Submit Solution’s 4 new Squidoo lenses

December 9th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

Submit Solution has four new Squidoo lenses, all focusing on different aspects of the Internet-marketing company’s services. Web pages on Squidoo are called lenses, I suppose because they give you a view into someone’s mind, life or company.

Submit Solution logoI’ll give a brief description of all of the new lenses below. Be sure to check them out and rate each of them, if you like.

One lens focuses just on Submit Solution’s Internet-marketing blogs. Each of these blogs has a different focus: search engine optimization, paid search, social media and Web design. You can find it here: Submit Solution – 4 Internet Marketing Blogs.

Another lens gives you more information about Submit Solution’s services, including Web design, SEO, PPC and website content. You’ll find it here: Submit Solution – The Best Internet Marketing Services.

Submit Solution’s website launch is spotlighted on another lens. It includes the news release announcing the updated website’s release in September 2009 and the company’s new features and services. You can find that news release on Submit Solution’s website under “Press.” It’s entitled, “Submit Solution Launches New Web Site with Web and Logo-Design Services.” The lens can be found here: Submit Solution Online-Marketing Website Launch.

The final new Submit Solution Squidoo lens is short and sweet. It includes some of the newest blog entries from the site’s four ecommerce blogs, as well as Submit Solution’s contact information. If you want to get a hold of a Submit Solution representative, that’s a good place to go. Check it out here: Submit Solution: The one-stop hub for internet marketing.

You can read the rest of this blog entry in the Submit Solution Website Design Services Blog. It is entitled, “Submit Solution launches new Squidoo lenses.” The Submit Solution logo is the copyright of Submit Solution.

Google Christmas present might have strings

December 7th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

Have you heard that Google is giving travelers free wireless-network access in 47 airports through January 17? What a great Christmas present! That’s a pretty smart move on Google’s part. They’re making online customers happy and generating publicity at the same time. It’s a win-win scenario. However, there could be something beneath the surface of this goodwill effort.

I read about this interesting development in the CNET News article “Google’s holiday gift: Free airport Wi-Fi.” Google started doing this in November, so that’s two and a half solid months of free Wi-Fi for flyers in those airports. If you want to see if your local airport is included in this promotion, you can check out Google’s Free Holiday Wi-Fi website. It has a helpful map and a list of all of the participating airports.

Google wi-fi airports - eHarbor, Inc.

The airports near Burbank, California and Seattle will get free Wi-Fi from now on through Google. The promotion won’t end at the January 15 cutoff date like it will for the other 45 airports.

Perhaps Google chose those two locations because they are close to Microsoft’s (their biggest competitor) stronghold in Redmond, Washington and their own headquarters in Mountain View, California.

The Google Map containing all of the airports with free Wi-Fi is the copyright of Google.

eHarbor names final MVPs of 2009

December 4th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

We’ve had quite a few MVPs in 2009. MVPs are eHarbor, Inc. employees who go above and beyond their normal job requirements to accomplish something extraordinary. This month, eHarbor’s leaders selected winners for both November and December in preparation for the big announcement on December 10.

On December 10, at the Hawaiian Christmas Party in the Provo City Library, we’ll find out who is the MVP for the whole year. They’ll select someone from all of the MVPs who’ve been named in 2009. But that’s the topic of a whole other blog entry. For now, I’ll talk about November’s and December’s MVPs.

We had one winner for November and two for December. Designer James Gentry is the November MVP, and Developer Matt Walker and Customer-Support Representative David Smith are the December MVPs.

I can’t take credit for writing all of these MVP descriptions. I wrote the one on David while my coworkers Alyssa Udall and Britnee Nguyen wrote the spotlights on Matt and James, respectively. Britnee was actually last month’s MVP. You can read about her in my blog entry, “eHarbor MVP creates 6-month PR plan.”

On with the MVPs!

James Gentry
eHarbor, Inc. MVP James GentryWith hard work and dedication, James has really made an impression on his coworkers and earned the November MVP! Recent changes to the Design team opened up a position for a design manager, which James was unanimously appointed to.

Coworkers say that James “stepped in greatly” with his new promotion and continues to “go above and beyond and is always available to help and give his advice.” This new position enables him to “make sure customers are happy and that our Design team stays happy with their work,” his team leader said.

He loves recording and mixing music, eating peanut butter M&Ms, tacos, watching the shows 30 Rock and Community, and his favorite color is #669900… green.

Matt Walker
eHarbor, Inc. MVP Matt WalkerMatt’s Web-development skills have been valuable to eHarbor for the last three years he’s worked here. Matt’s the recipient, along with David, of the December MVP award for his combination of working hard behind the scenes and being a nice guy.

With the other developers, he’s been keeping things running smoothly throughout the company. He’s also a friendly guy who assists new coworkers around the office. “Matt always does such great work and is always so nice and pleasant to work with!” said one of his nominations.

Matt enjoys programming, which is a good thing since it’s his job, but he also likes to read, write and play video games. His favorite movie is Dead Poets Society and his favorite dessert is chocolate velvet. You can catch him watching Mythbusters and Doctor Who on TV or eating sushi at Sakura.

David Smith
eHarbor, Inc. MVP David SmithDavid works hard to give top-quality customer service to everyone who calls in. He goes the extra mile in helping customers by answering people’s questions thoughtfully and following up to make sure they are satisfied with their custom Internet-marketing solutions. Well done, Dave!

His favorite candy is Reese’s Pieces and his favorite food is gum. Interesting. Like James, his favorite color is green… forest green. For fun, he enjoys working on cars and playing sports, as well as listening to bands like Weezer, Pearl Jam and Saves the Day. His favorite movies are V for Vendetta and Gladiator, and his favorite TV show is It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

Successful Twitter strategy: Tweet less

December 2nd, 2009

By Robert Lockard

I know it sounds counterintuitive, but according to one blogger, the key to getting more website traffic from your Twitter account is to tweet less frequently. Of course, Dan Zarrella is not just any blogger – he’s a self-proclaimed social media and viral marketing scientist. That’s a pretty cool title.

Twitter birds - eHarbor eCommerce BlogIn his blog entry, “Want More Clicks? Tweet Less,” Zarrella made the bold statement, “If you want your Tweet to get noticed and ReTweeted, you should slow down your posting rate.” Twitter is all about speed, though. It’s an instant message service. Why would a smart blogger suggest you slow down your tweeting?

According to this study, Twitter users who only tweet one link an hour have a much higher rate of getting that link retweeted than those who post two, three or 13 links an hour. The same is true for days. One link a day gets a better click-through rate and more retweets than multiple links a day.

What does all this mean? I’ll try to interpret. I think it means Twitter users can tell the difference between people sharing genuinely interesting news, ideas or offers and robots or marketers who are just trying to sell their products through Twitter. Twitter users like people who listen as well as share. That’s called a conversation, and it’s what customers expect more and more from ecommerce companies in our current marketplace.

You can find the rest of this blog entry on the Social Media Blog on Submit Solution on December 7, 2009. That blog entry is called, “Tweet less to gain more success.” The photo of the birds on a fence is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of Sister72. Keep coming back to the eHarbor Blog for great discussions like this.

eHarbor gives back with Food Drive

November 30th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

Starting on November 2, eHarbor, Inc. has been hosting a Food Drive to help the needy in our local Utah County area. Christmas is always such a great time for charity and a spirit of service. Winter isn’t my favorite season of the year, but December might just be my favorite month because of all the awesomeness it contains.

eHarbor, Inc. logoWe have enjoyed an incredibly successful year in 2009, and so of course we want to give back to our community. It’s amazing how fast the time has gone. Can it really be almost 2010? Incredible.

The eHarbor Food Drive will end on December 10. To make it more interesting, we’ve divided the company into two teams: the Turkeys and Cranberries. We’ve all been donating canned items, toiletries, cereals, macaroni and cheese and other nonperishable products to see who can do more good. We’ll see who the winner will be.

Competition is a great thing, isn’t it?

Keep coming back to the eHarbor Blog for fun company updates like this. Check out the Submit Solution Internet marketing blogs for the latest on Web design, social media and PPC solutions.

Happy birthday, Firefox

November 26th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

Happy Thanksgiving! I would love to write an entire blog entry on this wonderful holiday, but instead I’m going to talk about another celebration: Firefox’s fifth birthday.

Firefox 5th anniversary birthday cake

Imagine trying to beat Microsoft at its own game. Microsoft, the giant of software and Web browsers, seemed all but unstoppable in its dominance of the Internet with its Internet Explorer browser five years ago. However, a small browser, which was originally called Phoenix, debuted on November 9, 2004 and started giving Explorer a run for its money.

We now know this Web browser as Firefox. And it just turned five years old. Better late than never, I’ll wish Firefox a happy birthday!

I talked a little about Firefox in my Submit Solution blog entry, “Google Chrome is the best Web browser.” I mentioned that it’s my favorite browser, even if it’s not exactly as fast as Chrome.

I read about Firefox’s anniversary in the Webware article, “After 5 years, Firefox faces new challenges.”

Many factors led up to the swift success of the Firefox browser. Microsoft got a little lazy on creating new features for Explorer. Plus, viruses were specifically designed to target Explorer, giving Internet users a strong incentive to try something new. Right on cue, Firefox arrived with its innovative tabbed interface, customizability and popup ad blocker. It was an instant hit, receiving 10 million downloads in the first month alone.

You can read the rest of this blog entry in the Submit Solution Web Design Blog on December 1, 2009. It will be entitled, “Firefox fights fresh foes after 5 years.” The photo of the Firefox birthday cake is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of Christopher Blizzard.

Twitter downtime worse than other social media

November 24th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

Twitter has come a long way since 2007. It exploded in popularity in 2009, though it still has yet to reach the heights of either Facebook or MySpace in terms of monthly visitors. You can read more about this in my Submit Solution blog entry, “MySpace is 3 times as popular as Twitter.”

Not only has Twitter gone from having less than 1 million visitors a month to nearly 20 million, it has also improved its downtime. Alas, just like its number of visitors, Twitter is far worse than every other major social-media site in its total amount of downtime per year. It’s getting better, but Twitter still suffers from frequent crashes. Remember the big one earlier this year?

I read some fascinating analyses of Twitter’s downtime in two Royal Pingdom articles: “Twitter growing pains cause lots of downtime in 2007” and “Social network downtime in 2008.” Check out this chart of the major social-media sites’ downtime, in hours:

Social network downtime in 2008

You can find the rest of this blog entry on the Social Media Blog on Submit Solution on November 30, 2009. That blog entry is called, “Twitter goes down 7 times more than Facebook, MySpace.” The Social Network Downtime graph is the copyright of Royal Pingdom. Keep coming back to the eHarbor Blog for great stories like this.

Is SEO a better deal than PPC?

November 20th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

Optimizing your website’s content for search engines costs about half as much as relying solely on a paid-search campaign for getting customers to your site. So says a recent study by Frommer’s Unlimited I read about in the Travolution article, “WTM: Rich content ‘more cost-effective than PPC’.”

SEO, PPC Scrabble game

Of course, the main flaw I saw in this study is that it analyzes SEO and PPC results separately when many ecommerce companies use a combination of the two. SEO and PPC have different strengths and weaknesses. SEO is slower but more cost-efficient while PPC is fast, but each click costs money.

It’s essential for a website’s long-term future for it to have strong content that is designed to attract search engines’ attention and increase its ranking in their search results. But that doesn’t mean PPC is irrelevant or too expensive for companies to take advantage of in their Internet-marketing campaigns.

According to Frommer’s study, it costs about 17 cents per visitor to optimize a site’s content. On the other hand, it costs about 33 cents per visitor through PPC ads.

You can find the rest of this blog entry in the Submit Solution Paid Search Blog on November 24, 2009. It will be entitled, “PPC clicks cost more than SEO.” The photo of the SEO, PPC Scrabble game is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of therichbrooks.

eHarbor’s favorite Thanksgiving side dish

November 18th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

Happy Thanksgiving next week! In that spirit, I’ll simply ask: Stuffing or potatoes? It’s a matter of taste which you prefer at Thanksgiving dinner. At eHarbor, Inc., we have a clear winner in this debate. I sent out a survey last month for the November issue of the eHarbor ePort (our company newsletter) and I got the following results.

November eHarbor, Inc. pie chart on Thanksgiving dinner

Potatoes, preferably mashed, are the best when it comes to complementing a delicious turkey dinner. If you combine the number of people who want solely potatoes with those who prefer both potatoes and stuffing, you get 65.1 percent of the voters, a clear majority.

I’m not sure what deep-fried Thanksgiving balls are, but someone likes those, too. There you have it. Potatoes go better with Thanksgiving dinner than stuffing for most eHarbor, Inc. employees. So which do you prefer?

This is the second time I’ve posted our monthly poll results. You can find our other pie chart in the blog entry, “The most colorful pie chart you’ve ever seen.”

Keep coming back to the eHarbor Blog for company updates. Check out the Submit Solution Internet marketing blogs for insights into free search engine submissions and other Web-design and social-media topics.

Top SEO tactics for small businesses

November 16th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

I read an article on Entrepreneur.com a while back, entitled, “Rev up the Search Engines.” It gives a helpful rundown of solid SEO principles for small businesses, which don’t have a whole lot of money to spare but need to start generating results from ecommerce.

Bicyclist soaring through the airThis article gives six tips for a small business to get the most bang for its buck, when it comes to search engine optimization. They are attributed to Steve Wiideman, a fairly renowned SEO expert. I already talked about most of these in my SEO series right here in the eHarbor Blog, back in February and March of 2009. But I think a refresher is healthy.

Here is one highlight I took from these tips:

- Search engines are getting smarter. Don’t expect Google, Bing or Yahoo to fall for the same old SEO tricks. Bloggers and other content generators used to focus on their keyword-to-content ratio, but now search engines recognize when you use the same keyword too many times in the same post. Use relevant keywords prudently. If you use keyword-stuffing tactics, don’t expect much success.

You can find the rest of this blog entry on the Submit Solution SEO Blog on November 23, 2009. It will be called, “Getting your business on top with SEO.” The photo of the flying biker is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of Tom Grundy Photo.