Posts Tagged ‘blog’

Submit Solution’s 4 new Squidoo lenses

Wednesday, 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.

Submit Solution receives tasty website launch party

Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009

By Robert Lockard

The new Submit Solution website is quite amazing, isn’t it? If you haven’t checked it out, be sure to visit www.submitsolution.com right now to see all the great Web design, SEO and other services we provide there.

In fact, Submit Solution’s new website is so cool that we actually held a launch party in its honor on Monday, September 21, 2009. Alyssa Udall and Britnee Nguyen, the other two writers on the four ecommerce blogs on Submit Solution, and I planned a company-wide get-together in which we enjoyed refreshments and gave out prizes. The refreshments were made up of drinks, as well as orange and white donuts, which were shaped like the new Submit Solution logo. See for yourself.

Submit Solution logo made of donuts

Submit Solution logo

That S-shaped group of donuts was one of my favorite parts of the celebration. After that, we held a fun scavenger hunt. Employees had to search the Submit Solution website for clues to lead them to prizes cleverly hidden throughout our eHarbor, Inc. office. We hid clues on Submitsolution.com in the site’s blog tags, image titles and in the text of Web pages.

The prizes people could win by finding and unscrambling the clues included toys, candy bars, eHarbor mugs and Bigler Bucks, which we affectionately named for Oliver Bigler, the CEO and cofounder of eHarbor, Inc. We use Bigler Bucks to buy company products, like pens, mugs and shirts. Our employees enjoyed this friendly competition. Most of them are used to playing foosball, so this scavenger hunt was quite tame in comparison.

You can read more about this website’s great features in my blog entry, “Submit Solution launches updated website with new design features.”

Simple is better in Web design

Thursday, September 17th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

In honor of Submit Solution’s newly redesigned website, I will talk about four Web-design strategies you can use to make your website look more pleasing and hold viewers’ attention longer. These strategies come from a blog post on the Think Vitamin Blog, entitled, “How to Make Your Web Design Stand out from the Crowd.”

Spider webThe first strategy is not to be afraid of empty space in your Web design. On news sites, like CNN, you won’t find a bit of open space; all of it is taken up with headlines, graphics and numbers. That is useful for people looking to cram as much useful information as possible into a confined space. But it can feel cluttered and overwhelming on ecommerce websites that are selling products and services.

Giving viewers space to breathe can create a relaxed atmosphere on your website. We’re already bombarded with information, so it is refreshing to find a website with some elbowroom.

You can find the rest of the steps in a blog entry on the new Web Design Blog on Submit Solution on October 5. The new Submit Solution website is now online, and it will get most of the Internet marketing blog entries from now on, while the eHarbor Blog will mostly be about topics related to eHarbor, Inc.

The photo of the spider web is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of dann solo.

Submit Solution launches new website with design services

Wednesday, September 9th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

Submit Solution, an Internet-marketing company, just released an advanced new version of its website, submitsolution.com. The updated site now includes two new services – custom Web and logo design – as well as four ecommerce blogs and free search-engine submission, in addition to its search engine optimization and paid-search packages.

Submit Solution is already an expert at getting qualified traffic to clients’ websites via SEO and PPC campaigns. By adding custom website design and logo design to its services, Submit Solution can now help turn a higher number of site visitors into customers.

Submitsolution.com has a more user-friendly design, allowing visitors to quickly navigate its Web pages. The site boasts free search-engine submission, as well as four new blogs focusing on SEO, PPC, social media and Web design, respectively. It also provides additional Internet-marketing tools, definitions of ecommerce terms and FAQs to help newcomers learn the ins and outs of Internet marketing.

“The new Submit Solution website helps potential clients understand both the intricacies of a successful search-engine marketing plan and what we can do to help,” said Oliver Bigler, chief executive officer and founder of Submit Solution. “Internet newbies can often be drowned in a sea of conflicting information. Our website helps clients navigate their way toward information and services that fit their needs best.”

For 14 years, Submit Solution has worked in the Internet-marketing industry. Its SEO packages were recently updated to add social-media posting and inbound linking to its traditional tactics of optimizing site content, such as adding Meta tags. Other new or improved services include:

- Website designSubmit Solution logo

- Logo design

- Paid-search advertising

- Competitive analysis

- Website consulting

This launch of Submit Solution’s new website makes this the second week in a row in which we’ve introduced an innovative product or service. Be sure to check out my blog entry on Magellan Commerce’s new online merchant service: “Magellan Commerce the 1st to offer ecommerce and merchant services.”

ThemeFury.com creator named eHarbor MVP

Monday, September 7th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

Jeff Ashby, an SEO technician at eHarbor Inc., is the latest employee to be named the company’s Most Valuable Player. He received this honor at our monthly company meeting on Wednesday, September 2, 2009.

In addition to his normal responsibility of providing search engine optimization for our clients, Jeff created a new website called Theme Fury, which offers more than a hundred free Wordpress themes. These themes help Wordpress blog owners stand out with a creative design instead of using a standard format.

Theme Fury logo

Theme Fury already offers themes for websites in a number of categories:

- Animal

eHarbor MVP Jeff Ashby- Artistic

- Business

- Car

- Craft

- Education

- Electronics

- Family

- Health

- Music

- Nature

- Personal

- Sports

Be sure to visit Theme Fury’s installation page to find out how to install your favorite theme to your blog.

When Jeff’s not doing SEO or computer programming, he enjoys collecting Pez dispensers and watching Filipino movies. His favorite restaurants are Red Robin and Olive Garden, and he likes to watch shows like “Seinfeld” and “Arrested Development.”

This is the third time I’ve spotlighted an MVP in the eHarbor Blog. You can read about last month’s winner, Derek Anderson, in my blog entry, “eHarbor MVP gives great customer care.” We have many great employees to spotlight. I’ll keep you posted on them at the start of each month.

The photo of Jeff Ashby is from the blog post “Halloween Pictures” in the Ashblog, his personal blog. The Theme Fury logo is the copyright of Jeff Ashby and Theme Fury.

Social media can’t replace blogs

Wednesday, August 26th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

I read a provocative post from the Blog Bloke a while ago that I’d like to comment on. The post is entitled, “8 Twitter tips to promote your blog.” In it, the author responds to the argument that Twitter and other social media are replacing blogs and that we should drive traffic to Twitter instead of to our blogs and ecommerce websites.

History of blogs

He points out the many flaws with that idea in his blog entry. I would like to focus on two of them.

The first point I would like to focus on is, as the Blog Bloke puts it, “If you are a marketer trying to make money you will want your Twitter followers to visit your blog and click on your ads.”

To quote Lex Luthor, I couldn’t have said it better myself. Companies can post links to deals and special offers on their Twitter accounts, but those links always go to one of their corporate websites or landing pages. Nothing is bought or sold on Twitter, itself. Social media is an excellent part of Internet marketing, but it is not a replacement for the many other tools, such as paid search, SEO and blogging.

You can find the rest of this blog entry on the new Social Media Blog on Submit Solution when it is published. The new Submit Solution redesign is almost ready, and it will get most of our Internet marketing blog entries from now on, while the eHarbor Blog will mostly be about eHarbor, Inc.

The comic of the history of blogging is from Flickr, and it is courtesy of stefan2904.

How to get inbound links

Thursday, August 20th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

This is a follow-up to my previous blog entry, “I link, therefore I am… on top of Google.” I’m talking about what I learned at Webmarketing123’s August 5, 2009 Webinar, “Advanced SEO Webinar: Linking Best Practices.” Without further ado, I’ll return to where I left off.

Fingers touching light

Unless a website is cached or saved by search engines on a regular basis, the links found on it won’t count toward the search engine optimization of the sites it links to. That explains why Google can’t keep up with Twitter and other social-media sites, as I discussed in an earlier eHarbor Blog entry. It’s trying to take a snapshot of websites that change multiple times every second.

Returning to caches, I learned a cool trick at the Webinar that I would like to share. If you want to know if a Web page is cached by Google, all you have to do is type “cache:www.thesitename.com” into a Google search and it will tell you.

The big question is how do you get inbound links? After you’ve gone through and added great content that is relevant to your keywords, you can start using the following sources to get inbound links:

- Directories

- Paid Listings

- Article Syndications

- Blogs

- News Releases

We’re starting a new blog on the newly redesigned Submit Solution website, which will debut soon. We’ll be transferring our ecommerce and Internet marketing articles from the eHarbor Blog to that one soon. You can find the rest of this blog entry there after it debuts.

The photo of the fingers touching light is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of littledan77.

Marketers cut social media presence when they need it most

Wednesday, May 20th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

I have discussed the growth of ecommerce many times in the eHarbor Blog. You can find lots of information on marketers joining ecommerce in my blog entries, “Bucking recession, ecommerce keeps growing” and “Strong sales attract retailers to ecommerce.” I will continue my streak by talking about ecommerce, though in a slightly different way.

Scissors cutting ethernet cable

The main reason companies keep moving into ecommerce is the revenue growth this industry is experiencing each year. During this recession, consumers have cut back on most spending, but they continue to spend more online, making it a popular alternative for businesses to thrive in hard times.

However, according to an article in B to B, a magazine for online marketers, companies are starting to spend less money advertising their services and brands in social networks, such as MySpace, Facebook and Twitter. The article I am referring to is entitled, “Social network ad spending projected to contract this year.”

The growth of advertisement spending on social-media sites has slowed in recent years, from a 129-percent increase in 2007 to 33 percent in 2008, and now an estimated 3-percent loss in 2009. To put it in real numbers, $1.18 billion was spent on social-media advertising in 2008.

Social media is an excellent way for businesses to interact with customers and even gain new ones, so it makes sense for them to jump into this arena. Maybe with all of the cuts businesses are making to compensate for the decline in consumer demand for many products, social media just doesn’t seem as important at the moment.

Ironically, it seems like social-media spending is one of the best investments a business can make, especially in a struggling economy. Consumers are shifting their time and money online, making social networks popular places to reach them. Companies that shy away from social media might be shooting themselves in the foot.

I discussed social media’s many strengths and weaknesses in my blog post, “Facebook’s growing pains could transform social media.” There are plenty of reasons to stay connected with your customers online. Keep trying and stay positive!

The photo of the scissors cutting an ethernet cable is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of nrkbeta.

Does Internet’s rise mean news media’s demise?

Tuesday, April 14th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

The Internet has changed the way we do a lot of things. Ecommerce is changing the way we shop for goods and services. Online marketing is proving more popular to advertisers than other forms of media, especially in the current recession.

Old Dallas Times Herald sign

For better or worse, the Internet is changing the news media, as well.

It’s not easy being in the news business. They work hard to analyze stories and write up accurate and up-to-date information, only to have their work quickly summarized and modified for blogs, sometimes with little credit to the original author. There are even a few bloggers who point out all of the misspellings and bad grammar in otherwise good articles.

Often, bloggers practice fair use of copyrighted content by using only a small portion of an article and building their own ideas off of it. I did that with the story on consumers touching products.

Whenever I include an image, which is the property of someone else, I make sure to give credit where credit is due. You might notice my attribution at the bottom of almost every blog entry. I’ve done that from the very beginning.

We appear to be in an age when people like to think of information as free. That can be a good thing, but it can also lead to a lack of credible information in the long term, as news writers lose incentives to generate well-researched stories in the first place.

What inspired me to write about this topic is an article in Ars Technica, called “The newspaper industry’s attack on Google misses the point.” Fascinating read, by the way. I recommend it.

I thought this was an important topic to spend time discussing here in the eHarbor Blog. I hope to keep share more positive stories soon on eHarbor, Inc. and its affiliates: Magellan Commerce, Real Estate Promoter and Submit Solution.

The photo of the dilapidated Dallas Times Herald sign is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of adonis paul hunter / ahptical.

Celebration time at eHarbor, Inc.

Friday, March 27th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

It’s Friday, and eHarbor, Inc. is celebrating a successful start to 2009 by heading to the Thanksgiving Point Mega Plex in Lehi, Utah for a movie day – just as I mentioned in a blog entry last week. We’re closing up shop early and going to a 3 p.m. showing of a movie called “Knowing.”

Buenos Aires paper-filled sky

I love sharing enthusiasm and good news, especially when times are tough.

Can you believe this is the 20th blog entry I’ve written for the eHarbor Blog in the past two months? I’m having fun sharing ecommerce news and search engine optimization tips. Of course, sometimes I enjoy taking a moment to simply have a little fun every now and then, like today.

On Tuesday, March 31, 2009, the day before April Fools Day, I plan on posting a more serious blog entry about a potentially troublesome computer virus called Conficker C. Not exactly about ecommerce, but I think it’s good to be informed of things like this since we depend so much on computers for our businesses to succeed.

The photo of the papers falling in Buenos Aires, Argentina is from Flickr and it is the copyright of friendofdurutti.