Making a difference
By Paul Provost, President  I get a lot of emails and correspondence and admittedly, I get to read only a fraction of them. Some of it is spam, some poorly thought out self-promotion and others are written / provided in a sincere and meaningful manner.
One such correspondence I received very recently was from a group that we proudly support - Inner City Youth Alive. The cover article by Kent Dueck, Executive Director at ICYA, was particularly impacting and re-confirmed the purpose and drive that they have for their community and for helping others. It took me into a dark place that I have never experienced and I wish others didn't have to either. It made me want to reach out and help. This well written piece reminded me that ICYA is out there helping those that need help now and that ICYA also needs help to help more of those who need their help.
Perhaps most importantly, it tells me how they are doing their best to make a critical difference in the lives of the kids they shelter - and in the lives of the Volunteers.
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Is your website producing new leads, or just sitting around waiting to be found?
By Paul Provost, President Inactive websites are just that: inactive. If your site isn't updated regularly, search engines will slowly decrease your website's visibility to prospective clients. Even worse, if your website is inactive, it probably isn't doing your brand (or sales team) justice.
Most business websites – small business websites in particular – haven't had a new piece of content added in months or even years. For businesses looking to present themselves as industry leaders, this simply isn't good enough.
Many business websites even fail to communicate these basics:
- Clear phone # and contact information with an easy to use contact form
- Details on how you work (don't assume that your clients or prospects understand your company / industry)
- A level of professionalism that is commensurate with the quality of your customers. If you're seeking high quality clients, you need a high quality website/brand that competes with your direct competitors.
Once you've got these basics in place, it's time to take your site to the next level. Here are six greats ways to activate your website:
SEO is all the rage but just 1/3 of the story
By Frank Wehrmann, Creative Director
Did you know your web visitors can only get to your site in one of three ways? It’s true! Check it out:
1. ORGANIC TRAFFIC (50-80% of your traffic)
- Organic traffic is directed to your website by search engines like Google or Yahoo. But to appear at the top of a search results page, your website content must match the terms fed into a search engine better than any other web location’s.
2. DIRECT TRAFFIC (20-40% of your traffic)
- Direct traffic sidesteps search engines completely with site bookmarks or because people remember your web-address. Or maybe you gave them a business card. If people are coming to your site directly, odds are your site is important to them.
3. REFERRAL TRAFFIC (5-25% of your traffic)
- Referral traffic comes to your site from all sorts of places: your Facebook account link and your e-mail signature link are two quick examples.
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