Article #11 Want more Leads and Customers? Here’s How.

There are many ways to find leads for potential customers for whatever you sell.

Firstly, before you read on, identify, WHO IT IS THAT YOU SELL TO so that you will be able to choose the best source that is listed below.

You will find success in any of these strategies listed below, find the time today to add them to your sales plan for success.

Some of these strategies are very inexpensive ways to get leads. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me to discuss what are the best sources for you to use in your business.

1. Chamber of Commerce offers business to business leads in a local area.

2. Trade Associations Whatever the industry or trade it is that you sell to, there is probably an assocation for it. Each association has lists of memberships that are often available to purchase.

3. Public Libraries all carry numerous directories and publications all containing excellent leads.

4. Business Networking events get you face to face connection with like minded future contacts.

5. Online Business Networking is very popular these days and a very large audience of networkers for referrals can be built all online.

6. Conventions and Trade Shows Attending as well as participating in trade shows can be a vast source of potential customers.

7. Purchasing Lead Lists can be bought from a reputable company.

8. Advertising your products and services through numerous sources can be an excellent source of leads, although it is generally the most expensive.

9. Referrals from satisfied customers.

10. Newspapers and Magazines Good potential leads can be found especially through trade magazines.

11. Telemarketing Simply using the phone can generate loads of great leads.

12. Word of Mouth is truly the best form of advertising.

Even in these tough economic times, these strategies still work. I wish you all the best in 2010 with your businesses and hope this information you find useful. Thank you, take care.

Article #10 Happy New Year’s Resolutions for Business Success.

Here at MAC•JAC Graphics and Web Design, we wish you and your business all the best in 2010. Following these New Year’s Resolutions or passing them on to someone you know just starting up their business, either way Business Success is on the way.

New Year’s Resolution #1
Learn how to delegate and do more of it. Decide to let someone else do some of the tasks for a change. Delegation is the key to a healthy work-life balance.

New Year’s Resolution #2
Promote your business regularly and consistently. If you want to attract new customers, you have to make promotion a priority.

New Year’s Resolution #3
Make business planning a weekly event. Each week review, adjust and look forward. This will help you avoid costly mistakes and stay on track.

New Year’s Resolution #4
Learn something new. Finding the time to learn something new by delegating.

New Year’s Resolution #5
Join a new business organization or networking group. By talking with other people it will spark new ideas, refine old ones and make contacts.

New Year’s Resolution #6
Give something back to the community. Make a New Year’s Resolution to find a cause that matters to you and give what you can.

New Year’s Resolution #7
Put time for you on the calendar.

New Year’s Resolution #8
Set realistic goals. Make a New Year’s Resolution that the goals you set will be goals that are achievable.

New Year’s Resolution #9
Don’t make do; get a new one. Make a New Year’s Resolution to stop putting off getting what you need or the needs to run your business more smoothly.
No more frustration and fiddling with that old fax machine, a new one is the solution to a more productive day.

New Year’s Resolution #10
Drop what’s not working for you and move on. Don’t invest alot of energy into trying to make the unworkable workable. Move on. Something better will turn up.

My favorite is #5
Joining an organization or networking group.
Attending monthly networking groups has been key for me and my business. I have made new friends and contacts, I have learned better ways to run my business and life. I have built relationships with people and have created my own so called “sales team”. Everyday I keep an eye out for potential customers, not only for me, but for the others in my group.

If you are interested in joining my networking group, contact me at j_culford@hotmail.com and I will give you the details of our next meeting here in Durham Region. Dynamic Womens Networking Group is listed on FACEBOOK, if you are interested in getting more information.

I hope you found this information interesting and helpful and if you have any pointers to add, please use the comment box provided below. Would love your feedback. Thanks and have a great day.

Article #9, 5 Secrets of Good Customer Service

These 5 secrets can be applied to service contractors doing business with other businesses or retailers doing business with the general consumer.

Customer Service Secret #1
BUILD BUSINESS TO CUSTOMER LOYALTY
Most importantly when you show concern about what matters to your customer, that’s business to customer loyalty, and you can bet on it, you’ve just acquired a customer for life.

Customer Service Secret #2
PROVIDE TRUE CUSTOMER SERVICE
Give more creative and personalized service then your competition can. Get to know your customers and recognize their individual needs.

Customer Service Secret #3
THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT
If a customer comes to you with a complaint, first, using calming words, show that you are serious about doing something to correct the problem. Then, thank him afterwards for bringing the problem to your attention.

Customer Service Secret #4
BE HONEST WITH YOUR CUSTOMERS
If your customers suspects that you are trying to pull something over on him, you can kiss that customer good-bye permanently!

Customer Service Secret #5
EDUCATE YOUR STAFF
Educate your staff to be equally concerned about your customers as you are. Because if you aren’t taking care of your customers, your competition will.

The below information is part of the good customer service package that you will receive when MAC•JAC Graphics and Web Design is working for you. Please feel free to contact us at 905 391-7753, to discuss any of this information in more detail.
1. A one hour free consultation service.
2. A $50.00 referral fee program.
3. A free website improvement recommendation report.
4. Fast and personal service all under one roof.
5. We work with our customers budget plans.
6. We go out of our way to make sure your company looks good online.
7. We work extra hard to get you noticed on google.
8. We pride ourselves on quality and exceptional service.
9. We offer our customers budget conscious offers.

Article #8 All websites need good content…here’s why!

Scents of Purpose uses good content and a mission statement

“Content is King”

Content still plays a huge role in determining how websites rank in search engines.

The more content you provide the more text the search engine spider has to read and the more valuable your website will be to search engines and visitors. Also, along with good content, every business website needs a good mission statement. Attached is a website (http://www.scentsofpurpose.org) with a good example mission statement posted right on their opening page.

Here are 5 tips to keep in mind when creating search engine friendly content.

1. Include target keywords often … Be aware of exactly what phrases people use to find your website and include them regularly in your page content of your website.

2. Write for visitors not spiders … Search engine spiders use complex algorithms to determine search rankings and can easily spot “spam” pages, so make sure your page is readable by human visitors.

3. Add new content often … add fresh content is a great way to keep the search spiders coming back regularly.

4. Don’t repeat yourself … duplicating content is considered by search engines a spamming technique and should be avoid. Create unique content for each page and you should see the page rankings you were hoping for.

5. Use formatting elements … Using headline tags, bold text and bullet points are a great way to ensure your keywords stand out.

Include these 5 points into your website and you will be popular not only with the search engines but visitors too.

If you have a comment/question or would like to book an appointment, please leave your contact information in the box below and we will contact you shortly.

Article #7 What’s simple, memorable, timeless, versatile and appropriate?

These words all go into the making of a great  logo design for your business!

Simple … and always easy to recognize. Should be versatile, memorable and unique. A good logo design will catch the attention of a viewer passing by or on the packaging on the crowded shelves of a store.

Memorable … good logos are achieved by keeping them simple, distinctive and clear.

Timeless … Trends come and go, make sure your logo will stand the test of time. Longevity is key.

Versatile … An effective logo should be designed in vector format, to ensure that it can be scaled to any size. A good logo should still look good printed in one colour, printed very small or very large and printed in reverse.

Remember, the more colours your logo has the more expensive it will be for the business.

Create your logo in black & white first, this is it’s simplist form.

Appropriate … how you position the logo should be appropriate for its intended use or purpose. For example: if you are designing a logo for a toy store it is appropriate to use a childish font and colour scheme.

Below is an example logo from my portfolio. A 3 colour logo for a single parent ministry organization serving in the Durham Region.

Open Arms Single Parent Ministry Logo

Please feel free to contact me about creating the perfect logo for your business. Here is my contact information:  905 391-7753 or j_culford@hotmail.com

Thank you for reading my blog, please send me your comments, suggestions or questions about logo design.

Article #6 Want to Write a Blog? Here’s How …

Below is a guideline for writing a blog post.

1. Make your opinion known
In your blog tell exactly what you think using the least amount of words possible.

2. Link like crazy
Support your post with links that support your post.

3. Write less
Give the maximum amount of information with the least amount of words.

4. 250 is enough
A long post is easier to forget and harder to get into.

5. Make snappy headlines
Check out newspapers to see how they do it.

6. Include bullet point lists
These types of lists structures the info into an easy format.

7. Make your posts easy to scan
Make sentences and headlines short and to the point.

8. Be consistent with your style
Once settled on a style for your audience stick to it.

9. Litter the post with keywords
Include your keywords and keyword phrases into the body text and headers

10. Edit your post
Before you post make sure to cut out the unnecessary content that you don’t need.

Please reply to this post by answering this one question: What is your experience with blogging?

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Thanks

Article #5 Want more traffic to your business website?

The right keywords in your website, will get you the traffic your business website needs.

Below are some website keyword tips to help get that traffic to your website.

1. Do not choose keywords that have nothing to do with the content of your website.

2. Use common variation of misspelled words in your keyword list.

3. Make sure you use your keywords in the body text, title tag and meta tags of your main page.

4. Concentrate on the first paragraphs of your web page.

5. Use descriptive keyword phrases instead of  just one word.

6. Do not hide keywords in the text of your document by using a font colour that is the same colour as your background.

7. It is very important to identify your target market and then select keyword phrases to match.

8. Select your keywords with great care!

Want some help choosing the right keywords, check out “wordstream” a free keyword tool. Here is the website address: www.wordstream.com/keywords

Here at MAC•JAC Graphics and Web Design, we help small businesses get noticed on google!

Call today for your free one hour consultation.

Call today with a referral and we have a referral gift for you.

Thanks everyone for reading my blogs and have a Merry Christmas!

Article #4 Do you want the best domain name for your website? Here’s How.

Does your website have the right domain name?

Here are some tips to help you create the perfect domain name.

1. Brainstorm 5 top keywords.
To start write down 5 terms or phrases that best describes your business.

2. Uniqueness
Make the domain name unique. Never choose domain names that are similar to other well established domain names…that is a mistake.

3. Owning the .com is critical
Only choose dot-com available domain names, most people who use the web still make the automatic assumption that .com is all that’s out there – don’t make the mistake of locking out or losing traffic to these people. I advise all my customers to buy both the .ca and  the .com.

4. Make it easy to type and use easy to type letters.
If the domain name is too long, has special characters, special spelling considerations, not memoriable, you have just lost a good portion of your branding market and marketing value.

5. Make your domain name easy to remember.

6. Keep the domain name as short as possible.

7. When someone hears your domain name for the first time, they should instantly and accurately guess at the type of content that might be found there.

8. Avoid copyright enfrigment
To make sure not to step on any toes, go to copyright.gov and search before you buy.

9. Don’t use hyphens and numbers in your domain name. You want easy to remember and not confusing words in your domain name.

Remember,
Some webhosting companies will give you other suggestions and combinations that just might make your domain name ordinary to ex-ordinary.

Call me, Julie to discuss any of these important points before choosing your domain name for your business.

Please leave your comments in the space below, I greatly appreciate any feedback.

Please feel free to leave a link to your website.

Call today and take advantage of a free one hour consultation to review your website.

Also, refer someone today to my services and get a free referral gift.

Merry Christmas to all customers.

Article #3 Is your website search engine friendly?

Keep these things listed below, in your mind, when building your next business website!

1. A search engine bot, does not see (read) images, javascript or flash. All important information on your website should be keep as HTML code.

2. A search engine bot, does what is called “crawling”. The bot uses the links on a web page to find other pages within your website. Do not use any fancy javascript menus on your website because the search engine bot will have a hard time navigating around your website.

3. Provide a sitemap, on your website. Why, because it not only helps your visitors get around your website, but it also helps the search engine bot find the rest of your pages on your website.

4. Avoid designing your website using frames. These websites are the ones with additional scrolling bars, within the web page. The search engine bot can’t read the content.

5. Splash pages is the introduction page that you see first on someone’s website. These pages usually contain a picture or flash intro and a single link to the website. There is no content on these types of pages and should be avoided because the search engine bot can’t evaluate anything and add to the search engine database.

6. Proper use of Meta Tags. HTML Meta Tags are coding inserted into the head section of the web page and is not seen by the visitor, but does communicate information to the browser and some search engines.

Want to find out more or have a question or want to discuss this in more depth, please don’t hesitate to contact me at this email below.

j_culford@hotmail.com

Article #2 Is your website hurting your business?

Yes, that is what I said ….. Is your website hurting your business?

The simple, well designed websites make the sales.

Your website is a direct reflection of you and your business.

If your website doesn’t look professional and pleasing to the eye, the value

of your products or services will be preceived low by others.

If you have any of these listed below in your website, please contact me and together we can upgrade your website to a whole new level.

1. poor loading time

2. spelling & grammar mistakes

3. poor website navigation

4. large slow loading graphics

5. busy & distracting backgrounds

6. over powering music set to autoplay

7. too much advertising

8. too much coloured text

9. under construction signs

10. large scrolling text across the page

11. multiple use of different fonts

12. different backgrounds on each page

13. poor use of tables

14. pages scrolling to oblivion

15. poor content

16. not organized

17. the use of frames

18. all flash website

19. not enough incoming links

20. missing powerful keywords and keyword phrases

Please contact Julie today, at j_culford@hotmail.com for further information about upgrading your website.

Thank you for reading this blog.

Please feel free to leave your comments.