We've updated our Facebook Page to the new timeline, what do you think?

If you use Facebook personally you are likely aware of the Facebook Timeline for Profiles.

What you may not be aware of is that Facebook is now planning a rollout of the Facebook timeline for Pages as well, which you can preview or publish now, and expects it to be in place for all pages on March 30th.

The Facebook Timeline for Pages offers Businesses the perfect opportunity to tell the story of your business and create your businesses’ identity on Facebook. Perhaps one of the greatest elements from the Timeline is the cover photo, a large horizontal banner that can be an image of your brand, an upcoming product, or anything else you want to showcase.

To find out more about the Facebook Timeline and the importance it has for your business, take a look at this article from Mashable – Facebook Timeline for Brands: The Complete Guide.

One of the richest men in the world, Andrew Cargnegie, used the power of masterminding to gain the knowledge and income that made him very wealthy. His charitable contributions after his death are still making a big difference in the lives of so many people.

If you want to learn some of the powerful strategies and tactics you gain from masterminding, I just posted a great “how to” article for you to read and enjoy.

Click here to access it

Please leave me a comment after you read it!

All the Best,
John Assaraf
PraxisNow, LLC P.O. Box 5020 PMB 1101 Rancho Santa Fe, California 92067 United States

How do you choose the right provider for your project?
Here is a simple list of questions and qualifications that you will want to ask when interviewing potential vendors:

• How long has the company been in business?
• Do they have a list of clients that can be contacted for references?
• What is their level of marketing expertise beyond graphic design?
• Does this company have the team and skill set to fulfill your needs?
• After the project is done, what is their turn-around for maintenance items?
• Will you own the rights to the design work?
• Will you own, and have full access to, the domain name and the host server?

Things to do in addition to asking the questions above:

• Contact your local Chamber or Better Business Bureau to see if they have a good reputation.
• Contact each company’s references and ask:
• Were they a pleasure to work with?
• Did they complete the project on time and on budget?
• Did they bring new ideas to the table?
• Would you hire them again?
• Most importantly, if possible, meet with your selected vendor at their location to make sure it feels right for you!

It may take a little more time to perform the tasks above, but the frustration it could save you is priceless!

When partnering with Emmatt you will benefit from:

• A professional, business-centric approach to the web that produces results;
• An in-house team with the full skill set required, from marketing through to design, programming, SEO and social media implementation;
• Quick responses and turnaround times – usually within 24 hours;
• Over 14 years of experience in website and database development;
• A partner that is easy to work with and brings ideas to you!

To learn more about Emmatt’s full range of web development services click here.

Not resizing photos
While some CMS’s will resize your photo for you when you upload it, it will usually keep the original file on the server. Why does that matter? If you are uploading multiple 4MB staff photos for a page, this will quickly eat up your server space. Not only that, but if you are not using a CMS (or if it doesn’t resize the image) you’ll end up with pages that take a long time to load – leading to visitors leaving your website, and poor SEO ranking due to the increased load time. Resizing photos can be easy – for a quick refresher, take a look at my blog post on how to resize or crop a photo.

Strange filename characters
While most people will understand that strange symbols and characters shouldn’t be used in filenames, many don’t understand that on the web it is best to also avoid spaces in filenames. Why is this a problem? The web server doesn’t necessarily read spaces the same as your computer, and will add “%20″ instead of a space, leading to extremely ugly links and possibly broken links. Rather than spaces, use a dash such as ‘my-vacation-in-florida.jpg’.

Pasting from Word
Copying and pasting your content directly from Word can create a lot of problems on your webpage – and you may not even realize it. Often when you paste from Word to a CMS or into a web document the formatting from Word will get added into it as well which ends up affecting the sites look and feel (not to mention makes for some ugly code). Also, Word will paste in some characters as-is, such as an ampersand. In web coding there should be a character code used to replace some of these characters – otherwise your website can end up with strange symbols where they don’t belong. Some of these problems can be easily fixed by either pasting from notepad, or if your CMS has a “paste from Word” option you can use that. For the characters, most CMS’s will have a button to insert special characters.

Avoiding these three common mistakes can help keep your website running smoothly and without problems. Remember: Just because something looks right in Word or on your computer, does not mean it will work the same once you have it up on the web!

The first is a great entrepreneurial article from Forbes, How to Create a Big Vision for Your Company.

The second is a wonderful reminder that sometimes we have to STOP certain conditioned habits in order to make time for what’s really important. You can read the Harvard Business Review article, Five Things You Should Stop Doing in 2012 here.

And lastly, and certainly most importantly, Tony Robbins’ annual Power of Momentum worksheets for 2012. You can download the PDF here.

Take some time out during the Christmas break to honour yourself by getting quiet, getting clear, and getting 2012 started on a solid footing!

Here’s to a happy and successful New Year for you and your family.
Season’s Greetings from the whole team at Emmatt Digital Solutions!

First off, you don’t have to necessarily download a program in order to resize and crop a photo. In this post I am going to show you how to use both an installed (free) program on your computer, as well as a free online tool. One important thing to keep in mind when using an online tool is privacy. Make sure you read the privacy policy carefully before you upload any photos to adjust.

Picnik
Picnik is a great, free, online tool that allows you to crop and edit photos in your browser.

Crop a photo using Picnik

1. Go to the app and click UPLOAD A PHOTO. Choose the photo you want to resize and upload it.

2. Select the CROP tool in the left sidebar. You can then either use the cropping box that hovers over the photo with your mouse, or you can enter numbers into the ACTUAL SIZE section. To use the cropping box, drag the box over which part of the image you want to crop. If you want to freehand it, make sure you uncheck SCALE PHOTO. When done click APPLY.

 
 

3. Go to the SAVE & SHARE tab. You can save it at different qualities and formats here. You can also resize your photo if you think it is still too big. Once you’re ready click SAVE PHOTO.

Resize a photo using Picnik

1. Go to the app and click UPLOAD A PHOTO. Choose the photo you want to resize and upload it.

 

2. Click the RESIZE button at the bottom of the left sidebar. From here, you can type in a smaller size. I would highly recommend keeping KEEP PROPORTIONS checked, otherwise your image may look stretched. Once you have a size that looks good you can click APPLY.

3. Go to the SAVE & SHARE tab. You can save it at different qualities and formats here. You can also resize your photo further if you think it is still too big. Once you’re ready click SAVE PHOTO.

Gimp
Gimp is another free tool to edit photos. This is a program that you install on your computer; once installed follow these steps.

Crop a photo using Gimp

1. Open Gimp, click FILE > OPEN, and find your photo. Click OPEN.

 

2. There are a few different ways to do this. If you want to select a specific area, use the RECTANGLE SELECT tool and click and drag to select the area you would like to keep. Then click IMAGE > CROP TO SELECTION.

3. To save the file, click FILE > SAVE AS. Here you can choose a new filetype if you wish.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Resize a photo

1. To resize a photo, open the photo and click IMAGE > SCALE IMAGE. Choose the desired width or height. Make sure that the SCALE PROPORTIONS link is still intact (it will be by default), and click SCALE.

2. To save the file, click FILE > SAVE AS. Here you can choose a new filetype if you wish.

Tips:

• When uploading a photo online make sure the filename doesn’t contain any spaces or weird characters. This can create problems down the road.
• Don’t save the photo at maximum quality if it doesn’t have to be high quality. The smaller the file size the faster it will load. At the same time, don’t save it at such low quality that you can’t make out the image.
• Stay with the common photo types if possible: JPEG and PNG are the most common.

Security firm SplashData recently published this year’s 25 worst passwords, and having seen individual security policies covering all industries, education levels and levels of paranoia, I can safely say that I’ve seen almost all of the entries from the top ten more often than I’d prefer.

1. password
2. 123456
3. 12345678
4. qwerty
5. abc123
6. monkey
7. 1234567
8. letmein
9. trustno1
10. dragon

Shockingly, many people in the world use these sequences to lock down their most sensitive login credentials. Thankfully many of the higher risk sites enforce a certain level of password complexity and some even force a password change after a set amount of time, but the fact is that a majority of sites, even ones where sensitive data like credit card information may be stored, do not enforce much, if any, password best practices at all.

Here are some tips to developing your own ideal passwords:

1. Passwords should always contain a mix of upper and lowercase letters, numbers, and where possible, special characters – This ensures that a determined hacker will have to invest more significant amounts of time attempting to break your password through ‘brute force’ repetition.
2. Passwords should never be a dictionary word – Automated processes will focus on dictionary words more readily than invented or random terms and pick these accounts off first.
3. Ideally, you shouldn’t use the same password for different accounts – A resilient hacker will undoubtedly try the same credentials at different popular services to maximize their damage.
4. Passwords should be changed on a fairly regular basis, perhaps every 3-6 months –In many cases, a hacker will retrieve your credentials, note a successful login and simply archive this information for use in a later deed.

If you follow the above tips, your former darling password of ‘monkey’ could better serve you with the far more secure “mo_nK3y%”, so long as you pick a new animal to secure your accounts every once in a while.

http://www.mnn.com/green-tech/computers/sponsorblog/dell-protects-products-and-environment-with-bamboo

Accessibility:
One in seven people in Ontario have a disability, and we want to make sure that that population does not have trouble accessing a website. For the web, this means making sure that the site is accessible for screen readers. Over 836,000 people in Canada are currently living with significant vision loss, and that number is expected to rise dramatically in the years ahead with our aging population. While not all of these people are necessarily fully blind, many of them still rely on screen readers or increasing the font size on a page to read it.

How does this affect design? Images, images, images! Some designers would rather have a site ‘look good’ so they create much of the content (including main navigation elements and sometimes even header type) as images. This creates a problem however as screen readers will just be reading the actual text, which may leave people confused. To fix this problem while still having pretty design try using font kits and custom web fonts. When you are using images make sure you use descriptive alt tags as well.

SEO:
SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is critical for your site to help it be found. Having a site that is optimized for search engines will increase its visibility on search engines such as Google (and you want to be found on Google, right?). Again, having a site that’s full of images when there should be text (navigation, header text, etc) can lower your chances of being found on search engines.

Flash websites:
While having some pieces of the site done in Flash can be fine, some designers think it is a good idea to design their entire site in Flash. This can be a problem for both accessibility and SEO again. Who cares if your site has flashy animation all over if no one can find it? Not to mention that with more open technologies such as HTML5, CSS3, and Javascript becoming more and more popular (and also more accessible and SEO-friendly), there is not much of a reason to continue down this path.

Web Usability:
This is another area that is extremely important for all users on your site – is your site easy to use? This doesn’t just come down to what you’ve made your site with, but how you’ve made your site and what you’ve put on it. Users don’t want to have to think – it should be obvious what their next step should be, and they shouldn’t have to take twelve steps to get where they want to go. You want your site to be efficient so users can get to the information they want quickly, otherwise they will give up and find somewhere else to get it.

Not only will having a site that’s usable keep users on your site, it will likely help bring more users to you and increase your business on the web. Besides, who says a site with great usability can’t be pretty too?

How to Convert Website Traffic into Paying Customers
Written by Jeff Bullas

Do you have traffic to your website or blog but they are not turning into customers? Do you have plenty of leads and prospects but they are not buying? Traffic is one thing, turning that traffic into sales is another. So how do you convert those leads and traffic so they become loyal and  paying customers?

Lead nurturing is the process of building a relationship with your leads and moving them down your sales funnel until they are ready to become a customer. When a new visitor arrives at your website, there are two ways to seize the opportunity and guide them to becoming customers:

Two Ways to Make a Prospect a Customer

1. Lead Nurturing
Lead nurturing starts by collecting contact information in exchange for something the visitor deems of value, but with little risk. Often, this entails some form of information or product trial intended to help solve the visitor’s problem.

Email addresses, RSS subscriptions and similar methods of engagement all serve to keep a visitor’s memory and impression of a company or product at the forefront. Later, the contact information provided offers you the ability to educate, inspire, or otherwise engage a potential new customer.

The goal is to encourage both return visits and eventually, sales. Always remember, lead nurturing is all about relationships.

2. Behavioral Marketing
Behavioral marketing collects information about what the visitor does while on the site, and intuitively engages the visitor before he or she clicks away. For example, a visitor might land on your home page, see a button about a product of interest and click to learn more. Imagine if her activities could automatically produce targeted messages announcing special incentives, additional useful information, tips or other enticements.

Behavioral marketing uses your visitors behavior, both on and off the website, to select just the right message, at just the right time.

• If a lead should mention a competitor in a tweet on Twitter, for example, or use specific keywords, you can automatically send that lead a Direct Tweet.
• If they download a document but does not return to your site within a set time frame, an automatic email goes out asking her to review the document.

Each of these examples serves as a way to engage with leads and bring them back to your website. Both opportunities can evaporate in the blink of an eye without the proper systems in place. Together, lead nurturing and behavioral marketing help increase conversions and provide the building blocks needed to move leads along from visitor through to paying customer.

3 Points Necessary to Gain a New Customer

Nearly every marketing expert will agree, for a visitor to become a customer, you must cover three basic points. Those points are “know”, “like” and “trust”. In other words, before expecting a visitor to buy or invest money, you must cover all 3 points.

• The Visitor Needs to “Know” – Provide an opportunity for the visitor to learn about the company, product or service (know)
• The Visitor Needs to “Like” – Help the visitor identify with, relate to, or see a need or usefulness for a particular company, product or service (like.)
• The Visitor Needs to “Trust” – Help the visitor come to trust the company, the product and most importantly, his or her decision to risk money on it (trust.)

Lead Nurturing Automates the 3 Points

Offering up an email address, subscribing to a newsletter, following on social media, all of these actions demonstrate a visitor’s interest. The visitor has taken the initiative to engage, like starting a face-to-face conversation. With automation tools, you can continue the engagement in a hands-free environment, while still participating in the conversation.

Automatic emails, new content notifications, RSS feeds and social media updates can all be automated to deliver valuable information to previously engaged visitors on a regular basis. Again, the visitor is not taking a large risk, only learning more and becoming more familiar with a company, product or service. In essence, automatic tools take over the 3 point process needed to move a lead along.

The Power of Automation

Perhaps the most valuable aspect of lead nurturing is the ability to automate. The effort to create an environment that encourages conversions, at least on the part of the business, is expended once, yet repeatedly produces results. It is the equivalent of producing a TV commercial once and replaying it dozens, hundreds or even thousands of times for each individual lead. When done well, the process does not even feel automated for the visitor. Each instance of engagement, such as a series of informational or training emails, provides a gentle nudge towards becoming a paying customer without the business exerting additional effort. Work once, reap the benefits over and over again.

Feedback and Forwarding

Not only does lead nurturing provide the opportunity to move one visitor toward becoming a paying customer, but also provides feedback and referral opportunities. Business owners and key management personnel can see what visitors do, how they respond, what messages they open and what links are clicked. This provides a wealth of opportunity to tweak the process to best meet the needs of your target market.

So you need to:

• Test new content
• Experiment with targeted or segmented promotions
• Request feedback on services or engage customers in the decision-making process.

Social media sharing, email forwarding and similar actions of current leads can also provide a plethora of forwarding opportunities. Produce outstanding content, send it out to your leads and those leads can potentially market your information for you. People, by their very nature, are prone to sharing information and solutions they feel meet the needs of their friends, family, co-workers, supervisors and colleagues.

Lead nurturing, when executed properly, can serve to encourage sales as well as generate more leads through forwarding and sharing.

Build Loyalty by Listening and Responding

How many times have you bought a product and loved it, but couldn’t remember where you bought it? How many times have you thought a product could be improved, but didn’t say anything because you didn’t feel someone would listen?

With the right lead nurturing system, you will never leave your customers feeling like this. Staying in front of previous customers through continued lead nurturing helps them remember how valuable you have been to them in the past.

Giving customers a platform on which they can regularly interact gives them a voice. It also provides you with a means to hear what they have to say and respond in a timely manner with improved products or processes, more interesting content or a better information delivery schedule. Do they want to know more, hear from you less often, or express an idea for a new feature?

Lead nurturing helps provide the means they need to stay engaged with you and your offerings.

Shorten the Time Between Initial Contact and the Sale

According to Market2Lead, the sales cycle is nearly 25% shorter for nurtured leads. That means a visitor engaged in immediate contact through lead nurturing will risk money on a product or service in three-quarters the time as a traditional lead. Faster sales cycles means increased revenues and less effort on the part of sales staff. A warm lead, as any good salesman knows, is easier to convert than a cold lead.

Is Cold Calling a Waste of Time?

Genius.com reports that the top marketing misalignment occurs when vendors rely on cold calls and sales personnel in the early stages of lead development, when leads rely on their own research and low-pressure engagement. Less than 10% of customers surveyed reported buying from a company as a result of cold calls. In fact, buyers listed vendor websites and white papers or ebooks as two of the top three influences that helped them feel confident enough to make a purchase.

Lead nurturing combines these influential marketing tools to help maximize lead conversions.

What It All Means

Given the value of lead nurturing, you have to ask yourself if your current strategies are working.  Look at your current website statistics. How many of your visitors click away after reading just one or two pages?

Consider what might happen if you took a popular knowledge article or white paper that currently enjoys a large percentage of your traffic, expanded it to a short ebook, then offered it as a download in exchange for a visitor’s contact information? A good example of an ebook is “20 Ways to Generate Leads From Inbound Marketing”

Now you know what inbound marketing could do for your business, and start putting those ideas into action today!