, the title is what shows up in the search as the link to the website.  You can see the link above has the title of “Search Engine Optimization & Local Search | Web Design Salem Oregon“.   This properly describes what this web site and in this case the actual page on the web site is trying to get ranked for on Google.

More often than not we see titles that are not descriptive, include the company name only, or a simple page name like “Home” or “Search”.  You should focus on the “What” you do and the “Where” you do it.   Titles are one of the most important factors of your page content and structure that you should make sure are structured properly.

Meta-Description:

The description shows up in the search results as well, and in the above example starts with “We can help you with …”.  Descriptions should use sentence structure for the most part and should not be a list of keywords.   Again, focus in on what you do and where you do it.

Meta-keywords:

Keywords do not show up on the search results, but they can play a part in your search results… although recent things we’ve read suggest that the search engines are not paying as much attention to keywords that they used to.  Your key words are just a comma separated list of key words and phrases that describe, again, what you do and where you do it.  In this case above, we would want to use things like “search engine optimization, salem oregon, google rankings, …”.   You can use as many key words and phrases as you like, but you generally shouldn’t repeat them (you could get away with that in the old days, but search engines are much smarter today).

So, if you are looking to review your titles, descriptions, and keywords, you can do a search for the term and location that you want to be found for.  Check out what the top search results are using to get ideas of how to improve your own.  By the way, you can go to any web page and view the page source (the code behind the page) to show the keywords as well.   If you use Firefox for your web browser, you can right-click and View Page Source.  If you use Internet Explorer, you can right-click and View Source.  Here’s what it looks like:

If you are doing your own web site using a content management system or site builder, you will want to look for a SEO or Search Engine Optimization section for your site or (preferably) for each page.   It should look something this:

Getting your titles, descriptions, and keywords properly structured is definitely a positive step to help your search engine rankings.

If you’d like help with your search engine rankings to help you get your web site listed higher on Google, Yahoo, and Bing … give us a call at 503.581.4554.  We’d be happy to provide a free consultation on how you can improve your rankings.

But, I kept hearing the term … so I decided to check it out and find out what it really means.  And boy am I glad I did.

You see, I’m a very visual person, and if you’re anything like me, you’ve got way too many ideas floating around in your head and far too many things to do that won’t fit on your standard linear “to-do” list.  That means my productivity suffers sometimes, as I can’t quite keep track of it all and easily get distracted.

Now I’ve been through all of the day-planning seminars over the years to try to get my life organized … but to be honest I still struggle with staying on task in any organized fashion and yet still capturing all of my ideas into a cohesive action plan.

Enter the mindmap.

The mindmap is basically a piece of software that allows you to organize your thoughts, things that you need to do, and even business systems into a visual format.  You can see an example below;

(** We are an affiliate of DiscoverFreeMind.com and receive a commission if you purchase their mindmap video training course)

This inspirational video is based on the oft-quoted and loved poem:

When things go wrong, as they sometimes will, When the road you’re trudging seems all up hill, When the funds are low and the debts are high, And you want to smile, but you have to sigh, When care is pressing you down a bit, Rest! if you must; but don’t you quit.

Life is queer with its twists and turns, As everyone of us sometimes learns, And many a failure turns about When he might have won had he stuck it out; Don’t give up, though the pace seems slow; You might succeed with another blow.

Often the goal is nearer than It seems to a faint and faltering man, Often the struggler has given up When he might have captured the victor’s cup. And he learned too late, when the night slipped down, How close he was to the golden crown.

Success is failure turned inside out;The silver tint of the clouds of doubt; And you never can tell how close you are, It may be near when it seems afar; So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit; It’s when things seem worst that you mustn’t quit.