Posts archived in Marketing

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March 4, 2010

Last Chance to Register for SMPS Conference in Nashville

nashville

Signal is partnering with the Society for Marketing Professional Services to create promotional materials for their upcoming regional conference in Music City, USA – Nashville, Tennessee.

The conference is March 24-26 at the Doubletree Hotel in downtown Nashville.  The conference will bring together marketing professionals from service businesses in the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee.  There will be many opportunities to learn the latest techniques in service marketing, including branding, social media marketing, and winning the pitch.

Signal will also be attending the conference.  We’re excited to be attending sessions, manning our booth, and giving out fabulous door prizes.

Come on down!

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November 25, 2009

Signal Launches New Web Site for Sequentric Energy Systems, LLC

sequentric

Signal recently announced the launch of a new web site for Sequentric Energy Systems, LLC, an innovator in developing demand control products for electric utility companies and their customers.

Within a compressed time frame, Signal delivered an intelligent site that clearly outlines Sequentric’s objectives through clean design and informative content. A flash component within the site depicts the company’s various products and how they assist customers in conserving energy. The structure of the web site is designed to easily build upon as the Sequentric brand grows.

“This website is exactly what we needed at this point in time,” says Tina Jacobs of Sequentric. “Signal’s flexibility and willingness to deliver what we needed within an impossible time frame was very impressive and greatly appreciated.”

To view the new Sequentric web site, visit www.sequentric.com.

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October 27, 2009

Increase Your Exposure with YouTube

Everybody loves online video. Incorporating video into your web site can enhance the user experience and increase the rate of visitors turned into customers, but did you realize how dramatically the presence of video content could increase your exposure in Google?

Google has pioneered the principle of “blended search,” or “universal search,” which means that search results from a variety of content categories – including video, news, images, shopping results and more – are brought together on a results page in an attempt to bring the user the most relevant possible matches.

A search for something like “landscaping” in Google will return not only regular web pages, but also images of landscaping ideas, local business listings pinpointed on a map, related news articles and more.

If you search for something more specific like “growing a pumpkin patch” videos will appear as thumbnails directly in the results page. See how it stands out on a results page otherwise dominated by your basic blue links and black preview text.

Blended Search Results

Although it is possible to earn a thumbnail spot like this from any online video service, you’re likely to see better results if you host your videos on YouTube. Google tends to rank YouTube videos more favorably over Hulu, Metacafe, etc. Google also tends to favorably rank web pages with embedded video content. Notice the top results for our search for “landscaping” all have embedded video content on their page.

Signal has found excellent results from adding and optimizing online video for numerous clients. YouTube specifically outperforms the rest. It’s easy to use, it offers cool ways to embed and share your videos online, and it greatly amplifies your chances of being found by web searchers. Not too shabby a deal.

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October 8, 2009

New Translator Gadget Offers “Quick Gist” of Your Content in Other Languages

Google has a new website translator gadget that makes it quick and easy to make your site’s content available in 51 different languages. It’s easy to implement – just copy and paste a few lines of code into your webpage. After that, if the language specified in your visitors’ browser settings is different from the language of your page a translation banner will appear prompting your visitor to translate the page.

gadget1 copy

After clicking the Translate button, visitors see the translations directly on the page.

gadget2 copy

This can be a great addition to pretty much any site, but particularly useful for site owners who know they have potential with international audiences and may not have the budget to pay professional (human) translators to do a thorough job. Keep in mind Google states that “Automatic translation is convenient and helps people get a quick gist of the page. However, its not a perfect substitute for the art of professional translation.”

If you’re worried Google’s “gist” may do more harm than help, test it! The gadget is powered by Google Translate – test your content here and get an opinion on the quality of the translation. You can also use the Google Translator Toolkit to edit weak areas in the translation of your web pages and set that version as a preferred, global translation.

Site owners should also keep in mind that although this gadget will help make their content more accessible, it will not help them increase visibility in international search engines. And the gadget can’t translate everything. If you’re using elements like text in images or Flash, it’s important to note they will remain in their original language.

On a related note, another new offering from Google Translate is 1-click translations from your browser’s toolbar! Just drag and drop your language from this page (scroll to the bottom) into your browser’s toolbar. Then whenever you want to translate a webpage, just click the new button on your toolbar.

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August 25, 2009

Widget Wizardry: Web 2.0 Connections Made Easy

Companies all around are getting connected to the social media world. You may be on Twitter, or your might prefer Facebook, but the question is, do people know about your presence? It’s simple to take one more step and make it easy for your targeted customers to find all of your social media connections using widgets.

What are widgets? They’re cool, customizable mini-applications that can be embedded directly into to a web page, bringing live feeds, games and user specific information to your visitors. Popular social media sites offer simple chunks of code you can insert on your site to create instant widgets.

For example, by adding a Facebook widget to your company’s site, you immediately have a visually attractive and customized entry point readily available for visitors to connect with you. Via your Facebook widget, visitors can see up-to-the-minute wall postings and become your fan with a click. And of course the widget links directly to your Facebook page.

There is a vast and growing range of widgets available. Below is an example showing how Signal has combined three widgets (including YouTube, Twitter and Facebook) on one “connect with us” page. Visit the Alma Lasers Connect page and see the widgets in action!

Alma_Connect

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April 9, 2009

Signal Launches New Web Site for Coastal Carolina Pediatric Dentistry

New Dimock & Weinberg Web Site

New Dimock & Weinberg Web Site

Signal announced the launch of a new web site for Dimock & Weinberg, DDS, PA, a pediatric dentistry practice located in Wilmington, NC.

The design of the new web site highlights the fun and child-friendly focus of the practice and features downloadable forms to help simplify new patient registration. The site also features an interactive photo gallery that provides visitors with a virtual office tour, while additional pages provide extensive information on what to expect from a child’s first visit to the dentist.

To view the new Dimock & Weinberg, DDS, PA web site, visit: www.ccpedo.com

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March 19, 2009

Adding Keywords to Your URLs: Does It Help With SEO?

Yes, having keywords in your URLs does help with SEO, but search engines react differently to keywords in the actual domain versus keywords that appear tacked on to the URL string.

Keywords in the URL String
www.fakedomainname.com/widgets/
Say you’re trying to rank for the keyword “widgets.” Having “widgets” in the page URL string (after the .com) may affect rankings slightly. The real benefit is click through rate. Since search engines display the keyword you searched in bold in the search results, more people are likely to click on your listing. The key is that you have to be ranking well in the search engines for people to even see your listing. This is probably not worth rewriting all of your URLs for, but definitely worth considering for a new website.

Keywords in the Domain
www.widgetsrus.com
Choosing a domain that contains one or some of your keywords can have slightly more of an effect on your SEO efforts than just having the keywords in the URL string. In fact, if you don’t already have an established brand or domain, it’s helpful to even work keywords into your brand name and/or any tag lines associated with your brand. Just like people will begin to associate your brand with your keywords, search engines will recognize the relevance of your website to those keywords.

Exact Match Domain
www.bluewidgetsraleigh.com
If you don’t already have an established brand or domain, choosing a domain that is an exact match to a top industry keyphrase can have a major effect on your SEO efforts. Keyword choice and finding a domain that is available is the hard part. We can only speculate why having an exact match domain is worth so much, but it’s likely search engines think someone searching for “blue widgets raleigh” is actually trying to look up the bluewidgetsraleigh.com website.

It’s also possible that having a domain that is an exact match to a top searched keyphrase in your industry means that you were an early presence on the web for this topic and possibly a leader in the eyes of the search engines.