The Pittsburgh Home Show: Land of Opportunity
By mike | March 9, 2008
Higher Images Inc. was in attendance of the Pittsburgh Home Show. The business opportunities for consumers and vendors struck like the high waters on the Mon-Wharf. The home show this year seemed to be your typical presentation of local businesses and “As Seen on TV” products. Each vendor giving it their all, the best and brightest of the sales force swarming like sharks in a frenzy.
For the most part, a company like Higher Images Inc. would seem out of place, but this is couldn’t be further from the truth. Marketing and websites are the new frontier for service industry businesses. The death of the phonebook has been the biggest contributing factor. The Internet brings opportunity for business, and the entire untapped (not tapped enough) online community is diverse in compilation and economic status.
The Internet can be compared to a trade show in a sense. Consider that the convention center is the world wide web, each booth is a website, and finally the people walking by are Internet surfers (consumers). The booth/site needs to be able to support the product or service being offered. The sales rep is a living breathing “ad” standing in the information highway (the aisle in front of the booth), if that sales rep is persuasive enough, they can generate leads.
To summarize, attending a Home and Garden Show is only as successful as you make it. If your website/booth is easy to navigate and able to convert, then you can sell any product or service anywhere. Isn’t that how it works on the Internet?
Topics: Industry Secrets | 5 Comments »
Social Medias Evolution
By mike | February 27, 2008
This is the digital age. We have gadgets for everything we need, as well as gizmo’s for everything we want. I challenge you to remember a telephone number (without your cell or PDA). Most children today don’t and won’t ever know what Beta-vision was/is. We don’t buy Cd’s anymore we download music by the song. These are all common occurrences in the digital age. We have learned to communicate via email, VoIp, and Weblogs. We rarely these days advertise in phonebooks (print), and a dictionary has been replaced by the internet. So, why has the evolution of Social Media been so jaded. Most of those who initiated social networks had “communication and collaboration” in mind. The purpose has been served we can flawlessly converse and share everything from info to pix to videos across multiple formats and platforms. All this, the end result of a “cyber-community”, sites like MySpace & Facebook steal the headlines while hundreds of spin-off platforms emerge and crash with every mouse click. It seems we are all in need to share and talk to others, but will not pay the price for this ability. I read an article postured toward the negative aspects of Social Media innovation. The POV here was that with blogs being used more and more for SEO and less for “communication and collaboration”, we (the web user) would not receive “pure SERP’s. There is only but one reason this is happening INNOVATION!
We have learned how to manipulate these platforms for more than their one dimension of usage. We (the end user) have asked for and pushed the functionality to the edge. We are now able to make web sites are will, and see them rank in accordance to the topic of each. Is this so bad?
Some will argue yes, most will agree that this is the natural course of action (innovation). In order to advance we must take risks and go against the grain. This is how we move forward in technology. This is also why we should embrace any and all variations of social media. If you choose to use it for SEO, that’s fine (good luck) we all will benefit from the journey and lessons of the SEOer’s. If your use of social media is to communicate and collaborate than chat away, but don’t misinterpret others experiments and manipulation as abuse.
Thus, we can thank all those “social-pioneers”, for there hard work and patience. Maybe we need to better understand the mechanics of social media to tolerate those who manipulate it. “The rewards of the few will be enjoyed by the many”. Lets support the evolution and innovation of social media, for some it is an art, for others a tool, but everybody has a need that can be filled by some manipulation of social media.
Topics: Industry Secrets | 1 Comment »
Making Law Easy Part 2: Wordpress Marketing Strategies
By mike | February 19, 2008
There has been a great deal of hype lately about companies using Wordpress platform to create web-sites. I even mentioned a Local law firm using Wordpress for it’s web site Making Law Easy. Today I read a great post about how companies like MakingLawEasy.com can capitalize on the work of many to benefit their online marketing efforts. Most companies realize that they need to be represented on the web, but many never go about it correctly. Then there are some forward thinkers who keep an online ear to the track and use technology to their advantage. “Work smart, not hard” is the message. With Wordpress, you (companies) have freedom to do any and all “buzz-words” they hear in the web marketing industry (i.e. podcast, webcast, RSS, Video). These are the future of the web. Thats not in stone, but it’s close. Finally, I was emailed a great article about tips for using wordpressand how it can help your SEO efforts. This is a great tool for amateur marketers, because it gives you a set-it-and-forget system for optimising keywords and header tags, (the building blocks of seo). So, next time you are thinking of hiring a web designer, ask yourself how involved you CAN be and if the answer is “all-in” then wordpress is the answer. IT”S FREE
Topics: Industry Secrets | 1 Comment »
