Event Planning 101

By Phyllis K. Ershowsky, APR, MBA, Principal
PKE Marketing & PR Solutions, LLC

Most of my articles emphasize the academic side of marketing and PR – research, planning, strategy and evaluation – but from time to time, readers ask for more practical advice. For example, what are the key components of orchestrating an event?

During economically challenging times, many firms opt to host an event to express customer appreciation, to raise funds for a charitable organization, or to announce a new service or product.  It is a cost effective, personal way of doing business in a relaxed social setting. Remember that success results from careful planning.

At a recent gala I planned and facilitated for a client, I noted that the caterer was incredibly important to a wonderful evening.   So your first step will be to make sure to select the right one for your party.

Whether you are planning the soiree on your own, or hiring an event planner, following are some thoughts to consider to ensure that your guests are delighted and that you achieve your objectives.

Depending upon your budget for the event, most caterers are available with a menu of services that can range from supplying food and beverages to the whole gamut of tables, chairs, linens, glassware and flatware, set up and take down – it’s simply a case of knowing what you want them to handle – and how much you can afford.

Here are 10 helpful tips to keep in mind:

1. Calculate your budget.  Before you even make the call, be prepared with a listing of what the quote should include: food and beverages, servers and chefs, alcohol, ice, linens, flowers, decorations, candles and don’t forget – rentals. Rentals include tables, linens, plates, glasses, flatware, platters and hot chafing dishes.

2. Determine the theme or style of the event.  Are you planning a tux and tails black tie gala or are you throwing an autumn harvest party? Do you have a theme in mind, a color scheme to follow, or a specific menu to suit the season?

3. Decide on the type of service.  Considering the event’s tone and number of guests, you may want to plan either a buffet or a sit-down dinner.  Appetizers may be on a long table or served on a tray by roving wait staff. Keep in mind how many stations you might need to make sure you keep everything flowing!

4. Hot food or cold? Remember that hot food will require more service staff and will increase your costs.

5. Communication is key. Are you getting return phone calls and responses to your questions?  A great event depends on open lines of communication to keep everything running smoothly – on time and on budget.

6. Think about the bar. Limiting alcohol to beer and wine can save you money, but you may be inviting a crowd that expects an open bar.

7. Get three quotes.  It’s a good idea to comparison shop to see what you are getting for your dollar and who will best meet your needs.

8.  Take a taste.  If you are trying out a caterer that is new to you, go ahead and ask for a tasting session – most caterers will allow you to do this for free.

9. Set a schedule.  You will feel more organized if you and the caterer come up with a timeline for the day of the event – delivery and set up, an itinerary of the evening, and estimated closing time.

10. Relax.  The reason you’ve called the caterer is so you can mingle with your guests. So once you’ve put your trust in a caterer, let go and enjoy your successful event!

So Did It Work? Measuring & Evaluating Your Public Relations Plan

By Phyllis K. Ershowsky, APR, MBA, Principal
PKE Marketing & PR Solutions, LLC
Adjunct Professor in Public Relations, Florida Gulf Coast University

One of the most important yet most overlooked elements of a strategic public relations plan is the measurement component. A well thought out plan must incorporate a method of evaluation so that you have real evidence to demonstrate whether or not the plan has achieved your objectives, or if you need to revise before doing this again.

Take steps to ensure that you or your public relations consultant includes evaluative measures throughout the plan – it is not advisable to wait until the end to discover whether the plan is going well, or not.

Reasons for measuring your results include:

• To determine if you achieved your objectives
• To evaluate if you would make any changes for next time
• To help with decision-making at the management level

So how do you begin? Plan to include evaluation in your program from the very beginning by deciding what your criteria are for success. What are you trying to measure? Attendance at an event? Number of new clients? Votes in a political campaign? Once you know what you want to measure, decide on when you want to measure it. At the end of your program, or at intervals along the way? Finally, you need to develop your measurement techniques – how will you measure your results?

When setting criteria, make sure they are linked to your objectives. They should also be realistic (but challenging), cost effective (not cost more than your gain), and ethical.

As for timing, consider an implementation report that summarizes each of your tactics and then interim progress reports so you can change your program if it needs tweaking. Finally, you will require a summative report to present the results of the completed program. Most businesses expect these from their public relations department or outside consultants.

Some measurement techniques involve a before-after study where attitudes are tested both before and after a program is implemented and then compared to determine the effectiveness of the campaign. Other techniques may be strictly an after-study or a control group mechanism.

As you progress through your plan, you will want to establish your evaluation methodology. Will you depend solely on judgmental assessments like, “I think that went well,” “Or my friends said they read about it in the newspaper,” or will you want more substantive information?  You can track success by evaluation communication outputs (number of press releases and articles in the media), message production (how well crafted the news release was), message distribution (number of media who received it), or message cost (what was your ROI).

Other methods of evaluation include measurement of how awareness might have increased since you sent the message out, if the content was reported the way it was intended and whether or not the message was remembered.

The ultimate feedback is the measurement of your action objectives – did you actually increase audience participation, attendance, traffic, sales and attitudes? Much of this is based on direct observation and feedback from your audience, but it is essential to track these results.

How does evaluation help you in the long run? It adds to a solid public relations plan that will help your firm by:

• Reinforcing positive opinion, reversing negative opinion & promoting awareness of your benefits;
• Making money by generating publicity, adding customers and improving performance, internally and externally;
• Creating understanding and goodwill through all your organizational functions;

*Saving money by retaining customers and keeping you ahead of the competition.

Whether your firm employs an internal public relations manager or hires a public relations consulting firm, the value of measuring the results of your public relations programs is immeasurable.

Search Engine Optimization pt. 6

Part 1 - Why search engines? - Who cares about search engines anyway?! Well your small, medium, or large business should - NO MATTER WHAT YOUR INDUSTRY (sorry about the yelling) - because it is the way people find everything (on or offline).

Part 2 - General Overview - Brief overview of the 4 principals of Search Engine Optimization and how to prepare your self, your website, and your company for this amazing marketing journey.

Part 3 - Coding - Sure, that word is scary, and if you’re a typical business owner or marketing person you’ll probably want nothing to do with this. But, knowing the basics can keep you out of trouble, maximize your exposure and marketing efforts and help you hire a great developer.

Part 4 - Content - Making sure your website has as much content as possible (unique content that is relevant to your business or website) and making sure it is fresh and up-to-date is one of the most powerful marketing techniques online and the only way to achieve long term search engine optimization success.

Part 5 -  Links - Links are a vital (maybe one of the most important elements for a new website) portion of your web marketing, read this short guide to learn more.

Well this is it. It has taken a number of months to finish the entire 6 part series and this is the 6th part. First a recap:

Why the Web?

Do you really need to ask? More and more households in the United States, in Bonita Springs, and throughout the world are signing on and using this tool to discover businesses like yours!

You Need a Website

As a business owner you should be thinking of marketing 24/7. I know I probably don’t need to tell you this, but you need to be thinking about your clients, their concerns, their needs, and addressing them at every turn. Address your future clients’ needs in advertisements (learn from your current customers) and preemptively answer the questions you already know they have. You need to address your current clients’ wants by refining your processes, performing better services for cheaper, providing a better customer experience, etc. And, there is no better way to do this than a website. I know it’s sales-y coming from a guy that designs websites, but I have never experienced the same potential to meet and address all of these needs (across hundreds of clients) by any other means. A well crafted website can get the job done.

Market Your Damn Website! (sorry I cursed, I’m just passionate)

But, as you begin the process of developing your website keep in mind the rules of the web. You are probably already familiar with the rules of the web, you just need to KNOW and UNDERSTAND.

How do you find a business?

How do you look up the name of the city in Lebanon you were just asked about?

Simple, you open your favorite browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari) and you do a search. You look to Google, MSN, and Yahoo as your prophets, and their results guide you to the answers. So search engines need to be a priority. But it doesn’t end with search engines.

The general marketing of your site needs to be a priority. How are you going to get visitors, where will your site be seen? Concentrate on this, as well as what they see and the questions you answer once you get them to your site. Remember, a website alone will VERY RARELY accomplish anything. Expect to spend time and money getting your website marketed. Although this marketing medium is very powerful and very inexpensive (compared to print or other conventional mediums).

Learning The Rules of Search Engines:

• Make sure your website is up-to-snuff - your development team, you, or the automated software you select needs to take all marketing related elements of your site into account BEFORE IT IS CREATED. Removing this first speed bump will allow you to sail through the Internet’s super highway steadily. Make sure the code is tight, clean and includes all the attributes mentioned previously.
• Concentrate on getting content - Your website is not static. If you think it can sit there on the interweb lonely and stale, but perform you are dead wrong. Maybe you don’t believe a website can bring in business or shorten sales cycles? Great, but step aside as progressive forward-thinking businesses do, and snap up your market share and put you out of business. And content is the core of this marketing vehicle. Write about your events, your successes, even your failures. Connect with your customers and your website will begin to bring in traffic in very interesting ways!
• Get those links - Physical networking is a core of any business. You got a client from a friend of a friend. Linking is no different. You need to get your website out there, get people talking about it and get it known.

That’s it! It’s not rocket science (although some of the coding might be a little unfamiliar or seem complicated), but by following this simple guide you will be on the path to placing your website at the top of the search engines!

Search Engine Optimization pt. 5 - Links

We’re almost to the end! In the previous portions of this 6 part article we covered:

Part 1 - Why search engines? - Who cares about search engines anyway?! Well your small, medium, or large business should - NO MATTER WHAT YOUR INDUSTRY (sorry about the yelling) - because it is the way people find everything (on or offline).

Part 2 - General Overview - Brief overview of the 4 principals of Search Engine Optimization and how to prepare your self, your website, and your company for this amazing marketing journey.

Part 3 - Coding - Sure, that word is scary, and if you’re a typical business owner or marketing person you’ll probably want nothing to do with this. But, knowing the basics can keep you out of trouble, maximize your exposure and marketing efforts and help you hire a great developer.

Part 4 - Content - Making sure your website has as much content as possible (unique content that is relevant to your business or website) and making sure it is fresh and up-to-date is one of the most powerful marketing techniques online and the only way to achieve longterm search engine optimization success.

Part 5 - Welcome… let’s talk about links.

What is a Link?

What’s a link? This is a link. This is a link. If you want to see what’s going on in the background here you go <a href=”http://www.google.com”>This is a link.</a>

A link is simply a snippet of code (not code again!) that tells your web browser (the program you are using right now to surf the web and read this article) to jump to another location. It can be a spot on this page, or an entirely new website.

Why Are Links Important!?

That’s pretty simple. Links are important because it is a way (one of the biggest) search engines evaluate you. It is the tool the search engines use to determine whether you should be #10 or #100 for a search term. Google, and the other search engines take a look at links in a very interesting way. They assume relationships through links.

How Do Links Work (from a search engine’s point of view)

Links establish relationships and value. Let’s start with an example. Here is a chunk of text that appeared on our personal site:

Project Management software is key to any web developer’s success. A great online project management software will provide you (as a developer0 with the tools you need to get and stay organized, and communicate with your team and clients along every step of the way. To that affect, we have been using basecamp for sometime and it has helped us tremendously with all of the above.

In the above paragraph (ignore any of the technical terms mentioned), simply notice that “great online project management software” and “basecamp” are underlined. When you hover over them, you can then click and be brought to another website. This is another illustration of a link.

But, Google and the other search engines, also view this link as a vote of confidence. They read the surrounding text (relating to project management) and assume, since I am linking to it, that the underlying linked website (in this case Basecamp) probably has something to do with what I wrote. The more websites that link to basecamp, and the more they mention project management, the more likely this website will rank well for… Project Management.

Additionally, Google tallies all of the links coming into basecamp and essentially assigns it a score (called a PageRank) - I know this is a gross simplification of PageRank. Additionally, PageRank is determined by the size of the site (write that content!) and the coding of the site (I told you it was important)! If your website has a large PageRank, and you link to another site, that site gets a larger boost in the search engine results.

How Do You Apply This Your My Business?

Okay, this sounds complicated, but it really isn’t. Let’s say you own a small flower shop in Bonita Springs. You would LOVE to be #1 on Google when someone searches for “Flowers Bonita Springs.” How do you do this? Well, let’s assume you have your site constructed properly, and you have a lot of great content, but you’re still not coming up. The next step - and of supreme importance for new websites are the number of websites that link back to yours. So, perhaps you can contact your vendors or suppliers of flowers, vases, etc. and ask them to put your company information and a link to your website on theirs. Or you can see if any of your recurring business customers will mention their experience on their own website and link back to yours. The more links you have the better.

How Do You Get Links?

Good question. Here is a breakdown:

• Directories (paid and unpaid) - much like old yellow page ads
• Participating in Online Forums, Communities, Blogs
• Writing Your Own Amazing Content (people will find your stuff, read it, and link back to it)
• Real Relationships - If you have a business relationship with vendors, merchants, brands, etc. you can contact your vendors or customer base and see if they will link back to you

REMEMBER

Now remember, this always seems to trip businesses up: YOU ONLY CARE ABOUT OTHER WEBSITES LINKING TO YOURS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Sure, you may have content that requires a link to an outside website, link to it, as it will help your audience and that website, but when we are trying to grow our own search engine ranking, the greatest thing that will affect your own site’s performance on search engines, are the number of industry relevant websites and blog posts that link BACK TO YOUR WEBSITE!!!! So, a links page on your own site, for example, does not help. We care about links coming in!

Analyze Your Business & Your Competition

Links are also a really good way, if for example you are looking to break into the online space and don’t yet have a website, or have one and are looking to spruce it up, to evaluate your competition. You can use the following website:

http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com

Type in your website or your competitors website, select “INLINKS” (remember we care about links coming into websites) to see how many links you or your competitors have. This is a great opportunity to also find out where you’ve been mentioned. Often times on the web, you won’t even know if someone (article, publication, etc.) has mentioned you.

Advance Planning Can Prepare You for Anything

Please remain calm…
Advance Planning Can Prepare You for Anything (well, almost anything)

By Phyllis K. Ershowsky, APR, MBA, Principal
PKE Marketing & PR Solutions, LLC
Adjunct Professor in Public Relations, Florida Gulf Coast University

Your common sense tells you that your business may be faced with a crisis situation at some point, but human nature often prevents you from doing anything about it. The fact is, even though dreadful catastrophe doesn’t happen every day, events that can be defined as crises happen all the time. You should be prepared because yes, it can happen to you. You’ve worked hard to build your business reputation and you will want to do everything you can to protect it.

Just within the last few months I have encountered several local firms that have experienced unexpected situations that attracted immediate media attention: one suffered a high-profile lawsuit from a disgruntled employee; another had an unfortunate on-the-job accident; and a third has been questioned about the safety of components they use in the manufacturing process.  When the media calls, “No Comment,” is not an acceptable answer – so what should you do to protect your business?

In “Strategic Planning and Public Relations,” author Ronald D. Smith provides six Strategic Principles for Crisis Management.  When I create a crisis management plan for my clients, I always incorporate these guidelines:

Principle of Exist as well as with colleagues.  Keep everyone informed – these are the people that support you and will help you in your rebuilding activities following the crisis.

Principle of Media-as-Ally
Crises invite scrutiny because they have potential impact on a large number of people. So treat the news media as allies that will help you communicate with key publics. A good pre-existing program of media relations can make this type of communication go more smoothly.

Principle of Reputational Priorities
Following the safety of you and your employees, your top priority is your reputation.  This will help you focus on doing what’s best for your customers, employees and other key publics.

Principle of Quick Response
Be accessible to your publics as quickly as possible. A standard guideline is the one-hour rule – within an hour of learning about a crisis, the organization should be prepared to have its first message available to its publics, particularly the media.

Principle of Full Disclosure
Silence is not acceptable. Without admitting fault or speculating about facts still unknown, the organization should present as much information as possible about the particular event.

Principle of One Voice
A single, trained spokesperson should represent the organization. If this is not possible, the two or three people appointed should be aware of what the others are saying and all should work together from the same facts.

This is the basic framework for the beginnings of a full crisis management plan – we don’t want to expect the worst, but good preparation will enable all of us to move forward in a positive, optimistic manner.  And while we cannot prepare for everything, in most cases a good plan will enable you to manage a crisis calmly, quickly and efficiently

Search Engine Optimization pt. 4 - SEO Content

This is part 4 of a 6 part series.

Visit Part: 1, 2, 3

Let’s do a quick recap. We discussed the general principals of search engine optimization, why it’s important, and how to code your site properly (or make sure that it is), now it’s time to talk about content. This is perhaps the most important part of search engine optimization. Many local businesses, be they in Bonita Springs, Fort Myers, Estero or Naples routinely hear this part and start to get upset. No matter what your business, whether you are a small local business marketing nationally OR locally, the content on your website will play a key role in marketing yourself.

For example let’s say you are a custom stair builder in Fort Myers Florida. Wouldn’t you like to rank well for the search: “custom stair builder fort myers” in Google? It makes sense right? That might be something your prospective customer might search for. Well, how do you get to #1 using content?

4 Keys To Successful SEO Content

• Start from the Beginning
• Keep it Fresh
• Keep it Relevant
• The more you have, the more likely search engines will find you and respect your site

Where to Start? Start from the beginning.

Start with the current content on your site, has it been laid out properly and organized efficiently? Most often I see websites with very little organization. Once a good organization has been determined effectively filling in your general content should be easy. This is an example of a small website that has organized effectively:

• Home
• About
• Staff
• Pledge
• Services
  • Service 1
  • Service 2
  • Service 3
• News/Blog
• Contact

If you already have a website, try reorgnazing it. There is nothing more confusing to search engines and users then when a website has no depth or categorization. Make sure to keep future content or goals in mind when doing so. Then, swoop back around and begin filling in the details. If a product or service is separate, and you think there is enough demand or text for it to have its own page, create one. Make sure to keep in mind the previous rule regarding search engine optimization (code) in mind when creating your pages.
Okay, so your site is laid out properly and you have a good amount of text about your core business and services, now what. Remember, when thinking about content from a search engine optimization perspective is to keep it up-to-date and keep it relevant. Your website has a purpose, an audience, and the more often you update the text, the more weight your website will have with search engines and the more you keep it centered around your core business and services, the more search engines will respect your site for the category of business you are in.

This may seem like a daunting task, but there is a VERY easy way to accomplish this.

So how do you incorporate all 4 elements of a successful search engine optimization content strategy? One very easy way to do it is implement a blog. A blog is simply an online journal that allows you to quickly post an article to your website and typically allows users to respond through comments.
Easily, and Quickly, Build Your Website’s Foot Print

A typical small business website will be informational in nature, what may be referred to as a “brochure website.” You might have a home page, about pare, services page, and a fancy contact page, but, not much else. This is a mistake, but often a necessary one as the creation of new pages and content usually takes some savvy computer know-how and coding knowledge. But, once installed or setup, a blog allows you to freely created pages and pages of information for free. Become the expert you already are by writing about the things you already love. A blog allows you to quickly and cost effectively grow the size of your website. By creating many blog posts and organizing them effectively you will immediately increase the amount of text on your site (your site’s footprint). Although users will read your content, more importantly your posts will feature text combinations that people will search for, bringing in additional traffic. Finally, the blogosphere is ripe with people looking to read good content and send links back your way. Which takes us to the final step in search engine optimization…
So start writing and blogging!

Search Engine Optimization pt. 3 - SEO Code

This is part 3 of a 6 part series.

Visit Part: 1, 2

It’s all about the code. This is the first article in this series on search engines where we will really dive deep into how to get to #1. Again, we’re trying to come up as high as possible in the search engines when our target markets are searching for products or services we have to offer. Why is this? Well let’s say you provide health benefits to a local audience. Doesn’t it make sense to have your website to appear when someone searches for “health benefits fort myers?” How valuable is that to you? No matter what your business, it can benefit from this kind of exposure. But, besides this generalization I have some more search engine optimization peddling to do:

• It flips conventional marketing on its head - People are searching for WHAT YOU HAVE! Not, remembering a creative ad you forced in front of them in a publication. Your visitors, potential customers, and sales are seeking you out. Crazy, I know!
• It is very targeted - Again, people are searching for what you have. Search engine optimization works by taking your visitors in a side door to the products or services they need to get to quickest. If your site is well optimized and you’ve gone through all of the motions, you can deliver a page dedicated to the specific needs of searches right away.
• It is timely - Your site and the opportunity to get a client or make a sale is delivered at precisely the moment they are in need - and searching - for what you have to offer.
• You have instant “street-cred” - By having a good ranking visitors assume you are credible “Google, recognizes this company enough to show their page #1, surely they are good and reputable.” Although this isn’t always the case (the results may not actually be credible, or they might not be a great company), the association is definitely implied and recognized by potential customers.

Now on to the nuts and the bolts. This article will discuss in detail the first step in making sure your site comes up, how your site is built.

In order to rank well you or your web developer or development company need to make sure your site is built with the goal of marketing in mind. Specifically these things should be addressed:

XHTML & CSS - (I know it’s technical gobbley gook, but just hear me out.) This is the standard of code used for your site. XHTML is the language used to present your content on the web, and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) is how that content is styled (the design). By sticking to the latest XHTML & CSS standards, it means your website will be smaller in size, quicker to download, and easier to read by search engines. Although there is a debate as to whether XHTML vs. Tables (old style web design) will have an impact on search engine results for your sites, our own tests have seen large increases in ranking and performance by simply updating this.

Additionally, proper coding of XHTML, what’s called “Semantic Coding“, or using tags as they were meant to be used to present the content will help the search engines and other automated tools read your content and assign value. For example there are tags that carry more weight then others, by coding correctly, this can be communicated, and you can rank well or better, then if your website was not coded to these standards.

Unique Title Tags - The title tag is a tag on every web page. The text within this tag is displayed at the top left corner of your browser, and is also often used for the title of search engine results. Making sure this title is specific to each page, and relevant to your overall goals will help tremendously. Just changing the order of certain words in your title tags can have a significant impact on search engine results.

Unique META Tags - META tags are tags on a page that provide additional information on the page below. Again, much like title tags, they should be unique for each page (a real pain in the ass for sites with lots of pages). META information is not as important as it once was, but is still measured and used by search engines.

Alt & Title Tags - If your website is coded using XHTML/Semantic coding, this will already be factored in. Alt tags are used so that users who can’t see images on your site, understand the images on your site. For example, a picture of an elephant would have the alt tag say “elephant” that way if the user has poor vision, or is surfing without images turned on they will be able to know what is going on. LIkewise the title tag, can be used to provide more information to your users. Implementing these two tags and making sure to stick to updating them will help inform your visitors and search engines about your content.

File Structure - How you organize your content is also very important. On a smaller, simpler brochure site, this might not be as important, but even the smallest sites can see search engine benefits by appropriately naming pages and folders. For example, lets say you have a services page on your website. You should name it “example.com/services.html.” If you have a larger site with a number of services, say for example, lawn mower repair you should follow a similar structure: “example.com/services/lawn-mower-repair.html.” It’s that simple! Structuring your site in this manner helps inform users of the content on the page, in that section, and also helps search engines understand the format of your site.

Sitemap - A sitemap, both one your users can read and understand (example: Bonita Business Sitemap), as well as an XML sitemap that is used by search engines (example: Bonita Business XML sitemap) should also be generated for your site. These two files tell visitors and search engines, exactly what is available on your site and where every file is. It will help speed up the process of being included, or help improve your rankings on the search engines. If your site is built on a content management system the creation of a sitemap may be simple. If it wasn’t, or the process isn’t simple, you can always use available free online tools to generate your sitemap.

Post-Launch Steps - After your site has all of the above complete, it’s been structured properly from a coding and file perspective, it is helpful to submit it to the various search engines but not by any conventional search engine submission sense! Use the following services to verify that you are the owner of your site which will also include it in the search engine’s:

• Google Webmaster
• Yahoo Site Explorer
• MSN Webmaster

These tools also allow you to verify ownership of your website, learn more about them over time (like what people are searching for when your site comes up and how many links your website has - more to come), and they also allow you to submit your sitemap, speeding up the process of getting in the search engines.

Sidenote: Hosting - Hosting can have a significant impact on your search engine rankings. If your website is hosted by a server or company that is unreliable, whose computers or network is constantly down and thus inaccessible by search engines or visitors, you will not rank as high.

Search Engine Optimization pt. 2 - SEO Overview

This is part 2 of a 6 part series.

Visit Part: 1

In the last article we learned about search engines, what they are and a little bit about how they work. As you now know, it is beneficial for your company or website to appear in high spots when users throughout the world do search for things that you offer. For example, your company sells paper products, if a user on the web searches for “paper ream” it would make sense for your business and website to appear. This turns conventional marketing on its head. Instead of clamoring for the attention of eyeballs in magazines, newspapers, or on TV - you allow your target audience to find you, and you appear, exactly when they are looking, when they are needing your solution! And the potential is limitless. I just heard a story about a very small internet-based business in rural Kansas that sells premium pool (the game) equipment. By strategically targeting their niche online via search engines they are able to provide services to a worldwide audience, making millions each year. This business would otherwise be impossible to sustain in their local economy and is only possible because of the vast reach of the Internet and search engine’s ability to funnel targeted traffic into your website.

No more sales! I promise. You know the Internet is powerful, you know you get traffic through search engines, so how do we position ourselves at the top? Three simple and key axioms.

3 Rules of Search Engine Optimization

• Code
• Content
• Links

In a nutshell the three important parts of search engine optimization are code, content, and links. This article is just a quick highlight of all three and in future articles I will present more information on each.

Code

How was your site built? Is it set up for success for search engine marketing/optimization by the use of modern, standards-based coding? Does your site have specific code implemented traits that ensure it will give you an edge over your competition, provide the best experience for your users and ultimately raise your chances of search engines success?

Content

Content is king! Nothing drives more on the web then content. And don’t forget it. If search engine optimization is the lifeblood of any website, content is the red blood cells. Content, especially from a search engine perspective MUST be there. If you have the first axiom (code) down properly, it’s time to move on to content. How much content do you have? How relevant is it to the general topic/theme of your site? How often is it updated. If you don’t have a plan for implementing more content, you should get moving, start planning, and start writing. If you are not willing to do this, you might as well give up now, and not waste time and money on a website.

Links

Finally, the third axiom in search engine optimization are links. Links truly drive search engine optimization, but are also the hardest and final part of the equation. How many sites throughout the web link to your website? Why do you care? Because search engines use links as a way to measure a website’s content and legitamacy. It’s like a vote of confidence. If site A links to site B search engines read it as “site A thinks site B is legitimate and valuable and so should we.” Additionally, the content of the site that links to you is also important. If you sell jewelry, a link from a manufacturer or jewelry resource website will be more meaningful than a link from a friend who has a website that deals with bread recipes.

To conclude, search engine optimization will involve Code, Content, and Links. Keeping these three axioms in mind will help prepare you for what’s to come and set you up for top rankings on search engines.

Now is the Time for Winning Strategies

Marketing & Public Relations Programs in a Challenging Economy

It may be a big surprise to many corporate decision makers, but when the business climate presents its inevitable challenges – financial setbacks, a severe downturn in the economy, a marked increase in competition – this is the BEST time to consider establishing or ramping up your marketing and public relations efforts.

Whether you are starting a new business, or trying to maintain the presence you’ve worked so hard to achieve, you want to position your firm as a strong survivor pushing forward with the marketing elements of your business plan.  While the others in your industry might withdraw or even disappear, you have an amazing opportunity to forge ahead in an ever increasingly competitive environment.

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Crime Doesn’t Pay, or Does it?

What can creative criminal catching provided by Collier County’s online approach, teach you about business? Well, other than sweet, sweet, aliteration, this is a prime example of the Internet’s sweeping penetration across households, businesses, everything and how it can be employed to “catch” your target market.

I have setup Google Alerts (more info here…) to alert me of any local business happenings and this morning… this came up:

Help Us Solve This Case
By colliersheriff.org(colliersheriff.org)
Deputies are reaching out to the community for tips in a robbery at a North Naples business in 2007. On June 2, 2007, three men robbed the Money Corner at 9853 US 41 N. around 9:20 pm One of the robbers hit a store employee in the head …
Behind The Star - http://ccsoblog.blogspot.com/

After clicking and reading the story I was intrigued:

One of the robbers hit a store employee in the head with a gun. The robbers made off with an undisclosed amount of cash.

Investigators believe the robbers drove away in a vehicle that was waiting nearby, possibly a sporty red car.

I was intrigued for what is, probably the wrong reason. Like any business the Collier County Sheriff’s office realizes it has a market, in this particular case, anyone who might know about a robbery that occurred. And, instead of printing fliers, making phone calls or possibly to supplement these existing methods of solicitation, they are reaching out to people via the web - a web blog (more to come in subsequent posts).Their audience will do a search AND FIND THEM!

The web is penetrating so deeply across every demographic that it is foolish not to seek your audience there (or here, you’re reading this on the web right?) or, more appropriately, set yourself up so YOUR AUDIENCE SEEKS YOU!

The blog in this case was setup for free through one of the most popular online blogging platforms out there, Blogger. Sheriff office’s blog, and this post in particular, will appear for any related searches - searches done by those that might have knowledge of the robbery - and perhaps the perpetrators will be caught. So, “catch” the eyes of your customers, put yourself out there, and continue writing on the web.

Anyone with information should call the Collier County Sheriff’s Office at 239-793-9300 or if you wish to remain anonymous call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-780-TIPS (8477).

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