Have you visited his web site? You can be forgiven, since there’s no reference to http://www.cesarmillaninc.com anywhere in the television show credits. You have to go looking for the website. You’re a warm prospect because you’ve made the decision to find out more information.

When you arrive at the website, there’s no doubt you’re at the right place .. the header is a photo of Cesar with a pack of dogs and his trademark “Stay Calm  and Assertive” phrase is front and center.

You know what you should do next. There’s three offers above the fold, you can buy a 2009 calendar for $9.00, a holiday pack is on sale, as is a dog harness.  Just peeking out above the fold is  headlines for “Latest News”, “Learn More” and “Product Specials”. You can subscribe to his monthly newletter, Ask a Vet and Donate to his foundation that helps rescue and shelters rehabilitate  dogs. It’s a very effective website.

Not many of us have the luxury of a television program, but all of have access to Twitter, Facebook, and networking events. Follow Cesar’s successful inbound marketing plan.

• Have a consistent message that allows people to know, like and trust you
• Let folks know what to specific results they can expect when they work with you
• design your web presence so your visitors know they are your target audience
• let your visitors know what you want them to do

How many of the four processes are you using?

They have one support person per 100 customers, 24/7/365 support. They sent me 4 emails, with all the information I need to start. ftp accounts, cpanel logins. Their customer interface is clean, easy to understand and you can log into your cpanel from there. I’m beginning to really like these guys.

Did I mention there’s a 30 day money-back guarantee? I looked for an affiliate program,. but for $15 a year, if I’m happy with the service I’ll recommend it to my clients before the sites that offer affiliate programs.

The thing that really impressed me is .. they have a Twitter account to keep in touch with their customers. It’s the first company that I’ve seen using Twitter as part of their Customer Service platform.

I like to support innovation, I appreciate a company that really takes customer service seriously and as a small business owner, I want the best value every dollar I make.

I’m moving one of the domains that’s been parked at GoDaddy in the next couple of days and I’ll write another blog post next week, with the results of my testing.

Wish I would have read Dean’s blog post. It was right there screaming at me .. and I was looking the other way. Live and learn. Thanks to @edgandia for the tweet to let us know about Dean’s blog post.

How do you cope with time-sucking clients? hint .. don’t make them clients

Google likes blogs and rewards blogs who post new content often with higher search ranking that a static website. The new content also encourages your visitors to return to your site to read your latest post. Changing content on a static site is painful and usually expensive.

You do need to have a plan for your blog content, to ensure you have a consistent message and engage your readers. My favorite blogs have a point of view. I dont even have to agree, as well as their opinion is well stated and makes me think.

Do you have a blog .. are you expressing your point of view ..

I’m a tinkerer .. I don’t understand how anyone can plan every detail of a website in advance .. code the whole thing and then have major drama when you need to change anything. Up until an hour ago, I didn’t even know I wanted a poll on my blog. If this had to be planned months ago it wouldn’t have happened.

In my past life, I worked on major projects. Months of user input and planning, endless design meetings, an infrastructure had to be built, coding started, project meetings, we’re already over budget and behind schedule and we’ve barely started coding, QA kicks in, user testing starts, wait .. we forgot a feature, is this really what we agreed to?, people come and go .. months pass and if the stars align the end result more or less delivers the original requirements. If not, put it in the budget for next year and create a new project to add “new features”. That’s the same process as building a static website.

A WordPress blog design can be quickly adapted to your immediate needs. With a little bit of knowledge, you can add a feature in minutes. You do need an overall plan, otherwise you blog design could start to look cluttered. Take a look at other blogs. What do you like about the design? Hire a graphic designer from ifreelance to help with the overall design.

I was reading Jim’s Marketing Blog this morning and was admiring his design when I noticed his poll. A poll … why didn’t I think of that? I suggest polls to my clients all the time. Maybe I should take my own advice.

If it was during the week, when I concentrate on client tasks, I would have put it on my todo list for the weekend. Yaro Starak (get his free ebook from a link on the right) tells his students they have to post content and market their blog before making design changes. Taking his advice, I get to tinker with my design (which I love to do) because I’m writing a blog post about the process.

Adding a poll to a WordPress blog is easy. I went to the free WordPress plugin site, searched for poll, then read the descriptions of the most popular plugins. WP-Polls plugin does exactly what I want, so I read the details on his site, checked out the demo and downloaded it. Unzipped and ftp’d it to my hosting site and voila! it’s there. I created a poll, added the widget to my sidebar and I’m done. It took me longer to write this blog post than it did to install the plugin.

Do you have a poll on your blog? And don’t forget to take my poll.

Firefox is the best browser for most people using a PC. Safety is the most important reason, but Firefox’s time saving customizations are a close second.

Take a look at the video and let me know what you think.

Download Firefox here. Installation is a snap and you can easily import your Internet Explorer bookmarks. By next week, you’ll wonder how you ever did without it.

Did you move from Internet Explorer to Firefox?

The first decision you need to make is why you want to blog. Because a speaker at an event convinced me it’s the way of the future, or everyone else seems to have one, or I read it will shoot my website to the top of the Google search engine rankings are not reasons to blog. They may be reasons to investigate whether a blog is the right vehicle for you.

You have to ask yourself what you want to accomplish with a blog. It can help with your Google ranking, but simply recycling your newsletter for the past two years is probably not going to accomplish the result you want. For one thing, the information may not be relevant any more, or your target market may have changed; or the content of the newsletters may not be relevant to online readers.

What message do you want to convey to your readers? A blog is a marketing tool, it’s part of your brand, so consistency is important. The look of your blog should complement your website (if you have one). The current advice is that your blog and your website should not look identical. That confuses the readers.

Do you have the time to blog? You should blog at least three times a week. If you’re writing-impaired like I am, it takes time to write (and spellcheck) a blog post. What am I going to write about? Often I have a great idea for a blog post, that’s on-topic and fits with my current content and I sit with the title and that’s all .. get up, get a glass of water, a cookie, check Twitter, check my e-mail .. I’ve wasted an hour I could have used following up with potential clients. Save the post, unpublished and move on. If you’re having bloggers block .. make those follow up calls and come back to your blog.

If you have the resources, you may want ot hire someone to write your blog posts. You can hire someone at ifreelance to write ten or twenty blog posts, for those times you are too busy, or have bloggers block.

Should it be a page on your website? My question to you is .. do you even need a website? Several one-stop-shopping products are beginning to emerge based on a hosted WordPress platform. My advice is to hold off a major redesign of a static website if you’re an infopreneur. One of these products may be more suited to your business model.

Bottom line, having your web designer add an extra page to your website titled "Blog" and adding a hosted Word Press blog with the default theme then recycling old newsletters without a plan is a waste of time.

What planning did you do before you started publishing your blog? How long did it take you to find the purpose or message for your blog? Do you still have a traditional website?

The first thing you need to analyze is your website. If you’re going to promote your website to be “above the fold”, it needs to be effective. You want them to buy something, even if it’s buying into your point of view.

• Is your landing page cluttered?
• Do you have a call to action on your landing (home) page?
• How easy is it to buy your product?
• Do you have an offer that will allow you to capture e-mail addresses, then do you have a newsletter to keep in touch with your new customers?
• Do you have Google Analytics (or another product) installed and have you analyzed the data you collect?
• What’s your conversion rate, where are your customers coming from? Which pages are your customers reading?
• What products are your customers buying? (or not buying)

If you don’t know the answers to most of those questions, you may need to make changes to your website to take advantage of the new customers/business you attract using a blog.

Depending on your business, you may not even need a static website. A hosted WordPress blog can be customized to accomplish the same objectives as a static website. Howard Olsen’s High Output Business Training site is a good example of the effective use of a customized Word Press blog theme. Using a Word Press theme allows you to make changes quickly. It’s built in … you don’t need to pay extra, or learn yet another application, or pay a web designed to make the changes to content.

Blogging can be time consuming and you need to post to your blog three to five times a week. If you don’t have the time, or don’t enjoy writing, you can hire someone to write your blog for you. You can also encourage someone from within your organization to write the blog.

Once you’re comfortable with your website, you need to define the goals for the blog. Is it to drive new traffic to your website, or to increase sales from your current customers, to capture e-mail addresses, or to sell your e-book?

Do you need a business blog? Almost every business can benefit by using a blog, but you need a strategy to take advantage of a powerful marketing tool.

Do you have a strategy for your business blog? How successful has it been achieving your goals?

Barbara is a 25 year veteran of Management Consulting, specializing in financial, manufacturing and payroll software and processes for SME businesses. She is currently expanding her business to include Internet Marketing Strategies helping these same businesses and individuals to market effectively on the Internet. You can check out her blog at www.barbarawestly.com.

Here`s her take on the Acer Aspire.

In my business I need to be able to connect at just about any time. I tossed around getting an iPhone or some other “Smart Phone”. I tested the iPhone, Insync, HTC and any others I felt might work for me. The youngsters in the showrooms were quite capable in typing and manipulating “words” on these devices with their thumbs. It’s easy, they would say, just look at how fast this works. They didn’t fool me. I need ALL my fingers to type a decent email or letter. I have a need to send messages without a lot of typos and I need the ability to proof and edit. So I needed to find an alternative.

My alternative turned out to be the Acer Aspire One. Again, there was quite an array of mini laptops to choose from. This was getting to be a huge project and I wasn’t moving forward in my decision. First there was the Asus eee. Then the Acer, HP,Sony and then Dell came out with their new addition. At first I was going to wait to see how the Dell compared, but then I went to Blog World Expo in Las Vegas and met or more accurately, accosted anyone who pulled out a mini. The best reviews seemed to be for the Acer Aspire One.

Users I talked to liked the keyboard, the clean, clear monitor resolution and the compact, light footprint. After that it was a decision of whether to go Windows or Linux. I was leaning towards Linux as people told me it had basically an instant on feature and was easy to use. I finally decided on Windows because of all my previous years of experience meaning I would have no learning curve.

So I broke down and bought a gorgeous metallic blue Acer Aspire One. There are several configurations you can choose from. The one I settled on has an Intel Atom processor N270, 8.9″ CrystalBrite backlit WSVGA monitor, 1 GB DDR2 RAM, 120GB hard drive, Multi-in-1 card reader, LAN and wireless and Windows XP. There are just as many configurations as there are colours to choose from. You can go with more/less RAM and/or a flash drive rather than a physical hard drive. You have to consider what you want to use it for.

It was a little hard getting used to the smaller keyboard but after a few emails, it got easier. The monitor is amazing and after I got rid of McAfee and installed my preferred antivirus and firewall, it became a fast alternative to my regular laptop.

I tested it today with a Novatel Wireless Internet card. With this card you can get wireless anywhere you can get cellular and so far it appears that the rate plans for these cards are cheaper than the data plans for the Smart Phones. So instead of fighting with a stylus, or thumbing a teeny tiny keyboard, I will use my “dumb phone” for cellular communications and my Acer for data and internet.

Are you still lugging around a 15 inch laptop ..

]]> http://www.techcoachtips.com/?feed=rss2&p=311 0 http://www.techcoachtips.com/?p=296 http://www.techcoachtips.com/?p=296#comments Fri, 17 Oct 2008 04:34:58 +0000 admin http://www.techcoachtips.com/?p=296 I was an early adopter the iPod Shuffle … I used to have a mind-numbing job and I had to share office space with two socially impaired geeks who rambled on and on about gaming and chicks (their words not mine .. and to this day, I don’t think either of them has been within 3 feet of a real chick). I was plugged into music for 6 hours a day 5 days a week for 18 months.

The Shuffle.v1 was Apple-cool and stored my entire music library .. but it played the same ten songs over and over … WTF? … During all the development of a cool product, Apple couldn’t figure out how to make “Random” work? My other choice was to listen to all my Barry Manilow in a row, then move on to Abba .. how 1980s .. When I purchased a 2GB player, Apple wasn’t even on the short list.

Fast forward 3 years. I have issues with “Smart Phones” .. IMHO, they aren’t .. they’re overly complex to use, the sync software is painful, and the teeny keyboards are an exercise in frustration. The cell providers overcharge you so you can use all the features of the device. I was in Blackberry hell for about 6 months until I finally just gave up and moved on.

I still have the problem of staying in touch when I’m out of my office and I need a calendar that syncs with either Outlook or Google calender (I have that sync process automated).

I was excited when Dell announced Inspiron Mini (with it’s mini price too). I sat back, waiting for reviews .. my credit card all warmed up. In the meantime, my friend Barbara bought an 8″ Acer Aspire that was on sale at Staples.

Then my Creative Zen mp3 player stopped charging two and a half weeks ago. I’m still waiting for their Customer support to get back to me. I need an mp3 player. I haven’t read a paper book for almost two years. How am I going to know what’s happening without Podcasts? Panic set in ..

It seems everyone has an iPhone .. they complain about the cellphone part and having to charge it almost every day. You can send Tweets from it .. and you can blog from it .. that’s practical isn’t it? It does have a sync’able calendar and you can access your e-mail. It has a touch sensitive keyboard. I don’t need a GPS, I don’t even own a car! Hmm .. maybe an iPod Touch? I can justify that can’t I?

Off to Craig’s list .. yes, I am cheap. Apple gave away 8GB iTouches with a back-to-school special, so there’s eight or ten local listings .. “iPod Touch, still in the original packaging” all around $200. Then I see an ad with a link to Apple’s refurbished store. For an extra $40, I can get a 16GB iPod Touch with a one-year warranty.

I waffled back and forth from the 8″ laptop to the iPod for three days and in the end .. Steve-O won. The Fedex guy delivered my shiny new iPod Touch.

I love my Touch .. and syncing it to my PC is as simple as plugging it in. I’ve downloaded books I purchased on the Audible site and podcasts. I upgraded to 2.1 although iTunes still nags me that my iPod has a software upgrade available .. and I haven’t figured out to download apps. I think I need to be connected to a wireless network .. the manual is pretty useless unless you need help to download music or you’re not sure how to power it down. I`ll find a couple of hours to play this weekend.

Despite some Applish behavior, this is one of the neatest electronic devices I’ve even owned. It’s up there with the first time I played with a Sun workstation.

Stay tuned, I’ll write a detailed review in a couple of weeks.

Me .. an Apple Fan-boy? What’s next?