Internet Marketing is More Measurable – Branding is important and traditional marketing does have benefits when it comes to branding. However, marketers today are smarter and more sophisticated. They see the value of measuring results and brand awareness is more difficult to measure then real visitors to your website and real conversions. Marketers want to make sure every penny is spent wisely. Internet marketing allows you to see exactly what you are paying for. Traditional marketing takes a little more trust that the impact of your efforts is helping your bottom line. With Internet marketing you can see real facts and every detail that leads to reaching your goals and determine your ROI.

Internet Marketing Makes Strategic Decisions Based on Facts – With Internet marketing, you can make decisions based on detailed analytics. You can have the smartest and most talented traditional agency with great ideas and plenty of experience, but they will have a difficult time showing real data that leads to achieving your goals. They will also build out a campaign and not be able to adjust it on the fly based on the public’s response.  The best way to really know how effective your marketing approach is to see exactly what the audience is responding positively to. Internet marketing allows you to study every detail about your audience in real time. You can study data from every phase in your conversion funnel that includes: how people found your website; what they do once they are on your site; and what led to your conversations. You can make adjustments to your campaign at any point to increase the effectiveness of your campaign.

Internet Marketing Is Better at Reaching Your Target Audience – Traditional marketing is known for its reach to a mass audience. There are ways that traditional marketing can target certain demographics depending on a television channel or show, radio station genre or industry magazine. However, traditional marketing will never be able to target as precisely as Internet marketing. With Internet marketing you can target even the smallest audience based on a variety of things. Internet marketing also does a great job of targeting your advertising spend so that you know all of your money is being spent in the most effective way.

Internet Marketing is a Constant Source – When you hear or see a television or radio ad it is there one minute and then it is gone.  If you catch an ad in passing and you missed some information you cannot go back and review it. Print is a little better for this but newspapers and magazines do get thrown out after a week or month. Internet marketing provides you a permanent address online that people can visit anytime they want. Even if someone does not know about your company they can do searches based on what you offer and find you in the search engines.

Internet Marketing Provides Better Word-of-Mouth – Word-of-mouth is still the most effective marketing for producing conversions. Social Media is an aspect of Internet marketing that allows people to build a community and let others spread positive feedback about your product or service. When you develop evangelists for your company, with Social Media Marketing, your message will be spread quickly because more people are speaking for you. People will normally trust word-of-mouth much more than traditional ads that tries to convince you about the benefits of a product or service.

Internet Marketing Can Increase Conversions More – No matter what your goal, Internet marketing can increase your conversions month after month. The reason Internet marketing is more effective at delivering conversions is that you can study every detail of what is working and what might not be working. It takes the guessing game out of it. You can continue to place more emphasis on the tactics that are working and eliminate anything that is not effective. Internet marketing also provides an environment where you can safely test new ideas so that you are always pushing to improve your campaign’s performance. Traditional marketing develops a campaign and then hopes that it will work. This makes it difficult for traditional agencies to test new ideas or even look into all of the details to determine the effectiveness of a campaign.

The bottom line is that Internet marketing is far more efficient and cost effective than traditional marketing. You can adjust your campaign much easier to produce the best results. Analytics are the core reason why more people are switching from traditional marketing to Internet marketing. You can track real facts for every element of your campaign. This will show you exactly what you are getting for your money.

Websites can be used for many different reasons and the possibilities are endless. You need to make visitors want to return to your site again – and they will want to visit your website again if new and useful information is regularly added. Updating your website can be easy if built in the right format. Opt-e-Web builds customized WordPress CMS (Content Management System) websites that are easily found by search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing. WordPress is easy to update, user friendly and can be accessed and changed by numerous administrators.

It’s vital to plan regular updates to your website. Planning updates on a regular basis helps you to think about what you are going to present on your website ahead of time. This will help to keep the new content of your site organized. By presenting new and interesting information to your customer on a regular basis will keep them interested in coming back to your website.

The search engine ranking of a site is also helped when the site is updated, because that means the content of the site is being refreshed, and search engines like that. This is extremely important if you are having a company, such as Opt-e-web, performing SEO (Search Engine Optimizing) services on your website.

Happy Monday Morning! It’s time for a new week, so we’ve whipped up a Salem-themed desktop background to freshen up your computer. Featured are:

• the State Capitol & water fountains
• Mt. Jefferson
• a Douglas Fir tree
• a blossoming cherry branch

Thanks to our awesome hometown clients for making this city a great place to work and live!

We’ve made the background in 1920×1080 (HD) resolution. It’ll look sharpest on a large, widescreen monitor. Leave a comment below and have a great week!

Download Wallpaper: Salem, Oregon – The Cherry City

Close-up Preview

Today we are announcing that our co-founder Brad Brunhaver is leaving the company to pursue other opportunities. We’re sad about losing Brad, but excited for him and his future endeavors. We will be continuing to work with Brad on collaborative projects, and we’re parting ways with mutual respect and friendship.

Thank you, Brad, for your dedication to Opt-e-Web over the last three years, and best of luck to you!

A few other notes:

• Opt-e-Web is still committed to providing a complete set of high-tech solutions for your business. We design and develop great, high-quality, custom websites; we have a talented Search Engine Optimization specialist to help your businesses be found online, and our IT department is well-positioned to provide knowledgeable and complete solutions for your business computer needs.
• 2011 is done, and 2012 is here (did you notice?) – this past year has been action-packed and we’ve changed our business significantly in that time. As a result, (as I said) we have built a better business and we are looking forward to continue growing in 2012!
• We are introducing new Managed Services to our IT customers! Managed services allow you and our IT staff to easily monitor your system status and we are able to work remotely in many cases if something goes wrong. Please call our office or contact us for more details!
• Big thanks to all our clients! Our clients and customers are awesome and you are the reason that we are growing and building this business! Our clients are the most important part of our business and we really appreciate you!

If you’re an existing customer, you can call our office in case of IT or website emergency during this time.

Happy and safe holidays to all,

- the Opt-e-Web team

Here are some of the indicators that can give you a warning:

• You hear some weird noises from inside your computer, like something is grating, grinding or clicking and your hard drive light on your laptop or tower is going crazy while it is doing it.
• Computer shuts down suddenly or hangs very often; these are signs of a hard disk failure.
• Your files on your system start to disappear or come up with the “file access is denied” message when you click on them to open or try to access them through the “Open With…” selection. This can be caused by a virus or by someone else not allowing share access – but if they are files you created, this is a sign that you need to get your computer checked.
• Your hard drive is producing a lot of heat – meaning if your laptop is very hot around where your hard drive is encased; or if you hover your hand or fingers over your computer tower and feel a ton of heat, this is a good indicator.
• If your system is prompting you for a disk check all the time when you start it up, this is another indication that it is having a problem reading the information on your drive.

All these are signs for a hard disk failure, but this isn’t a complete list – there are many other signs also. If you get any of these indicators, it is a good idea to bring your system in to get a quick tune-up or check before it is too late and you do lose your data or even some of it.

How to Register a Name

To register a domain name you can go to one of these common websites:

• GoDaddy.com – while GoDaddy is pretty popular, my personal opinion is that they have some ethics issues and I don’t feel their service is the best. That said, they’re a good and affordable domain registrar. Be careful of upselling, and I would steer clear of their web hosting services.
• MyDomain.com and NameCheap.com are both great options to acquire a domain name.
• There are many, many websites that do domain registration. The above sites are some good options.

To get a .com, .net, or .org domain name, you should probably be prepared to spend about $10-$15 per year. Domains need to be renewed each year (sometimes you can do multi-year leasings or renewals).

When using one of these sites, always remember to keep your username and password in a safe place where you can find it later. You will need it again someday.

Renewing your Domain Name

Renewing a domain name is usually as easy as logging back in to the registrar website, clicking “renew” and paying your $10-$15. This is why it’s important to keep track of your username and password.

Remember that you will ONLY be interacting with the domain registrar (that is, GoDaddy, MyDomain, NameCheap, or any other one you use) for domain name management.

A scam I’ve come across

I’ve received a couple form letters from the Domain Registry of America. This is a Canada-based company (great name, or what?) that provides domain name registration at very high prices ($19 – $30 per year) and sends official-looking letters with the intent of misleading you into registering your domain with them. Here’s a scan of the letter (click for bigger):

Basically, they’ve scraped domain name information to find out that my domain name is expiring in a few months, and they are sending me a letter that looks like a bill that I can fill out and send back with all my info. It’s a shady way to get customers.

The biggest thing to remember is what I said earlier: You will only be interacting with the company that you registered the domain name with. No other company, no matter how official-sounding their name is, has any authority over registering your domain name with ICANN.

For more details about the Domain Registry of America, see an article I wrote on my own website some time ago.

Finding a domain name

This is the fun part – brainstorming to figure out what your name on the web will be. There are a few approaches that could work for you:

• If you haven’t named your company yet, think about getting a memorable domain name and using it for the name of the company too. For example, I’ve heard of a company that simply scanned a list of available 5-letter .com names and picked one that sounded cool.
• Think of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) value to your domain name. That is, what will people be searching for on Google that will lead to your website? If you’re a copywriter in Salem, you might want a name like “salemcopywriter.com”. This example raises another issue, though – make sure it’s a name that will be easy to tell people, without having to explain (“It’s w-r-i-t-e-r, not r-i-g-h-t-e-r”) .
• Online tools like BustAName.com and Domai.nr can help you brainstorm for domain names.

Best of luck to you! Do you have any questions or comments? Write a comment below – if someone else has the same question, it could help them out too.

Opt-e-Web has recently launched a new website for Salem Pulmonary Associates, PC. SPA is Salem, Oregon’s only provider of pulmonary and critical care. We were thrilled to work with SPA on this project.

Visit Salem Pulmonary Associates

For Salem Pulmonary, we built a WordPress-based website with a completely custom design. We believe that businesses and organizations deserve their own designs and we work closely with each individual client to create the design that is right for them. WordPress allows Salem Pulmonary to easily update their own website without requiring technical knowledge.

We’ll be adding this site to our Web Portfolio – have a look!

Thanks to SPA for being a terrific client – we really appreciate that!

It’s no secret that at Opt-e-Web, we’re big fans of building our client websites on the WordPress platform. WordPress is an easy-to-use system that allows our clients to manage and maintain their own websites without needing technical knowledge of the web. We install WordPress on your web hosting account so you can update your website from any location.

New versions of WordPress are released from time to time (at the time of this writing, the current version of WordPress is 3.2.1) and it’s very important for you to keep your WordPress site up-to-date:

• You will get the latest features and improvements to the platform
• You will get bugfixes and performance improvements
• Most importantly, you will get security updates

Fortunately, updating is a quick and painless process. You should ALWAYS update when prompted.

So, here’s what to do

Log in to WordPress. If an update is available, you will see a yellow notification like the screenshot at the top of this post. You will also see “number bubbles” in the left sidebar. The site shown at left has four updates that are required: WordPress itself needs to be updated (that’s one), and three plugins need to be updated. You need to click the “Updates” link to resolve these issues. Remember, they are potential security holes.

First, update Plugins

We update plugins first because:

• new versions of plugins are usually compatible with older versions of WordPress, BUT
• newer versions of WordPress may NOT be compatible with older versions of plugins.

Make sense?

When you arrive at the Updates page, you’ll see a notification that WordPress needs to be updated. Below that is a list of the plugins that need to be updated. Select the plugins by clicking the checkbox to the immediate left of each plugin title, and click the “Update Plugins” button. WordPress will do the rest for you!

Second, update WordPress

Now, go back to the Updates page. All your plugins are now up-to-date, so you can update WordPress itself. Simply click the “Automatically Update WordPress” link (not the “Download” link) and WordPress will do the rest. It will be done in a matter of seconds. If anyone visits your site while WordPress is being updated, they will see a maintenance message displayed. Don’t try to Stop, Refresh, or visit a new webpage until you see the “WordPress Successfully Updated” message displayed for you.

A few notes

Here’s a screenshot of a website that can’t update WordPress. If issues such as the PHP version are preventing you from updating WordPress, this is a web hosting issue. Migrating your website to a new web host is beyond the scope of this article, but it’s a service that we offer at Opt-e-Web.

You also see a yellow prompt to back up your database and files. The update generally works just fine, but you will be safer (in a “just in case” sense) if you perform a backup before updating. For most clients, the easiest way to manage backups is to install a WordPress plugin that takes care of it automatically.

Keep it Current

Did you know that adding new interesting content to your website regularly is important for improving your search engine rankings and giving your visitors a reason to come back? Well, while you’re posting all those blog posts, do the updates every time you see a prompt. It’ll take 30 seconds of your time and can save you – and your web designer – a lot of time down the road.

Any Questions?

Do you have any questions on this topic? Contact Us or leave a comment below!

While Yahoo and MSN both offer PPC ad programs, probably the best known PPC advertising is Google’s Adwords and the related Adsense program. Adwords displays PPC advertisements on the top and right side of Google’s search results pages. Google keeps all the revenue generated from these ads. Google’s Adsense is a syndicated program that displays Adwords advertisements on third party websites with related content to that of the advertiser’s chosen keywords. The third party website earns a portion of the revenues for displaying the ads.

With Google Adwords, “Ad Rank” determines the position of the ad on the search page. Ad Rank is determined by a combination of bid price, relevant keywords and ad text and click-through-rate (CTR). This means that an advertiser cannot solely rely on high bid prices to earn top position for ads. Ad text should be tested and reworked to encourage visitors to click on the link to achieve a good CTR. In addition, landing pages (the page where the ad’s link takes a visitor) should be optimized for keywords relevant to an ad and ideally, to improve sales conversion rates

PPC advertising can be a highly effective internet marketing tool, although advertisers should also be aware of the attention that must be dedicated to PPC campaigns to maximize their return on investment.