Managed Designs Blog

Archive for July, 2009

It’s important for small business owners to stay up to date with the latest trends of online marketing and internet use in general. Today, three very interesting news announcements from Techcrunch showed some surprising trends. All three stories report on new ways people are using the web, but each may effect your marketing strategy differently depending on how your core audience uses the web. The first story is relevant to any business with a blog. Every business can benefit from a blog as it provides your visitors with a source of valuable content above and beyond the standard brochure fare. When updated regularly, a blog also provides visitors with a reason to come back to your site again and again. Techcrunch themselves are early adopters of a new way for visitors to interact with your content – ECHO.

ECHO aggregates ALL of the conversations people are having about your content into one place. Whether your users are using Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIN or are only engaging with your blog, any discussion of your content which includes a link will be syndicated in your blog’s comments. Even better, visitors to your blog can login and discuss your entries on any of the above platforms directly from your site. Initial metrics from the first beta test show a 10% increase in time spent on site! Currently ECHO is in private beta, but I’ve subscribed to their RSS feed and included a link to their site. I’ll update on this as the project moves forward.

Another interesting change in how the web is being used comes from the browser world. The two biggest players in the game are currently Internet Explorer and Firefox, but Safari, Opera and Chrome are all big names too. Firefox announced today that around 3:45 AM EST tomorrow they will have reached 1 Billion downloads, giving them a market share of roughly 30%. Why is this important? Depending on how your site is coded it may appear differently in some browsers. Different browsers interpret HTML differently, and some older browsers (namely, IE6) don’t render modern HTML and CSS according to web standards. Internet Explorer comes standard on any Windows computer sold in the US, so corporate users are generally using IE6, IE7 or IE8. While some businesses use Firefox as their standard IT supported browser, the vast majority of FF users are home users. Depending on your market, you may be wise to view your site using a tool like Browsershots to see how it renders in different browsers. If you want truly stay ahead of the game, ask your designer about the new features that Firefox 3.5 brings to the web.

The final story I’d like to discuss today is about a new way of using social media. Two of the biggest types of social media today are the status update and video. The online network 12seconds is combining the two providing you with an easy way to connect with your visitors through two of the most valuable channels on the web today. If you have a new iPhone 3G S, 12seconds announced today its new iPhone application built for fast and easy updates. You can record 12 seconds of video and directly upload a link to your video along with a brief tweet. (Yes, the system uses Twitter for status updates.) I’ll be trying it out, so check out my Twitter page to see how it works. If you’re audience is mainly young B2B companies, you’ll find that 12seconds is a great addition to any of your social media campaigns.

Everyday the internet evolves faster than before making it hard to keep up with everything. Keep checking back here for the latest news on how the internet is evolving, plus tips and trick for using these technologies for your business.

In the past few days, I’ve put up a new website and blog for my internet marketing company – Managed Designs. You may notice that this blog’s design is a little more polished than the Managed Designs homepage, but there is a method to my madness. One primary goal I have with this blog is to show how the Internet and Inbound Marketing can save your company money while increasing the level of service that you can provide to your customers. This blog is just the first step in a continual improvement process that will occur with the Managed Designs homepage. As we make improvements to the site, they will be documented and discussed here in our blog.

Generally, a company’s homepage serves as its primary marketing effort on the web and Managed Designs will likely follow suit (unless this blog gains popularity, which I’ll explain in just a moment). The homepage that I’ve set up is where I’d say the average small business is. According to a great inbound marketing tool – Website Grader – the Managed Designs homepage scores in the 19th percentile of all websites for it’s “website grade.” According to Website Grader…

A website grade of 19/100 for www.managed-designs.com means that of the hundreds of thousands of websites that have previously been evaluated, our algorithm has calculated that this site scores higher than 19% of them in terms of its marketing effectiveness. The algorithm uses a proprietary blend of over 50 different variables, including search engine data, website structure, approximate traffic, site performance, and others.

So… we’ve obviously got some work to do. One of the greatest rules of inbound marketing is that content is more important than anything else. Only by creating content that is of value to your audience can you actually gain their full attention, especially on the internet. One of the easiest and most reliable ways to increase the amount of content on your site – hopefully bringing in some additional traffic too – is creating a blog. I won’t get into the nitty gritty details of blogging today, but it is important to understand how a blog can benefit your business.

Blogs can fill many different roles depending on the business and market that you’re in. In our case because Managed Designs is an internet marketing company we chose to focus our blog on technology and industry news as well as marketing how-tos. The greatest benefit that a blog can provide is establishing your business and even yourself as a thought leader. When you’re broadcasting ideas of value to people, they tell their friends about it. Slowly, as your ideas are talked about by people on the web you gain credibility and brand awareness.

With our blog created and running, Managed Designs has taken its first step into the new world of online marketing. You can join us as we venture further into blogging, content and inbound marketing by subscribing to our RSS feed.

Welcome! You’ve found the Managed Designs blog! Here you will find articles and discussion on the newest trends and technologies in the internet marketing world. Managed Designs is a new website management and internet marketing company dedicated to creating successful campaigns for small and medium businesses. Many business owners are interested in the internet, how it can help connect them with their customers and how to increase the effectiveness of their marketing efforts. This blog will help meet that need by following Managed Designs as we design and market our new website. Travel with us as we go step-by-step through our unique process for the planning, design and execution of a successful online marketing campaign.

Successful marketing campaigns all start at the same place: an initial discussion of needs and expectations. Our next entry describes the needs and expectations of Managed Designs as well as outlines the process we go through with each and every client. If you’re ready to turn your site into a lead generating powerhouse, subscribe to our feed and embark with us into the new world of online marketing.