ACF Consulting Blog

5 Ways to Improve your LinkedIn Profile Now

2012-01-24T16:45:00.000-05:00

LinkedIn is a big deal. In May 2011, LinkedIn reached over 100 million members and is continuing to grow at a rapid pace. With so many professionals using the service, LinkedIn gives you vast opportunities to connect with people in your industry, search for jobs, or find incredible talent. If you aren’t using LinkedIn yet, what are you waiting for?

LinkedIn offers many advantages, but just like anything else worthwhile, the more you put into it the more you get out of it. Below are 5 things you can do now to improve your profile and make LinkedIn more effective.

1. Keep your profile updated
Just a few small tweaks to your profile every few weeks will greatly improve your visibility on LinkedIn. You don’t have to give your profile a complete overhaul, but adding a new skill or changing a title will help tremendously. Along with keeping your profile fresh, your network connections will notice each time you update your profile, keeping you in the forefront.

2. Accept invitations from people outside your circle
LinkedIn is all about expanding your professional network, so don’t be afraid to accept invitations from people you don’t know really well. The more connections you have, the more professional opportunities you create for yourself.

3. Explain what you do
A job title is great, but it doesn’t really explain your actual role in your position. Go into more detail with your profile by explaining your daily tasks, how you endorse the company and why your role is relevant. By elaborating on your job responsibilities, your connections will get a better idea of your capabilities and skills, which is great information for people looking to hire talent or collaborate.

4. Join LinkedIn groups
Groups will service you by putting you in front of people you may have not found through a previous search. Join groups related to your industry and participate by sharing your knowledge or answering questions. Groups are an ideal way to build relationships and add connections, so take advantage of them!

5. Connect with classmates
Last year, LinkedIn rolled out a system that enables people to connect to alumni of different colleges and universities, allowing you to connect to your fellow classmates. Just click on your school and select your industry and location and LinkedIn will do the rest. The classmates database is a simple way to reconnect with people you may have lost touch with or discover folks in your area that not only work in your field, but live nearby.

Using LinkedIn to its full potential will help you build a powerful professional network that can help you stay at the top of your industry, find talent to work with or find a better job. The more you take advantage of the service, the more you will get out of it.

Do you have a story about how LinkedIn has helped you? Share it with us in the comments.

Privacy Concerns with Google’s New Search Feature

2012-01-19T10:04:00.000-05:00

Last week, Google introduced new features to their search engine called “Search Plus Your World”. The new features allow users to focus on results from their own social network and highlights content published on Google+, Google’s social networking service.

The addition to Google was likely prompted by the threat that sites like Twitter and Facebook pose to the search giant since they don’t allow Google to log the photos, links or information shared on the sites. Twitter had previously given Google access to tweets, but the contract expired last summer. Facebook has been working with Bing since 2007 and has resisted Google’s attempts to peer into the social network. Without the information shared on these two popular networks, Google could become a less useful search engine, which is likely why these changes took place.

There has been much controversy over Google’s new features. Many people think Share Plus Your World will skew search results by not providing the most relevant information. Twitter commented on the revamp saying that the new feature would affect people’s ability to get the most relevant, breaking news (which is often from Twitter). Several other online reporters have stated they will no longer use the search engine and there has even been a request to the FTC to look into the new features for possible antitrust violations.

Perhaps the biggest concern with Share Plus Your World is privacy. Since Google will now be promoting Plus profiles as top search results, personal information for people and pages related to a search topic could be revealed. While you will only see Share Plus Your World results if you have it turned on, many people don’t always realize how many people can see their posts via social networking and older or forgotten posts could come back to haunt them.

Along with personal privacy concerns, people in charge of sensitive data could potentially face additional problems. The more integrated social networks and searching become, the easier it is for hacking attempts to gather specific information about an individual. While Google won’t be making any of this sensitive information public, it will make it a lot easier for hackers to find.

While Share Plus Your World will open up a whole new avenue in Google searches, there is definitely a concern with the information revealed and who might have access to that information. Now more than ever, it’s important to be mindful of what you share online and keep sensitive data protected.

What do you think about Google’s new features? Do you like the personal results or are you concerned with your privacy? Let us know in the comments.

Business Cards-Small Offline Marketing that Still Packs a Punch

2012-01-10T12:36:00.000-05:00

The boom of SEO and social media has naturally made companies shift their marketing efforts to an online medium. With the majority of professionals searching for businesses online, SEO is critical if you want to be found and social media provides a personality to your place of employment.

Both marketing methods are necessary for success, but despite being in an online world, it’s wise to invest in offline marketing techniques that are equally as important.

While social networking has reduced the need for networking face to face, the number of public events, conferences and gatherings are on the rise. People are looking to connect and share ideas with the folks they may only know from Twitter or Facebook. New conferences, Tweet-ups and events appear to be increasing every week!

Business cards are fundamental in making a good first impression. Although the information we put on our cards has adapted over the years, they are still just as effective as they were in the past. Below are some tips to ensure yours stand out.

Show off your personality

Your online presence shows off your personality. Your business card should do the same. Chances are several people at the events you attend may already “know” you without ever having met face to face. They follow you on Twitter, read your blog, or like your Facebook page. They have an expectation of who you are without the formal introduction. A mediocre business card will not reflect the person they already know online, so give your card the same personality that you exhibit there.

Add social media links or a QR code

Many individuals may already know you, but keep in mind that you’ll be handing out your card to plenty of people that don’t. Include links to the social media sites you frequent or consider adding a QR code that links to your website. Email addresses and phone numbers are still essential, but don’t forget to offer alternative options as a means of connecting with you.

Resist clutter

A cluttered business card is unattractive and can send the wrong message, so only add what you feel is requisite. Avoid adding links to every site you associate with and consider only those that you use frequently. Don’t be hesitant to use both sides of the card.

Don’t go cheap

There are volumes of online options to obtain free business cards, however be mindful that you get what you pay for. Most of those complimentary sites require you to share real estate with the printing company and print on paper that is not nearly as attractive as what you’d get if you invested a little money. Remember, your card is a first impression, so don’t skimp.

Business cards continue to be vital to marketing efforts, even in a world where the majority of them take place online. Your card should provide different avenues to reach you and flaunt your personality so you can network with confidence.

How have your business cards evolved over the years? What links do you include on your cards? Let us know in the comments.

The Keys to Documentation in the Google Age

2012-01-04T10:50:00.000-05:00

The way we are learning is changing.

A series of experiments conducted at Columbia University produced evidence that people are better at remembering where to look for information on the Internet than they are at remembering the information itself. Instead of retaining it, we’re relying on Google to show us where the information can be found.

There’s no uncertainty that our dependence on the web is increasing. If search engines went away tomorrow, many of us, particularly today’s youth, would struggle with how to obtain it elsewhere. Instead of taking notes and memorizing, we are saving searches and bookmarking websites to refer back to later.

Since we’ve become a society that relies heavily on searching information, it’s more important than ever for companies to document their procedures. Documentation saves time, enhances workflow and simplifies the training process for new hires.

At ACF, documenting procedures is something we continuously strive to improve upon. While we have handful in place, we’re working continuously to document in a way that’s optimal for the staff performing the task. Below are a few things we’ve learned along the way.

Organization is important

Organization is imperative when creating documents for company procedures. A consistent document structure will simplify it to the degree that it is easy for your staff to follow. It will also ensure that all necessities are included. Storing your documentation in a central location is critical. It should be easily accessible. Manage this by storing documents in a binder, file cabinet, or digitally on the company server.

Images are worth a thousand words (and nobody likes to type that much)

Sometimes, it’s better to see how to do something than it is to read about it. When possible, include graphics and visuals in your documentation. Screenshots and step by step photos can make a tremendous difference in the interpretation of the procedure.

Include everything

Provide as many details as possible without trailing off subject. What you might feel is obvious; another person may not interpret as such. Put a check and balance in place. Have a delegate that is unfamiliar with that particular job responsibility attempt the task based on what you’ve written. You will quickly find out if it is thorough or if there is something that needs to be amended.

Since we’re a generation that searches for information as opposed to memorizing it, thorough documentation is vital to any business that recognizes the significance of efficiency. What are some tips you can share regarding documentation?

How to Promote What Makes You Different

2011-12-27T09:35:00.002-05:00

We all have a company that we simply don’t like. For whatever reason, we choose to buy from their competitors instead of them.

Something about them drives you up a wall. Maybe their website is confusing. Maybe they don’t accept American Express. Maybe they put too much salt on their french fries. If they just did X differently you would buy from them.

Your competitors are probably selling close to, if not the same products and services as you, but there’s a reason why people are choosing your company over them. You do something differently than all the other companies. Knowing what makes people buy from you can take your marketing efforts to the next level.

Ask yourself, “What is it about your industry that you dislike”?

There’s more than likely stereotypes about your industry. Whatever they are, you make sure that your business doesn’t fall into that category.

A big stereotype in the IT industry is that IT technicians are slow to fix problems, something ACF really doesn’t like. To make sure we fix problems as quickly as possible, we use remote support technology and have a great system for entering support tickets.

There are certainly a few things about your industry that you dislike. Document what those are and what you do to make sure that your company doesn’t fall under the same category.

Ask your customers what they dislike

Get feedback from your current customers by utilizing surveys and online forms. Ask them what things they dislike about your industry and what makes them choose your company. The odds are, you’ll receive a variety of different responses, some you may be guilty of yourself.

Take this information and think of ways to do the opposite of whatever their complaints were. Once you’ve made the necessary changes, be sure to get the word out. Your customers will appreciate that you listened to their feedback and will become raving fans of your business!

Market why you are different

Potential customers assume that you’re like all the others in your industry and probably dislike the same thing that your current customers dislike about your competition. Letting them know you do the opposite of the other companies is a great way to set yourself apart, gain customers, and increase sales.

Finding out what makes you different can help you gain new customers and keep your current ones happy. Just by asking a few honest questions, you can figure out the reasons people buy from you and what changes you need to make to your business to be sure people know you’re not like all the others.

What are things you dislike about your industry? What do you do that is different?

Want News? Go to Twitter

2011-12-20T09:46:00.000-05:00

While most people using Twitter to state “What they are doing”, more and more people are using the social network to get their news. In their fourth annual Digital Journalism Study, Oriella PR network found that almost half of journalists use Twitter as a source to help verify news information.

We love Twitter as a news source and use it every day to find out what’s going on in the world. Why are we flocking to Twitter for news? The reasons are fairly obvious.

1. It’s Quick
The amount of people using social media makes news travel fast, so information can be reported quicker than the television stations or radio. When President Obama announced in May that Osama Bin Laden was dead, Twitter reported the news an hour before any television station did. The same happened during the protests in the Middle East, the shooting at Virginia Tech and most recently, the death of Kim Jong-Il.

2. It’s portable
One of the best parts about Twitter is the fact that it is easy to use on the go. The Twitter apps for smart phones and tablets make it extremely easy to find and share information from anywhere, news included.

3. It’s easy to search
Twitter’s trending topics (designated by the # symbol) make it easy to search for relevant information on a particular story. Instead of sifting through links on a news website or waiting for a television reporter to give an update, you can search Twitter for exactly what you are looking for and find a wealth of information on the subject, updated in real time. While you won’t get the entire story via Twitter (due to the 140 character limit) you’ll get many links to choose from for more information, making it a quick way to search for what you want.

4. Real Time Updates
There’s no better place than twitter for up to the minute news coverage. Since most people are using Twitter through devices other than their desktop computers, you can get news as it happens. Pictures, videos and links can be shared easily, giving you the ability to see news unfold without actually being there.

The reasons above are proof that Twitter is a great resource for information. Due to its portability, ease of use and quick, real time updates, it may be the best source for news out there. The best part, Twitter is still fairly young, so there will surely be many changes over the years that will make it an even better than it is already.

Do you use Twitter to get your news? What people or news sources do you follow?

Opportunities Abound for Small Business’ to Do Good

2011-12-13T10:03:00.001-05:00

The ACF team after the Free to Breathe 5K for lung cancer research

The holiday season is a time for reflection and many small businesses are looking for a way to give back to those that are less fortunate. In 2010, nearly $300 billion dollars were donated to charity and numbers appear to be around the same this year.

At the beginning of 2011, ACF made a commitment to give back to our community, a goal we’ve proudly achieved. We knew it was impossible to give to every charity, so we spent some time researching different charities to find the matches that were best for us. Through our research, we found a variety of non-profit organizations right in our area that needed help. We didn’t realize how many great organizations were right in our back yard and were excited to help in any way we could.

If your company is looking for a way to give back this holiday season, here are some tips to help you choose the perfect charity.

Clarify your values
The charity you choose should be in line with your company’s values. Use your mission statement as a guide to help you connect with organizations that fit best with you. Guidestar.org and Charitynavigatior.org are two great resources that can help guide you to the right charity.

Get employee suggestions
Your employees are the heart and soul of your business, so welcome all of their suggestions and concerns. Find out the interests and causes that they are passionate about and work together to get suggestions on how to give back. Choosing a cause that your employees care about helps get everyone excited and will yield higher participation.

Start small
You don’t have to donate tons of money or time to make a difference. There are plenty of easy ways you can give back that are still fulfilling.

Have all your employees bring in a canned goods to donate to a soup kitchen
Gather old clothes to donate to Goodwill or The Salvation Army
Donate blood to your local blood bank
Drop off toys to a children’s hospital or Toys for Tots

Have a leader
No matter what your company decides to do, it’s helpful to have a leader. The leader should be in charge of contacting the charity, scheduling dates and times to donate and answering any questions employees may have. The more organized you are, the easier it will be for everyone to participate.

Get the word out
Let people know about the charity work you are doing! Not only will it show the great work you are doing, but it could get other people interested in helping as well. Promote the charity through your website, company newsletters, and social media sites; and don’t forget to take pictures at the event!

Donating to charity is a great way to give back to an organization or cause you feel passionate about. There are a variety of ways your business can help this holiday season and you don’t need a big budget to help make a difference.

How have you given back this year?

4 Ways technology can Help you Save This Holiday Season

2011-12-06T11:18:00.001-05:00

Even in the down economy, reports are showing retailers had record breaking sales on Black Friday. If you skipped the madness this year, don’t fret, there are still plenty of ways to receive great deals this holiday season.

More than ever before, retailers are taking advantage of social media and technology to help drive sales. You may have seen some stores posting their deals on Twitter and Facebook, but there are many other ways you can score great deals through technology you might not have heard of. We’ve found some great sites, apps and programs that will give you a leg up this holiday season.

1. Price Grabber (www.pricegrabber.com)
Price Grabber does your comparison shopping for you by finding the best online deals for the most popular items. They also give information and reviews on different products to help you make an informed decision before buying.

2. Foursquare (www.foursquare.com)
Foursquare, a free mobile phone app that allows you to “check in” to the places you’re at, is one you may have heard of. But did you know that using the app could get you free stuff or coupons? Many retailers offer discounts or free products just for checking in, so take advantage!

3. Groupon & Living Social (www.groupon.com , www.livingsocial.com)
Groupon and Living Social offer deals for places in your city. Often, the deals will be for great gift items like massages, cooking classes, or tickets to shows in the area. Just sign up on their websites or download the apps and you can start receiving daily deals.

4. Shopkick (www.shopkick.com)
Shopkick is a free app that rewards you for shopping. The app lets you go to stores and get rewards (in the form of “kicks”) just for being there. You can redeem your kicks for gift cards to a variety of different places. They also offer coupons for and special deals that you can’t find anywhere else for a variety of different stores.

With technology being such a part of our lives, it makes sense that retailers are taking advantages of technology to help gain sales. If you’re looking for ways to stretch your holiday budget, the above apps and websites can really help. Start using them today to get the most for your money this holiday season!

How has technology helped you save money? Do you use any websites or apps to get shopping deals?

Getting your Company On Board with Social Media

2011-11-29T09:30:00.003-05:00

An effective social media strategy can benefit just about every company, no matter what industry. With 65% of online adults using social media, some daily, it’s clear that social media is not just a passing fad.

Social media is a big part of ACF’s marketing strategy, but that admittedly wasn’t always the case. While several of our team members were on board with getting “social”, it took some convincing to get everyone to participate, which is the case for a lot of companies.

Convincing your team that social media is the way to go isn’t always the easiest task. Below goes over some of the common reasons why companies are hesitant to get involved in social media and what can be done to get them on board.

They don't understand the value
Despite its overall acceptance, many people are confused about social media, especially when it comes to business use. Many people consider social media sites strictly a personal thing and have a hard time realizing the benefits a business could see from developing an online community.

The best way to help with lack of understanding is by developing a plan that will show the benefits. Start by clearly defining what the company’s goals are, then ask discuss how social media can help with those goals. The ideas will flow and your team will start to see the role social media plays in an effective marketing strategy.

Lack of Time
A lot of companies make the mistake of signing up for every social network right out of the gate, which almost always proves to be ineffective because managing all of those networks takes up a lot of time.

At ACF, we started out by just having social network accounts for the company. Once team members started getting a feel for how they worked, they signed up for their own accounts to help promote the ACF brand. Because we started out slow, we’re much more engaged in social media than we would have been if we required everyone to participate right out of the gate.

Time will almost always be an issue, but if you start out slowly, your company will be more willing to get on board. Try introducing one social network into a strategy than add additional ones when you are ready.

Brand Management Concerns
Many companies are concerned that social media will open up their company to bad publicity. Since anyone, anywhere can access social media, many companies feel that being involved is a risk to their reputation.

The truth is, anyone can say anything about your company whether you are involved in social media or not. If a customer decides to share their frustrations on one of their social networks, there isn’t much that can be done.

Having a social media presence, however, lets the company take better control of their reputation online. Social networks are a great way to deal with customer service issues and show you care about customer feedback. Social media allows you to listen in on what people are saying about your company.

Getting everyone at your company committed to social media isn’t always easy, but you can make the process easier by developing a social media strategy that addresses the concerns of the company.

What social networks does your company use? Share the links in the comments and we’ll check you out!

ACF Supports Lung Cancer Research with the Free to Breathe 5K

2011-11-21T17:44:00.000-05:00

This past weekend, several members of the ACF staff headed to Orlando to participate in the Free to Breathe 5K for lung cancer research. Free to Breathe is an organization passionate about creating public awareness of lung cancer through 5K events all over the country. Over the years, they have raised millions of dollars for lung cancer research, a disease that kills more people than any other cancer.

We received word of the event from one of our clients, Renee Rached of Mobility Express, who had recently lost her mother to lung cancer. Her family was participating in the event and wanted to know if we’d like to contribute as well. We jumped at the chance.

We got up bright and early on Saturday morning and headed to Orlando. It was the first 5K for all participating, so we weren’t sure what to expect. When we arrived, we were greeted by lots of smiling faces and fellow participants excited for the day ahead. It was a fun, relaxed and welcoming vibe.

We quickly realized the 5K was far from a competition. It didn’t matter to anyone if you finished first or dead last. It was all about getting together to support a cause. Together, the participants at the Orlando event raised over $20,000 to benefit lung cancer research! Amazing!

We had such a great time that we plan on doing more events like this in the future. Have you ever participated in 5K or similar event? What was your experience?

Tampa Bay Business Journal Up and Comers Awards

2011-11-11T10:32:00.000-05:00

Last night, the entire ACF team headed to the TPepin Hospitality Center in Tampa to attend the 2011 Tampa Bay Business Journal Up and Comers Awards ceremony. It was a fantastic night filled with great people, good food and lots of laughs!

Our president, Adam Ford (follow him on Twitter@theadamford) was nominated for an Up and Comer Award, so we were all excited to show our support! The nomination was a great achievement in a year of many successes. We are all so proud of Adam!

The day started off at the office where we made signs to cheer Adam on.

We then all headed down to the event for happy hour and networking.

The networking hour was followed by dinner and speeches from the event sponsors.

Then it was time to announce the finalists! Way to go Adam!

The night ended with finding out who was inducted into the 2011 “Hall of Fame”. Congratulations to Jonathan Bowman and Derrick Brooks (yes, that Derrick Brooks), the Up and Comers award winners for this year!

The Up and Comers Awards Ceremony was definitely a night the ACF team will never forget! We’d like to thank the Tampa Bay Business Journal and all of the wonderful sponsors for hosting such an awesome event! Congratulations to all the nominees. We hope you had as much fun as we did!

4 Quick Ways to Improve Customer Service through Your Website

2011-11-10T11:40:00.000-05:00

Customer service has a huge impact on your business. Ultimately, you want your customers to be happy all the time, but we all know it isn’t always possible.

The usability of your website can determine a customer’s overall perception of your company. An easy to use website can have your customers raving about you, while a hard to use website can leave them extremely frustrated. If you want to improve customer service, an easy to use website is a good place to start, especially since most people are probably finding your company through it. Below are a few simple things you can do to improve customer service through your website.

Prevent unhappy customers in the first place

A lot of the time, an unhappy customer simply can’t find an answer they were looking for. If you find yourself continually answering the same questions, consider placing this information on your website so it’s easier for users to find.

You might be saying, “but the information is on the website!” If it’s not easy to find, then it might as well not be there. If users have a question about your shipping rates and have to click away from their order to find it, they are going to get frustrated when they have to re-enter their order. A simple blurb of information on the order page could help prevent a frustrated call to customer service.

Get feedback

Your customers hate feeling like they are being ignored. In fact, it’s one of the main reasons people switch from one company to another. A big part of customer service is making your customers feel like they matter to you.

A great way to do this is to provide a way for them to express their opinions. Consider adding a form to your site that allows people to submit their feedback to you. You could also take advantage of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter that allow for open discussions. Whatever method for feedback you choose, the most important factor is making sure you respond to what your customers have to say. Let them know you value their opinions and will take their feedback into consideration.

Have contact information readily available

There’s nothing more frustrating for a user than not being able to find contact information on a website. If a customer does need to call customer service, don’t make them have to look for the information. List all your numbers and hours of operation, so people know exactly who they need to contact, and have this information (or a link to it) on every page of your site.

Let them know what to do next

Everyone knows that call to actions are an important marketing tool, but it is also an important customer service tool. Many potential clients simply won’t know what action is best suited for their individual need, especially if they are not quite ready to buy or call. Make your website’s call to actions very clear to help guide users into taking the next step. Remember, what you may think is obvious might not be to your customers, so be sure to give them any directions you think could help them.

A few simple changes can really help the usability of your website, reduce the number of customer service calls your company receives, and create a better overall perception of your company. Of course, these aren’t the only things you can do to improve your website’s usability. What are some other tips you have to improve customer service on a website?

When it’s Time for a Change: Successfully Rebranding your Company

2011-11-03T09:46:00.001-04:00

Starting January 1, 2012, the St. Petersburg Times newspaper will become the Tampa Bay Times. The newspaper is one of the largest in the Tampa Bay area and the change has been a long time coming.

There are many reasons why rebranding is necessary for a company, but the change isn’t always a welcomed one. If you are thinking it’s time to rebrand your company, below are some points to consider to ensure its success.

Change is inevitable
The first step is recognizing when change needs to be made.

The St. Petersburg Times recognized that their company was evolving into something much larger than it was in the past. ¾ of their readers came from areas outside of St. Petersburg and the newspaper had been reaching far north and east of the St. Petersburg area for many years. With their growth, the name St. Petersburg Times didn’t fit what they were anymore. They knew it was time for a change.

Be prepared for change
While it seems like just a simple name change, there are many things the staff at the new Tampa Bay Times will have to get used to.

Rebranding a business requires a shift in thinking and the willingness to let old habits go. Be open to the changes your business will face and learn how to make new habits. If you are unwilling to change your old ways, your rebrand will not be successful.

On top of breaking old habits, there are more changes to be prepared for. Changing your marketing materials to reflect what’s new, communicating the changes to clients and leads, and changing your advertising campaigns are just some things to consider. Be prepared to spend set aside some money for these changes.

Get customer feedback
Get customer feedback before doing anything drastic. We all remember what happened when Netflix tried to split their streaming and DVD services right? Some market research could have gone a long way to prevent the loss of 800,000 customers.

A rebrand is the perfect time to gain customer feedback and do research about your market, so don’t waste the opportunity. Find out what your customers want, where they are from and how a potential change could affect your business. Make sure your rebrand is in line with your customer’s motivations and interests. You don’t have to listen to everything your customers say (remember, you can’t make everyone happy) but if a majority of the feedback tells you to go in another direction, you might want to think your original plans.
In the case of the St. Petersburg Times, I think most of the newspapers readers would agree that the change was a smart move. More readers are based in Tampa and the newspaper has evolved to be focused more on that area than its St. Petersburg’s roots. However, if the circumstances were the other way around, I’m sure many readers would think the opposite.

There have been plenty of successes and failures when it comes to rebranding and one thing is for sure, change isn’t easy. Rebranding requires a lot of planning, research and thinking in order to be successful. Has your company rebranded recently? How have the changes affected you?

Email Archiving in Office 2010

2011-10-27T10:48:00.002-04:00

If your company recently made a jump to a newer version of Microsoft Office, things may look a little foreign to you. There are several differences between older versions of Office and Office 2010 that make it behave a bit differently, one being the way you archive your emails in Outlook.

Email archiving is important because the more emails you receive, the slower Outlook can become. Also, many companies limit your mailbox size, so without email archiving, messages that people send to you can bounce back if you’re close to your limit, which is never a good thing.

In Outlook 2003, your messages were archived by the date that were received or sent out, but you may have noticed a difference in the way the newer versions archive. The newer versions archive by the date the email was last modified.

Most of the time, this won’t be an issue, but if you manage your email by moving it to different folders, the modified date will change if you open it up again, making the archiving schedule different. For this reason, it’s important to consider the modified date of the email and how different people might manage their email accounts. You may even want to consider revamping the way you currently archive or manage your emails and explain the new feature to your staff. It’s always good to get everyone on the same page, right?

While the new Outlook features may be a little confusing at first, you’ll probably learn to like it better than the older versions once you get the hang of the way it works. Better management of email will help you and your staff use the new versions of Outlook without all the confusion.

For more detailed information on this issue, you can go here.

Notes from MSP University in Miami

2011-10-18T13:57:00.001-04:00

On October 5, Drew and Adam headed down to Miami to attend an MSP University Bootcamp. MSP University Bootcamps are designed to provide education and training to IT services providers. The event took place October 5-7 and gave a wealth of information that will certainly benefit our IT department.

There were lots of great speakers at the event, including Len DiCostanzo from Autotsk, a product that ACF uses every day. He talked about how using products like Autotask can increase business profitability (we couldn’t agree more!) and Adam even got to sit in on the Autotask user’s panel. Barbara Dove, of Dove Help Desk, gave a presentation on perfecting your help desk and NOC delivery. Both were great presentations from great people in the industry.

Adam speaking on the Autotask Users panel

We also heard from Jim Hare and Jason LeDuc of eGestalt, who gave a great presentation on how to work as an IT vendor in the medical field, where the HIPAA umbrella is an issue. Their presentation gave great insight on some of the best practices when working for a company where HIPAA concerns would be an issue.

Another big topic was cloud computing and more specifically, how the industry is transitioning to cloud. There was also a great presentation given by Intel, who talked about new cloud technology they are rolling out to help small businesses.

The big focus of the event, however, seemed to be business continuity. There was a lot of talk about the importance of having a disaster plan set in place, which is something that Drew stresses to all of our clients. One of the big focuses in our IT department for next year is to make sure that all of our clients have a disaster recovery plan, so it was great to hear what some of the top companies in IT have in place when it comes to disaster recovery.

Both Drew and Adam thoroughly enjoyed the time they spent in Miami. They received a ton of useful information and met with a lot of great people in the industry. The added opportunity Adam received to speak on the Autotask user’s panel was an added bonus!

Did you attend the MSP University Bootcamp in Miami? What was your favorite part about the event?

What Every Business Should Learn From Steve Jobs

2011-10-11T09:27:00.000-04:00

On October 5, 2011, the world lost an incredible man and creative genius, Steve Jobs. His inventions forever changed the way we connect with computers, the world and each other.

Jobs was an inspiring man who left an enormous impact on the world. His success isn’t hard to measure and we can surely learn a lot from his achievements.

Here are just a few items that every business can learn from him:

1. Technology’s Cutting Edge is not reserved for the youth
Jobs was as innovative in his 50’s as he was in his 20’s. His products were built to be used by people of all ages, not just teens and 20 something’s. He made technology cool and useful for people of all ages

2. Style Matters
Jobs believed in the importance of style in everything from fonts to graphics to marketing. Many companies dismiss style as a frivolous waste of time, Apple embraced it in everything they did. While other companies produced hardware and software that was clunky, confusing or simply ugly, Apple spent years researching ways to make products that not only had great hardware, but where easy an intuitive for the average person’s use.

3. Keeping it Simple
Apple keeps it simple-and simple works. All Apple products are intuitive, elegant and simple to use. They do what the user expects it to do and nothing more. Jobs was great at figuring out what people wanted and how to make that work at seamless as possible.

The same is to be said for the way he marketed his products. While Apple’s product launches were famous for their drama, Job’s never made false promises about what his products did. He simply stated what they were capable of, not daydreams of everything that could be. The truthful way he went about advertising is part of the reason why Apple customers are happy and loyal to Apple products.

4. It’s OK to make mistakes
Jobs made plenty of mistakes during his career, the most public being losing control of Apple in 1985. While this was a devastating blow, Jobs pushed forward. He founded the technology company NeXT and Pixar animation studios. NeXT was bought out by Apple in 1996, and Jobs returned back to his former company to produce the products we all know and love today. Pixar was bought by Disney, and animation was forever changed.

Jobs proved that mistakes are OK and while you may not realize it at the time, those very mistakes may be the best thing to happen to you.

Steve Jobs was a truly inspiring man whose legacy will be remembered for many years to come. He will definitely be missed by many.

What have you learned from Steve Jobs?

Notes from the Blue Glass SEO Seminar in Tampa

2011-10-05T14:46:00.000-04:00

Last week, Chris headed to the Blue Glass SEO seminar in Tampa. This was a 2 day event packed with information and insight from many online marketing professionals from companies such as Geeknet, Disney, Bing and AOL.

Some of the speakers included Brian Clark of Copyblogger and Jeremy Shoemaker of Shoemoney, the writers of two of the most popular blogs online today. Brian and Jeremy have very different approaches for writing and maintaining their blogs, but both agreed that in order to be successful at blogging, you must do three things:

Be true to yourself and what your message is
Focus on your headlines and call to actions
Don’t be afraid to stand out and make waves

In addition, they both strongly encouraged using Twitter as a tool to spread your online message because it’s a great way to increase exposure and spread content quickly.

Another speaker at the seminar was Marty Weintraub, President of Aimclear, who talked about content marketing strategies. He stated that while hosting content, blogs, white papers and info-graphics is a good start, the key to a successful content marketing strategy is getting the most organic links and traffic to that content as possible.

There was a talk on team building given by entrepreneur Richard Zwicky and Digital Marketing Strategist Melanie Mitchell. They believe the key to building a good team is to focus on everyone’s individual talents. Each team member is unique and can bring something different to the table. Find out what those talents are and make the most of them and your team will be excellent.

John Henshaw of Raven Tools discussed content management and promotion. He gave great tips and listed a variety of tools that could be used to streamline the reporting and results processes.

The seminar also gave extensive information about localization of search terms for SEO and how businesses can make the most of cutting edge technology. Along with this information, the seminar also talked about a variety of different techniques that could actually hurt SEO. It was great to get a guide of what should and should not be done when it comes to SEO.

Chris thoroughly enjoyed the 2 days he spent at the Blue Glass SEO seminar, stating that even the break times were productive because he was able to share and brainstorm ideas with others. He learned a lot of new approaches and strategies and greatly enjoyed all the speakers. He’s excited to share his knowledge with the ACF team and put some of what he learned into action.

Did you attend the Blue Glass SEO seminar? What did you get out of it?

Business Social Media – Insight from the Jeffrey Gitomer Seminar in Tampa

2011-09-27T09:33:00.000-04:00

Adam with Jeffrey Gitomer

Last week, Adam and Chris had the pleasure of attending a great seminar put on by Jeffrey Gitomer and sponsored by ActionCOACH Pinellas about how businesses should use social media to gain sales. If you aren’t familiar with Jeffrey Gitomer, you should be! He provides realistic examples of how to use social media in a business setting, and with several New York Times Bestselling books and over 36,000 Twitter followers, he definitely knows his stuff. If you interact with clients at any level, you could benefit from his seminars.

Gitomer’s approach to business social media is simple - it’s about people not the company. In order to be successful in business social media, you must consistently provide your followers with value. Providing value will earn you more than just customers, it will earn you fans. Nobody cares about what your business is doing or where you came from, they care about how you and your business can help them achieve their goals.

Gitomer went on to say that investing time in yourself is critical to the success of you and your company.

People like doing business with “friends” and social media is a great way to open those doors. Spend time gaining followers that would want to tell others about you and your message. Think about the value message you want to convey to your followers and expand upon it. Move from simply thinking about what you want to say to truly developing valuable relationships online.

Perhaps the most important note taken away from the seminar is to continuously move forward. Gitomer believes that “going back to the basics” is a lazy approach that has not been effective for quite some time now. He stated that social media is no longer an option and the latest technology should be used in everything you do, especially sales. He went on to say that social media has changed the sales approach forever, it’s the new ‘cold call’, so if you’re not interacting with your customers and giving them something of value, you’re losing out.

Overall, the seminar was exciting to watch and very informative. Chris commented that listening to Gitomer speak is like watching a comedian do a stand up skit on something useful. He engages the audience, gives examples that you can actually put into use and practices what he preaches.

If you ever have the chance to attend a Gitomer seminar, do it! No matter what role you play at your company, we can guarantee you’ll take away some useful information.

Have you attended a Gitomer seminar before? What were your thoughts?

Dangers of Bad Antivirus Software

2011-09-20T14:09:00.000-04:00

We know it’s important to have antivirus software installed on our computers, but with a number of different programs on the market, it’s hard to know which one is the best to use. If you’ve purchased antivirus software in the past, you may have asked yourself something along the lines of:

Which programs are worth the money?
What features should I be looking for?
How do I know this will actually work?

So what makes an antivirus program good?

Before choosing an antivirus program, it’s important to know how most viruses work these days. A lot of people visualize blue screens and smoke rising from their computer after a virus attack, but the truth is, the majority of viruses don’t do any obvious damage. Most of the viruses written are used to make money from your computer by selling your stolen information to third party companies, not to completely destroy it. A good antivirus program knows how to protect your computer from these types of attacks. They’ll create walls around your machines vital areas and neutralize anything that slips by.

Good antivirus software protects against spyware, malware, Trojans and various other types of viruses. Traditionally, antivirus software heavily relied upon signatures to identify malware. Although effective, it cannot defend against malware unless samples have already been obtained and signatures created. A good antivirus program uses heuristic analysis to identify malware or variants of known malware and can detect mutations and variants of viruses, making sure to remove anything that could be unsafe.

Another thing to consider is how the program works. A good antivirus program should run in the background without slowing down your computer. Your antivirus software shouldn’t prevent you from working efficiently.

One of the most important things about choosing an antivirus program is to make sure it stays up to date. Virus definitions should be updated at least daily to ensure defense against the latest types of attacks. A good program will have a function that will allow these updates to be downloaded automatically.

No matter what antivirus program you choose, all require some personal responsibility. Make sure your antivirus software is up to date and run scans regularly to help eliminate anything that might have slipped past its defenses. Also, refrain from opening attachments from untrustworthy sources and visiting websites that seem unsafe.

ACF sells and recommends VIPRE antivirus to all of our clients. To get more information on Vipre, contact ACF’s IT department.

Social Media 101: Should Kids Take a Course on Social Media?

2011-09-14T13:46:00.000-04:00

We tend to think of social media as “child’s play”. Nowadays, it’s pretty much a given that a college student has a Facebook page and there’s a good chance they're using platforms like Twitter and Foursquare as well. Because of their age, we assume that college students know how to use this “social media stuff” with no problem, but is that really the case? If there was a class on the proper ways to use social media, would every student get an A+?

The answer: No. In Fact, most would fail.

Most college students don’t understand the impact that social media sites can have on their life after college. No one is telling them that the pictures they posted on Facebook are being seen by potential employers or the impact that a tweet could have on them getting a job. With many companies now doing background checks via social media sites, it’s important for students to know there can be consequences to their social media actions. Your friends aren't the only people seeing your social media profiles anymore.

We know social media isn’t just some passing fad, so why not teach students how to use it in a responsible way? Nowadays, building an online presence can be a huge benefit when looking for a job. Learning the importance of digital privacy (or lack of it...forever has a whole new meaning online), online networking, and building relationships via social media platforms would be a huge value to any college student. The class could teach students and prospective job seekers how to build their online presence in a positive way instead of engaging in the potentially damaging behavior. Since more people are searching for employees online, learning responsible social media practices would be a great benefit to someone about to enter the workforce.

Technology is only going to advance further, making social media more and more a part of our daily lives. No matter what major, every college student could benefit from a class on responsible social media use.

What would you include in a social media 101 course?

The Art of Customer Service

2011-08-30T17:38:00.000-04:00

Customers are a universal part of any job no matter what industry you are in. Everyone from the secretary, stock person, to CEO will deal with customers on some level. It doesn’t matter what job title a person has, part of their job is to make customers happy.

Unfortunately in some cases, customer service is a part of the job description that often gets overlooked. We’ve all experienced bad customer service in one way or another. In fact, when we receive excellent customer service it can often be shocking, when in reality, it should be standard. There a lot of easy ways to make sure you deliver great customer service.

Ask for feedback (and listen!)

One of the easiest ways to improve service is to ask your customers what you can improve on. You can do this through things like comment cards, online surveys, or a variety of other ways. The most important part of receiving feedback to let your customers know that you are listening. You don’t have to implement everything they suggest, but responding will let them know you take their opinions seriously, which can go a long way. On the flip side, don’t ignore everything suggested. Find ways to implement good suggestions and your customers will continue to come back.

Communicate

Often bad customer service can be a result of poor communication, so make sure communicate with your customers on a regular basis. If you feel like something can be better explained over the phone than in an email, don’t hesitate to make a call. Working on a big project? Send an email to the client letting him/her know the status. Respond to inquiries or questions in a timely manner. Effective communication will let your customers know they matter.

Remember the Raving Fans Approach

A few weeks ago we talked about the book Raving Fans, which is a guide to customer service. The book stated the 3 key points to creating raving fans are to (1) decide what you want (2) find out what the customer wants and (3) deliver plus one.

A big part of excellent customer service is figuring out who your customers are. Not everyone is your customer. Be sure to consistently deliver great service to the people that are.

Make time for your customers

Our jobs require us to do a lot of important tasks and meet tight deadlines. While those tasks are definitely important, they aren’t the only things that are important. Remember that your customers are the people buying your products and using your services. They are just as important as your tasks and deadlines. Make time for your customers just like you make time for everything else.

A few simple tasks can greatly improve the way your customers perceive you and your company. Have you experienced great customer service lately? Share your stories with us.

Things You May Not Have Known About Facebook

2011-08-23T10:50:00.000-04:00

In case you haven’t noticed, Facebook likes to change things up every now and then. Whether it’s new features, design tweaks, or a completely new layout, Facebook is constantly trying to improve their sites design and ease of use.

Since things can change rather frequently, it may be hard to keep up with the changes. Below list a few things about Facebook that you may not have known about.

1.    Facebook only allows you to have 5,000 friends
If you are super popular, you might not be allowed to be friends with everyone you know. Granted, the average user probably won’t ever come close to 5,000 friends, but we could see how this might be a problem for celebrities. Luckily, these people can create a Facebook fan page, which doesn’t have a limit. Fan pages are great for business. Find out more about how they help.

2.    You can easily remove the photos in your photo strip
If you can’t stand that new photo your friend tagged you in, there’s an easy way to remove it from the photo strip that shows up at the top of your profile. Simply hover the image and click the x to remove it. It won’t remove the photo altogether, but at least you won’t have to look at it every time you view your profile.

3.    You can send targeted messages to your fans
Do you have a fan page? Facebook allows you to send targeted messages to your fans based on sex, age, or location. This is a great way to promote events in a certain location or current deals that may only apply to a certain group of people. To do this, go to edit page>resources>send an update. Then click the check box that says “target this update”.

4.    You can feature who your fan page likes
Your Facebook page can like other pages. These pages are displayed on the left side of your page. You can select which of these pages you would like to feature from the “Edit” page. Select “Featured” from the left column menu and “Edit Featured Likes”. Then just add a check to the pages you’d like to feature; you can choose up to 5.

5. You can change the default tab on your fan page
When you create a Facebook page, by default the first tab people will see is the wall. Facebook allows you to change this to something else. Good pages to change this to are the info tab or a custom welcome page. To change the default landing tab, select” Manage Permissions” and choose the setting you desire under the drop down for “Default Landing Tab”. Please note: this only applies to people that have NOT liked your page already. If someone is already fan, the wall will be displayed.

These are just a few of the things Facebook has done to allow for more customization. Hopefully, you have learned a few things about Facebook that you may not have known about before. Do you know of any other tips? Share them with us!

How to Create Raving Fans

2011-08-16T10:39:00.002-04:00

Several members of the ACF staff recently completed the book Raving Fans by Ken Blanchard, which gives business owners innovative techniques used to help improve customer service and satisfaction. The book follows an area manager at a struggling company and his fairy godmother Charlie, a business mentor that teaches the area manager how to create raving fans.

Charlie introduces the area manager 3 concepts to help create raving fans:

Decide what you want
Discover what the customer wants
Deliver the vision plus one

Deciding what you want is the first step to creating a raving fan and is focused on creating a vision of perfection centered on the customer. The second step is to discover what it is that your customer wants and how that relates to your vision. The third step is to deliver plus one, meaning that you must always go above and beyond what your customer wants.

The book gives additional tips for customer service along with the three mentioned above, including consistency in service, understanding your true customers and ideas on how to implement raving fan service. Although the message of the book is simple, implementing the advice given could radically change a business for the better.

The book sets a high standard for customer service and will make you wonder if you’ve ever received such great service in real life. While the story might be something you’d only see in a perfect world, it is possible to take some of the examples mentioned and apply them to your business model, which will result in better customer service and more raving fans.

Although the book is geared towards business owners, everyone should take the time to read it. The concepts taught can be applied to your friendships, family, and marriage just as easily as they can be applied to your business. It really is a book everyone can get something out of.

You can purchase Raving Fans for yourself through Amazon.

Do you have a favorite book that has helped you professionally or personally?

Data Loss and the Importance of Offsite Backup

2011-08-10T14:33:00.000-04:00

Despite the fact that data loss occurs daily, many companies are unprepared for it. The reason for this, more than likely, is the fact that many business owners do not understand the impact data loss can have on their company.

Losing sensitive data can be devastating to a business. According to a study done in 2009 by MetaGroup, only 6% of businesses survive a major data loss. Companies that handle sensitive data are at an even greater because of the threat of lawsuits by customers. Data loss is a very serious matter and something that a business owner must hold at high importance.

There are several methods your business can implement to prevent data loss from happening, but at ACF, we recommend offsite backup. With an offsite backup solution, your data gets stored securely online (commonly referred to as cloud backup), where it is organized easily in case something ever needs to restored.

Offsite backup is good for many reasons.

If something happens to your office, you won’t have to be worried about losing your data.
It saves space at your location because there is no equipment or data tapes to store
Many solutions backup automatically so you won’t have to worry about backups
Data can be restored quickly, meaning less downtime
Security-offsite backups are encrypted and password protected
Affordable-there’s no equipment to buy or install at your location , so you save money

Data loss can be catastrophic to a business, so it’s very important as a business owner that you take appropriate measures to insure its safety. No matter how big or small your business, offsite backup is a great solution to make sure your data is protected.

There’s No Such Thing as Multitasking

2011-08-03T14:51:00.000-04:00

Being an “excellent multitaker” is a popular claim people like to make. Many people boast at their ability to do many things at once, saying it makes them more efficient and productive. While that claim sounds great on paper, the reality is multitasking is a bad thing. Here’s why.

People that claim to be excellent multitaskers are actually just good at switching from one task to another. You may think this is a good thing, but this actually makes you less efficient. By switching tasks, you’re productivity actually goes down because instead of focusing on one thing, you’re losing time by shifting to many other things. By multitasking, you’ll have many unfinished tasks to complete at the end of the day, when you could have gotten one or 2 tasks completed if you put all of your focus towards them instead of everything else.

It makes sense right?

How to stop

While it may be impossible to not multitask sometimes, there are a lot of habits you can break that will help you focus on one thing at a time.

1. Do one thing at a time

This seems obvious, right, but how many times have you checked email while on the phone, taken a call while driving, or done something else while you were supposed to be working on an important task? Focus on the task at hand and you’ll not only find yourself getting much more done, but you’re clients, coworkers and prospects will appreciate the undivided attention.

2. Write out your to-do list

This may be an old practice, but physically writing out and seeing the tasks you need to accomplish can actually help you get them done. Take it one step further by breaking bigger tasks (ones that can’t be completed in one day) into smaller tasks that will lead up to finishing the big one.

3. Schedule your time

Set aside an estimated amount of time to complete certain tasks and schedule your day accordingly. You’ll more than likely find that by focusing on one task, you’ll get things done much faster.

4. Be flexible

In order to be less of a multitasker, it’s important to realize there are going to be times where multitasking will happen. Know that interruptions, problems and emergencies that will cause you to focus on something else will happen. Some days, it may be necessary to abandon your schedule. Nobody is perfect, so don’t beat yourself up if you don’t get everything accomplished that you had on your to-do list.

While many think multitasking is a good quality, it can actually hurt your productivity and should be discouraged. Stick to doing one thing at a time and you’ll find yourself getting much more done!

What Everyone Needs to Know About Phishing

2011-07-26T13:21:00.000-04:00

You’ve heard time and time again to be careful on the internet. Don’t open emails from people you don’t know. Don’t click links if you are unsure of where they go. Don’t open strange looking attachments. You might be thinking, “OK, I get it! I’ll be careful.” Unfortunately though, the more scams people become aware of, the more new scams we get. We have to be constantly aware of new techniques people are using to try and affect your data.

One of the ways people are attempting to gain your sensitive information is through phishing. Wikipedia defines phishing as a way of attempting to acquire sensitive information by masquerading as a trustworthy source in electronic communication. Phishing has been around for quite a while. With social media becoming a popular means of communication, phishers are finding even more ways to try and collect information.

When you’ve been phished, likely everything will look very legitimate. The site will have the logo of a well known company (such as Facebook or Linkedin), in some cases a copyright statement and maybe even a confirmation email stating your changes were successful. Everything will look like you’d expect it to look, but what goes on behind the scenes is anything but!

Instead of changing your account information, or updating your password, or validating your account, your account information, including username and password, have likely just been saved in a database, where it could be sold to a variety of different companies. Most of these companies are overseas, so US privacy laws do not apply. It could be hours, days or months before the information is used or sold and you probably won’t even know it happened. That is the real scary part!

An example of phishing. This email appears to be from Linkedin

Instead of attacking your email accounts, phishers are using your facebook, twitter and other social media profiles as a way to get data. It’s important to be aware of these new techniques when browsing your social media profiles. Phishers have the ability to mask their identity with the identity of your friends. Have you ever seen one of your friends posting links to crazy products on their facebook page? Have you received messages from people you don’t follow on Twitter with links included in them? Have you ever gotten a message on Linkedin that looked a little off? All of these are forms of phishing.

Unfortunately, there’s no real way to prevent phishing from happening because the methods phishers use constantly change. What we can do though, is become more aware of their practices. Be more aware when clicking on links, delete messages that you believe are a form of phishing and let your friends know if you think their social media profiles were compromised. By being more aware, you can reduce the risk of your data being compromised due to phishing.

Google+: The Next Big Thing?

2011-07-19T17:18:00.000-04:00

Over the past few weeks, you’ve probably heard a little bit about Google+, the new social network by the search engine giant. With the introduction of this new network, a lot of business owners are wondering if it’s something they should be using. The below post gives an overview and review of some of the features of Google+.

What is this exactly?

From what we can see, Google+ is broken down into 5 different areas:

Streams-a newsfeed similar to the Facebook wall
Sparks- recommendations for things you might be interested in
Hangouts- a video chat service
Circles- a way to manage friends and contacts
and Photos-a list of your albums as well as photos of people in your circles

The interface is simple, clean and fairly easy to use. Importing your personal information is easy (if you have a Google account profile filled out already, Google+ imports it) and you can import contacts from your email accounts into your circles. Right now, Google+ looks like if Twitter and Facebook meshed together (taking the best features of each service), but it certainly has plenty of room to grow, which surely it will.

Is it the new thing?

There’s been a lot of talk around the internet that Google+ will replace Twitter and Facebook. While we can certainly see it giving the 2 social networks a run for their money, we’re not sure Google+ will replace them altogether, or if there’s even a need for that to happen. People use social networks for different reasons, so there’s no real reason to feel like you have to replace one with another. Why not use Twitter, Facebook and Google+?

Since Google has had 2 previous attempts at social networking that fizzled out (Google Wave and Google Buzz) a lot of people are wondering if Google+ will do the same thing. Only time will tell if this catches on, but so far in the few weeks it has been around, Google+ has gained millions of users, most who seem fairly happy with service, so we have a feeling it will be sticking around.

Should I use it for my business?

Right now, Google+ is meant to be used on a personal level. In fact, Google has asked businesses to “hold off” on creating consumer profiles for now because they plan to launch a section of the network that will allow business owners to create pages by the end of the year. We’re very excited to see what Google+ has in store for businesses.

Google+ is a social network that definitely has potential to grow into something great. It’s easy to use and combines a lot of the things we like about other social networks. While we don’t think it will out the other big social networks, we definitely can see it becoming another big player. We’re excited to see the future of Google+ and how it will fit in to social media marketing.

For some more great information on Google+ check out Chris Brogan’s article in Forbes magazine

Website Redesigns: Things to Consider

2011-07-05T17:18:00.003-04:00

A website redesign is a big undertaking, but one that is generally necessary every few years. Design and technology trends are constantly changing, so not keeping on top of the latest trends can make your company’s site look outdated. In addition to new design and technology trends, your business more than likely has grown or changed over the years. It’s important to make sure your website stays up to date.

Are you thinking about giving your company website a facelift? Below are some important things to consider before taking the plunge.

Why exactly are you redesigning?
This may seem like a silly question to some, but it’s an important one to nail down. What is the goal of the new website? Is the current version hard to navigate? Think about how a redesign can make that better. Are you trying to promote 5 new products better? Think about ways the redesign can highlight those products better. Make sure you know what you want to do before redesigning.

What is/isn’t working?
Before tackling your redesign project, spend some time figuring out what is working and what needs improvement. A great way to do this is by taking a look at your Google Analytics data. Analytics can easily identify the pages getting the most traffic and keywords that are working the best.

What about SEO?
You don’t want your changes affecting your online marketing efforts. If your SEO is effective now, you’ll want to make sure the changes you make to your site doesn’t affect your efforts. If you plan on adding new sections to your site, make sure you consider ways to make those sections SEO friendly.

What action do you want visitors to take?
What do you want your visitors to do once they get to your website? Is this going to change or remain the same? These are questions you’ll definitely want to know the answer to before you begin your redesign. Make sure you have a clear goal for your website so you can figure out the best way to achieve that goal.

Redesigning your company website can be a big process, but having a good idea of where you want to go before you start will help. Use the above questions as a guide when going through your website redesign process.

What Really Makes a Great Website

2011-06-23T09:56:00.000-04:00

There are millions of websites on the internet today. Some are great and some are…not so great.
What makes a website “great”? Some will say organization of content, easy to use navigation and great product photos do it. And those people would be right. But in addition to the above things, great websites all have one common thing: a clear defined goal.

While you might have a website that is aesthetically pleasing, if you don’t have a clear defined website goal, your site is not doing all it could be for your business. Without a clear defined goal, it’s hard to measure results and figure out what needs to be done to improve.

Clearly Define Your Goals
You may have website goals already, but are they clearly defined? When most people start diets, they take down their starting weight and set a goal for how many pounds they want to lose. Then each week (in a lot of cases) that person gets on the scale to track his/her progress. Think of your website goals in the same way. Set a defined goal and begin to track the progress.

Do you want more enewsletter subscribers? How many? Want to lower your bounce rate? By how much?

What’s Not Working?
When you have clear website goals, it’s a lot easier to adjust your website in order to achieve those goals. You may need to tweak elements, play with design changes, or remove things that get in the way of achieving your goal. Knowing what you want to achieve makes it a lot easier to test the results of changes because you’ll be able to see what things work and what changes had no effect.

Don’t forget to Update!
Your website should be constantly updated to better help you achieve new goals. Hitting a website goal is great, but don’t stop there! Set new goals when old ones are achieved and try to find new ways to improve your current site.

A great website doesn’t just look nice, it gets results! What are you waiting for? Go set some goals for your website!

3 Simple Ways to Cut Down Business Expenses That you May Not Have Thought About

2011-06-15T11:08:00.000-04:00

Running a company can be expensive. While some costs are unavoidable, there are several different things every business owner can do to help cut down on costs in certain areas.

You probably already have heard things like “turning your computer monitors off when you leave” or “investing in more energy efficient equipment” and hopefully, these are things you and your employees are already doing. While these tips can definitely help cut down costs, they probably won’t make a huge impact.
There are however, several things you can do that can save your company a lot of money without you having to sacrifice anything.

1. VoIP Phones
VoIP phones can significantly cut down on your phone bills. VoIP phones transmit calls through your company’s already existing broadband internet connection. They include features that many regular phone companies would charge you extra for, such as conferencing, long distance, call waiting and a sophisticated voicemail system. You’ll save money every month

2. Rethink your Marketing
Are you spending thousands of dollars on magazine, newspaper, or other forms of print advertising? Is it as effective as you’d like it to be? Probably not.

Most people go straight to the web to find information, making print marketing less effective by the day. If you aren’t heavily marketing via the web, you’re losing out.

The best part about web marketing is that it costs much less than traditional print marketing and the results last. A small print ad in a magazine may cost a few hundred dollars and will only be shown in one publication. Promoting through SEO and social media will cost a lot less and will be seen by more people for a lot longer.

3. Keep your equipment up to date
One of the best ways to avoid costly expenses is to prevent problems from happening. That means keeping your computer and IT equipment up to date. While updating equipment regularly can be costly, using the latest technology can help prevent big catastrophes that can cost you thousands of dollars and extensive downtime. Effectively managing IT equipment helps save money (and have less stress) in the long run.

If you’re looking for new ways to try and save your business money, you may want to think about incorporating some of the above tips. Do you have any other tips for saving money? Share them with us!

Making Your Website Defensive

2011-06-07T11:48:00.000-04:00

One of the worst things a website can do is confuse the user. If visitors hit a roadblock, they will typically abandon your site rather than take the time to search for the correct solutions. Abandoned sites mean no sales.

As much as we all try to make sure our websites look great and work well, end users will inevitably make mistakes. Who hasn’t accidentally mistyped their credit card number when placing an order online or clicked the wrong link on a website. Mistakes happen. A defensive website is prepared for those mistakes and has accommodations built in to assist the user and make the experience as positive as possible.

Below are some things you can incorporate into your website to maintain a positive user experience, even when things go wrong.

Make Forms Easy to Use

Contact form on http://www.marblestonefl.com/

Mistakes often happen when people are filling out forms on a website, so it’s important to make them as easy to use as possible. Make sure you label required fields as such and highlight errors if the user makes a mistake. If a mistake does occur, help out the user by leaving the correct information filled in. No one wants to have to fill out everything again because of one mistake.

Customize the 404 Page

The 404 page on our website http://www.acfconsulting.com/

When a user mistypes a URL to a page that doesn’t exist, a 404 error occurs. ‘404’ is the html error code for ‘Page Not Found’. The standard 404 error is boring and doesn’t explain much, so having a custom 404 page can help explain to users what happened. You can even offer suggestions to pages that they may have wanted instead or a search function so they can try typing in what they are looking for.

Check for Errors
Sometimes when other sites link to you, they may link incorrectly or to pages that no longer exist. A great tool to check for these link errors is Google Webmaster Tools. Google Webmasters provides you with a list of broken links. You can then take the necessary steps to make sure those links redirect to actual pages on your site.

Assist Users
One of the best ways you can practice defensive design is by trying to prevent mistakes from happening. Assist your users by explaining steps on forms that may be confusing. A simple explanation can prevent errors that frustrate your users. Use them where appropriate.

A confusing website creates a poor user experience and will lead to lost opportunities. By implementing the techniques above, you will decrease the chances of that frustration and keep users on your page.

The Affect Colors Can Have on Your Brand

2011-05-31T16:20:00.001-04:00

Color is an important thing to consider when branding your company. You may not realize it, but colors have a significant impact on your emotional state. People tend to associate certain colors with certain things, so it’s important to pick the right colors when designing your brand identity, product packaging, website or anything else that may be associated with your company. Below talks about how certain colors affect people’s moods. Is your company brand using the correct colors to get the response you are looking for?

• In general, children prefer primary colors. That’s why many children’s products use primary colors. It’s also been said that primary colors are less calming than non-primary colors.

Fisher Price targets children with the use of red in their brand.

• Red and orange encourage people to eat quickly. Red specifically encourages people to eat more. It’s not a coincidence that fast food places use these colors.

McDonald's carefully chose their brands colors to get people in the mood to eat quickly.

• Red can cause people to lose track of time as well, which is why many casinos use this color.

The Encore casino in Las Vegas uses red in their carpet and lighting, which can make people lose track of time.

• Red and black are associated with sexy and seductive, which explains why many adult themed products and websites use this color combination. These colors can also mean love, as we've seen in the popular chocolate brand Russel Stover's.

Russel Stover's chocolates gets people in a loving mood with their choice of colors.

• Dark green and burgundy tend to raise the perceived price of an item, while orange is often used to make an expensive item seem less expensive.

• Yellow makes people cheerful. It is also the most visible color, meaning that people with a hard time viewing colors can generally see yellow.

Sun Light uses bright yellow, a cheerful color.

• Blue and black suppress appetites (many diet and nutrition products use these colors) while pink has been known to increase appetites.

EAS uses blue and black in their packaging, which makes people feel less hungry.

• White is associated with clean, fresh and modern. The Apple store is a great example of this.

Outside of the Apple store in San Francisco. The white gives a modern, clean feel.

When building and designing your brand, color should be an important decision. Colors evoke a variety of different responses, so be sure to choose wisely when building your brand! Color can help you reach your target audience and make them have the response to your products that you are looking for.

How Linkedin Can Work for You

2011-05-24T13:00:00.005-04:00

Now with over 100 million users, Linkedin has become one of the most used social networks amongst business people. The company drew even more attention to itself on May 19th, when it went public and its stock value nearly doubled on the first day. It’s said that Linkedin is worth around $8.9 billion now, an impressive jump from 2009 when the company was worth around $250 million.

If you have a Linkedin account already, you are probably already aware of its benefits. If you haven’t signed up yet, you may be asking yourself “why?” Below outlines some of the benefits of Linkedin and how the social network can work for you and your business.

Resumes
The main purpose of Linkedin is to show off your credentials so you can network with people in your field. The network allows you to upload a resume, work experience and contact information to your “profile”. You then can search for people on the site that you have a relationship with (such as people you work with or went to school with). These people can recommend you to others in their network by “endorsing” you through a testimonial. These recommendations can greatly improve your profile and your credibility, so don’t be afraid to ask for them (and give others in your network recommendations as well).

Jobs
If you are currently unemployed, or are looking for something different, Linkedin can help. The job boards on Linkedin get updated daily and can help you research companies in the area. Besides the vast amount of job postings on the site, the more connections you make with people through Linkedin, the more opportunities you’ll have to find jobs related to your field.

On the other end of the spectrum, if your business is looking for new employees, Linkedin is a great place to post jobs and look at the resumes and work experience of prospective employees. Job posting is easy and fairly inexpensive. You’ll also have the ability to search through resumes of people that may be good candidates.

Company Pages
In addition to your personal profile, if you own a company you can use Linkedin to make a company page. The company page gives information about your business such as your contact information and the type of work you do. Your employees will also show up on the Linkedin page so people can see the titles of the people that work for you.

Linkedin is a great tool that allows business professionals to connect and show off their skills. With the company’s huge increase in popularity over the years, we’re sure that many changes will be made to the social network that will make it even more useful.

Do you use Linkedin? What’s your favorite part about it?

Browser Usage Stats and Why People are Switching

2011-05-17T14:42:00.001-04:00

For a long time, the vast majority of people just used the browser that came with their Windows computer, Internet Explorer. Over the years though, alternative browsers have been released, giving people more options when browsing the internet. Many people have made the switch to other browsers such as Google Chrome, Firefox, or Safari over Internet Explorer.

Here are some recent browser usage statistics. As you can see, Firefox has taken the lead as the most used browser, followed by Chrome and then Internet Explorer.

Statistics from w3schools.org

Why Are People Switching?
For the most part, every browser achieves the same results. However, there are several differences/features between browsers that are attractive to many users which have caused them to make the switch. Below goes through some of the reasons why people may use browsers other than Internet Explorer.

Features
Firefox and Chrome have lots of cool plugins and add on’s that can make your browser more “personalized”. Some of these are purely cosmetic features, such as changing the colors, while others are great tools for web developers, bookmarking, etc.

Speed
Even though most people now have high speed internet, it’s still important to load pages as fast as possible. Firefox and Chrome and known for their speed, which is highly appealing in a world where everything happens so quickly.

Standards
Newer technologies for web development such as HTML5 and CSS3 are simply not compatible with Internet Explorer, making the web a less fun and interactive place. Microsoft’s newest release of Internet Explorer, IE9, allows for some of these technologies, but unfortunately the many people still running Windows XP will not be able to download it since it’s only compatible with Vista and Windows 7.

Many web developers are discouraged with Internet Explorers lack of support for these new standards and have been designing for newer browsers, leaving Internet Explorer users to see boring versions of their beautiful websites. People that use standard compliant browsers can see a sleeker version of their favorite websites.

The browser you choose to use has a lot to do with personal preference and we’re not here to tell you which one is the best. The choice is up to you! Do you prefer one internet browser over another? Which do you use?

5 Ways to Have More Fun at Work

2011-05-03T13:47:00.000-04:00

If work is starting to feel like the same old thing, it may be time to inject some fun into the workplace. Fun reduces employee stress, improves overall company morale and makes the 8 hours (or more) your employees spend at their desks more enjoyable.

It doesn’t take much effort or a big budget to have some fun at work. Below are some ways you can make work more fun.

1. Pot Lucks
Pot lucks are a great way to get your entire team together. At ACF, we try to have one pot luck lunch every month, usually around a monthly holiday. We get to taste some great food made by our employees and talk about things other than work.

For even more fun, consider adding games or a karaoke machine to the mix. Don’t forget to record the event with photos or videos! You can see the photos from our previous pot lucks at our Facebook page.

2. Dress for fun
We aren’t just talking about casual Friday, which tons of businesses already do. Having special “theme days” for dress can be fun and bring a lot of laughs to the workplace. Some ideas are:

Halloween costumes
Ugly sweater day
Wear your favorite sports team’s jersey

3. Let employees listen to music/headphones
Music is a great way to fight liven the mood and actually has been known to help people concentrate! At ACF, almost everyone has music playing in their office, whether it’s from a radio or an iPod with headphones. A little background noise can really help the day go by fast.

4. Decorate the office
Some simple decoration can help put people in a good mood. Decorate the office for holidays to help your employees get in the spirit. Additionally, allowing employees to decorate their offices or cubicles with pictures or stuff they like can help make the space they spend most of their day in feel more like their own.

5. Events After Work
Have some fun outside of the office as well. Hosting events outside of work are a fun way to get all the employees together to thank them for the hard work they do and depending on the type of event, could be an opportunity to meet your employees family or significant others. Some ideas for out of office events are:

Movie night
Park or beach day
Amusement park day
BBQ’s or picnics
See a sporting event

It doesn’t take much to have a little fun in the workplace and can really help overall morale. What are some things your company does to have a little fun?

What Makes Good Website Navigation

2011-04-26T17:39:00.000-04:00

An easy to use navigation is essential for a website. A person should never feel lost while searching through your content. Poor navigation can lead to user frustration and the possibility that people will abandon your site and go somewhere else.

Below are tips to help improve your navigation.

1. Keep then main navigation consistent throughout the site
The main navigation should always remain in the same place on a website. This eliminates confusion and makes your site look more consistent. Navigation that jumps around can confuse users and make it harder for them to find what they are looking for.

2. Use text not images

Text navigation on HIHarbourside website

The easiest way to make sure your navigation is easy to understand is to clearly spell it out. If your link goes back to the home page, make sure it says “Home”. That way, people clearly know where the link will take them.

Images aren’t necessarily bad to use. There are plenty examples of great website navigation that use images or icons, but they always use text as well. Images can be a great way to enhance a site’s navigation and get more creative, but you should always include text as well to make sure your users can easily understand where the links will take them.

3. Make sure people know where they are
It’s important to make sure that users know where they are at on your website. There are simple ways to achieve this:

Change the color of the navigation link when someone clicks a link. The different colored link will differentiate the page they are currently on with the other pages on the site.
Use headers on the page. For example, if a person clicks on the contact page, having a contact page header will clearly show they are at the correct place.

4. Use sitemaps

Sitemap used on the ACF Consulting site

If you have a large site, sitemaps are a great way to organize content for people visiting your site. Be sure to indent secondary hyperlinks under their appropriate categories to make it easier for people to follow. Sitemaps are another way to organize your content and give your website viewers another way to find content.

An easy to use navigation can make or break a site. Make sure people have an easy time searching through your site by following the above tips. Have any other tips you’d like to share? Let us know in the comments.

What Makes a Good About Us Page

2011-04-19T11:53:00.000-04:00

A good “About Us” page can have many benefits. About Us pages show the personality of a company and give visitors the opportunity to relate to the people working there.

A lot of companies don’t realize the value of an About Us page. They simply include the page on their website just because they know they should. The content lacks personality, meaning many visitors simply just pass over the page.

Below are tips to get the most out of your About Us page.

1. Tell Who You Are
Your About Us page should tell more about who you are, not what you do at the company. Have your staff share a little about themselves to let people find out some of their likes and dislikes as well as what they enjoy outside of work. This lets visitors know a little more about people behind the company and gives them an opportunity to find something in common with the person they may be dealing with.

2. Show Pictures
People like to connect a face with the name, so be sure to include pictures of your staff to go along with their bios. Something as simple as a picture can add a ton of personality to the page!

3. Keep it Short and Simple
Your visitors don’t have the time to read incredibly long pages, so keep the content on the site to a minimum. Staff bios should only be a few paragraphs, not pages long. Give your visitors enough to gain their interest, not bore them.

4. Don’t Make it a Sales Pitch
When people visit your About Us page, they are looking for more personal information, not something sales related. There’s nothing wrong with sharing job titles on the staff page, but limit it to that. Remember that you should focus on who you are and not what you do.

5. Link to the About Us Page on Other Pages
Give people more opportunities to see your About Us page by linking to it where appropriate throughout your website. This can give your website a more personal feel overall.

Although a small section on a website, the About Us page is a crucial part that can be very beneficial. Use the above tips to make your About Us page more valuable to your website visitors. Do you have any other tips for better About Us pages? Share with us in the comments.

Simple Ways to Improve Your Website

2011-04-12T13:00:00.001-04:00

Whether you just launched your site or you’ve had it up for years, you’re probably looking for different ways you can improve conversions, repeat visits and customer interaction.

Just like any other type of marketing, your website needs to be updated and changed on a regular basis for it to be most effective. Below are some easy ways you can improve your website.

1. About Us Page
An about us page lets people know who you and your company are and what makes you different from your competition. The about page doesn’t have to be long winded, but should clearly state your company’s purpose. You may also want to include pictures and information about your staff, to allow your customers to know who they may be dealing with.

Do you already have an about us page? Make sure it is up to date, as companies and staff change over the years.

2. Images
People like looking at pictures and they can really help make your site more user friendly and interactive. Images can illustrate content, show off your products and be an easy way to make an impact. However you must be sure your images are optimized properly, poorly formatted or unnecessarily large images can hurt your website performance and user interface.

3. Internal Links
Linking to relevant pages from within your body copy will increase your site’s usability and allow you to highlight other pages that your visitors may be interested in. If you have a blog, a great way to add internal links is through the Linkwithin plugin, which you’ll see at the bottom of this post!

4. Add a Contact Form
The more options people have to contact you the better. A contact form gives people another option to get in touch with you that is easy and informal. Add it to your contact page along with your other information.

5. Encourage Viral Promotion
Encourage your visitors to promote your content in other places. Add links to allow visitors to share content on Facebook, Twitter, and social bookmarking sites. There are lots of great plugins that make this easy, such as ShareThis.

Making small tweaks to your website every now and then can help make your site more usable to your visitors. By implementing these 5 tricks, you can improve your site greatly!

How to Get More People to Read Your Content

2011-04-05T13:00:00.016-04:00

Looking to get more readers? Follow these formatting tips!

The content on your website is important. It includes all the information about your products, services, and great things that your company does. You know that poor copywriting can cause potential customers to go somewhere else.

You have put in a lot of time and effort to make sure it sounds perfect. You know it sounds great, but you aren’t getting the response you had hoped for.

Your web traffic isn’t increasing. You’re not receiving many calls.

Why?

The truth is, people are probably not reading it.

Don’t be discouraged. Instead of reading, many people tend to “scan” a webpage to look for important details instead of reading everything word for word. We’re sure your content sounds great, but the way you delivered it may be the reason why people aren’t reading it. Below are a few tips to make your website content more readable that won’t require much editing time. We promise you won’t have to rewrite anything!

1. Line Breaks
Shorter paragraphs are easier to read, so try to break up anything long into smaller chunks. Have one idea per paragraph and keep the sentences short. The more white space you have on your page, the easier it will be for people to scan.

2. Subheadings
The use of subheadings is another great way to break up content. It allows users to easily scan what your paragraphs are going to be about. Use them to give your readers the general idea of what is talked about. The more engaging your subheadings are, the more likely someone will read further into the paragraph, so keep that in mind.

3. Bulleted and Numbered Lists
Did you notice how this post is a numbered list?

People like reading lists because they are easily scannable and create a visual break for the reader. Is there content on your page that could be used in a list? Try using one instead of putting the content into a paragraph.

4. Pair Images With Captions
Captions are often the most read content on a web page, so if you use images on your page, be sure to add a caption underneath them. It will let the people scanning your page understand what the image is about. If the caption is intriguing, they’ll likely read the rest of the content on your page.

5. Add internal links
Adding links in your content to other pages on your site will help keep people on your site. Is there a page on your site where someone could get more information about a particular topic? Add a link to that page and watch your traffic increase.

Did you notice how we link to other articles at the end of each post? To do that, we use the linkwithin plugin for blogger. If you have a blog, you can use it too by clicking here.

6. Format for the Scanner
Since many people tend to scan a page before reading all the details, formatting your content will help those people get the gist of what you’re talking about. Bold important parts of your copy, emphasizing the key things you want the reader to get out of it.

Just a few small changes to the copy on your webpage can instantly make that page more readable. Do you have any additional tips that can make a webpage easier to read? Share them with us in the comments.

Simple, Easy to Avoid Mistakes that Will Cost You

2011-03-22T14:04:00.000-04:00

We recently received the postcard above and it caught our attention right away. It had a scratch off game right on the front with the promise of a prize! The simple instructions indicated to call and provide the coupon code revealed under the scratch off area to claim the prize. However there was no coupon code to be found, in addition there was no phone number, no website address or any method to contact them at all.

This was a fun and engaging marketing idea that obviously didn’t come cheap, however, forgetting these simple elements removed any opportunity for a return on investment. This is a fairly extreme example, but we see very similar mistakes far too often, so we thought we would take this opportunity to help you avoid some of these same pitfalls.

How to Avoid this from Happening
You might be thinking to yourself, “I’d never make such a big mistake!” but like we said, this kind of thing happens far more often than you would think. Make sure you don’t waste money on your marketing by following these tips:

1. Have a plan
Having a plan is more than just the idea for the piece. A plan includes what you want to communicate and what action you want the viewer to take. Before you start anything else, get a plan in place.

2. Determine your call to action
How will you attract customers? What will you say to get them to pick up the phone, visit your website, or come to your store? Make sure you clearly say what it is you want people to do and give them the tools they need to do so.

3. Proofread!
It seems simple, but people often overlook this essential step. Make sure all information is spelled correctly, phone numbers are right and you are pointing people to the correct website address.

4. Let someone uninvolved see the piece
Far too often the reason for mistakes can be that the person putting the marketing piece together gets too involved in what it should look like and do, missing the bigger picture of whether or not it’s actually effective. Having someone not involved in any way see the piece can be a good gauge of whether or not you need to make changes. Show your marketing piece to a person in a different department at your company, or even your spouse. If he/she can understand the message and knows what to do after reading it, then it’s pretty safe to say you have a good marketing piece!

By just following a few of these tips, you can make sure your marketing piece isn’t a waste of time and money. Do you have any tips you’d like to share to make marketing pieces more effective?

Free Ways to Promote Your Website

2011-03-15T13:00:00.002-04:00

Everyone likes something for free, right? When it comes to marketing your company’s website, there’s a lot of different ways you can do it for no cost. Why not take advantage?

Yes, these techniques take time and effort, so they are not totally free solutions, but if you’re willing to do it you can see a dramatic increase in traffic to your website that will be worth it.

Below are a few free ways to market your website.

1. Add your website to local directories
All the major search engines (Google, Yahoo and Bing) have local directories that are similar to the Yellow Pages. They allow you to add your address, phone number, company hours and website, amongst other things. If people are looking for a business in their town, they often turn to search engines to provide them with local listings, but they’ll only find your business if it’s added to their list! Make sure your company is listed!

2. RSS Feeds
RSS feeds can help you get repeat customers because visitors can subscribe to your feed and get an update whenever something new happens, which gives you more traffic to the site. RSS feeds are great if you have a blog or news feature attached to your site.

3. Social Networks
Although they can be time consuming, social networks are free to set up and can help you gain a ton of website traffic. Set up your social networks and start using them! You’ll be surprised how much they can help your traffic.

4. Blogs
Blogs help website traffic because they are regularly being updated with new information, which is great for SEO. You can set up a blog for free using one of the many different platforms (we use Blogger) and include links back to your main website. As mentioned above, include RSS feed subscription options to encourage visitors to come back.

5. Article Marketing
Did you write a great article? Take advantage of some of the free article submission sites to get the word out! Most sites allow you to have a link to your website at the bottom of the article, which is instant promotion!

6. Email Signatures
Adding your website link to your email signature is a simple, but effective way to help gain traffic. Think about how many emails you send out in one day. Having your website link attached to the end of all those emails is a lot of free promotion.

7. Forums
If your participate in online communities or forums, adding your website link to the bottom of your posts is a great way to promote your site to people that may not be aware of what you do. Most forum sites have members that post regularly, so the more active you are on the forums, the more chances you get to promote your site to people that may visit for than once.

8. Press Release Submission
Did you company recently do something news worthy? Promote it through a press release on sites like prweb.com. A press release will get in front of major online news sources and reach tons of people, all who have the potential to see your website.

Since so many people get their information online these days, it just makes sense to take advantage of these free marketing avenues. What online marketing techniques are you taking advantage of?

Social Buzz: The New SEO Ranking Factor

2011-03-08T13:00:00.002-05:00

Google announced recently that “social buzz” will have an effect in the overall SEO ranking of a website on Google. What does this mean? All of your Facebook posts, retweets on Twitter and bookmarks to places such as Digg and Stumbleupon can make a big difference when it comes to your SEO ranking! If you thought social media was a waste of your time, you’re wrong.

Inbound Links
An inbound link is a link to your website from another website. Google considers sites with more inbound links more relevant and important than sites with few inbound links. Social media is a great way to gain traffic to your site and now Google is verifying that all that work you are doing will actually help your Google SEO rankings! What great news! Not only will social media help you generate buzz about your company, but it will help give you those helpful inbound links for SEO.

How to Generate “Social Buzz”
You may have a Facebook and Twitter page for your company, but you may not be seeing that “social buzz” we’ve been talking about. We admit, generating social buzz isn’t always easy, but there are some things that can help.

Post consistently to your networks
Keeping your social networks fresh keeps you on the minds of the people in your network. Be sure to keep your networks updated with your latest news.

Link networks together
Linking your networks makes it easier for your content to be displayed in multiple places. Instead of posting the same content to all your networks separately, you can post at one place and have it seen all of your networks There are several plugins and tools you can add to make this easier for you, such as Tweetdeck and Hootsuite.

Encourage Reposting
Encourage people to repost your content on their own social networking sites. Several plugins make this easy to do, such as the Share This plugin. Be sure to add these plugins to your websites and blog posts! These plugins will allow people to share your information to places like Twitter, Facebook, Digg and Stumbleupon, where other people in their network will see it. If you don’t have the ability to edit your website or blog, ask your web designer to do it for you.

Let People Know
The more people that friend or follow your social networks, the easier it is to spread social buzz. Make sure your customers know your company is on social networking sites. Consider adding links to your email signature, website, business cards and other forms of marketing. Get the word out!

The fact that Google is taking social media buzz into consideration means that being involved in social networks is more important than ever. Get on the social networking bandwagon and start creating buzz for your company. The hard work will pay off!

5 Blogging Sins

2011-03-01T13:00:00.002-05:00

A lot of people think that blogging is easy, but if you’ve started one yourself, you’ll know that isn’t the case. Blogging takes time and work if you want it to be effective. There are thousands of blogs online today and it’s pretty easy to differentiate between the good ones and bad ones. So what makes a blog good and what can you do on your own blog to make it better?

Below are 5 "sins" of blogging you should watch out for.

1. Inconsistency
A blogging schedule is important. If you consistently produce content daily for a month, then post nothing for 3 months, your readers may think you’ve given up. Whether you have one reader or thousands, a consistent posting schedule is important because it helps your readers get into a pattern. Make sure you set time in your schedule for your blog so you can produce content on a regular basis.

You also should make sure your topics are consistent. If you write a food blog, your readers will more than likely be uninterested in your weekend beach getaway. Make sure you're blogging about topics relevant to your blogs main focus.

2. Excessive Ads
There is nothing wrong with trying to make money off your blog, but littering it with ads can be a distraction to your readers. People want to read your content, not click on your advertisements. Keep advertisements to a minimum and place them where they are less likely to be a distraction.

3. Ignoring Comments
A big part of blogging is the conversation. If a reader leaves a comment on one of your posts, be sure to acknowledge the comment by either replying to the comment they made, writing a comment on something they have written, or dropping them an email. The reply doesn’t have to be formal or long winded, but your readers will definitely appreciate the fact you acknowledged them.

4. Poor (or no) Subscription Options
People read blog content in a lot of different ways. Not everyone wants to type in your link to read your new posts. Some people prefer using RSS readers, such a Google reader, or getting email updates for new posts. Give your readers a wide variety of options to get your blog content.

5. Plagiarism
This seems like an obvious one, but copying someone else’s work happens more often than you would think. In addition to being illegal, it will make you look unoriginal and unprofessional. Just don’t do it!

We are not saying that you can’t write your own take on an existing topic, or write a reaction to someone else’s work. There are many different opinions on certain subjects and you should feel free to share your perspective, but copying another person’s work word for word is not. Be original and write your own pieces.

Avoiding these 5 blogging sins will help you establish a blog that is more professional, engaging and useful while creating the foundation for a growing base of readers.

These are just a few blogging sins. What would you add to the list?

How to Gain Twitter Followers

2011-02-23T09:17:00.001-05:00

While Twitter is a great social networking tool, it’s only effective if people are seeing what you’re tweeting. To get the most out of Twitter, you want to gain followers. The more followers you have on Twitter, the bigger your network becomes and the more people you reach.

Unless you’re a famous celebrity, gaining Twitter followers can be a difficult task. So how do you get in front of the people that want to hear what you have to say? Below are some tips to gain Twitter followers.

1. Follow People With Similar Interests
This is similar to real life networking or making friends. If you have something in common with another person, you’d want to talk to them in real life, right? The same thing goes for Twitter. If you follow a person with similar interests, they may follow you back. And their followers may follow you as well. Eventually, this can snowball into a bunch of people with similar interests following each other.

You can use tools like TwitteRel to find people with similar interests. Give it a try! There are a ton of people on Twitter like you.

2. Join in the conversation
Once you start following some people, don’t be afraid to join in on their conversations. Use @ reply to reply to their tweets, retweet (RT) to show you like what they said or direct message (DM) them. Let your followers know you are around.

3. Be Polite
If you are rude in real life, no one is going to want to be your friend. If you aren’t a polite Twitter user, people aren’t going to want to follow you.

Did someone retweet something you said? Don’t ignore them, thank them! A simple @ reply saying thanks lets them know you appreciate them helping you get the word out.

Try to respond to direct messages in a timely manner. Responses don’t have to be formal (remember, you only get 140 characters) but if you wait a week to respond, the person that followed you most likely got the answer they were looking for from someone else.

4. List yourself in Twitter Directories
Twitter directories are lists of people that tweet about similar subjects and are a great way to help gain followers. There are lots of Twitter directories out there, but the big ones we recommend are JustTweetIt and >WeFollow.

There are lots of different ways to gain Twitter followers and the above are just some of the things you can do to help. What’s worked best for you?

Don’t forget to follow @acfconsulting on Twitter!

5 E-Newsletter Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

2011-02-15T13:00:00.038-05:00

When used correctly an e-newsletter is a great tool for marketing. They keep your company on the minds of your customers by regularly reminding them of the services or products you offer or specials you are currently running. They can help drive more traffic to your website and improve overall conversion rates.

Often though, companies miss the mark when it comes to e-newsletters by making one or more of these 5 common mistakes.

1. Use of only a single email list
Certain e-newsletter topics apply to certain people only. By separating your master email list into separate, specialized lists, you can target your e-newsletter content to the people that will be most interested. People will get to see more of what they want to see instead of something that doesn’t apply to them.

2. Inconsistent delivery

The etsy.com e-newsletter gets delivered daily.

It’s important to have a schedule for your e-newsletters. Whether you send out something once a day, once a week, or once a month really depends on the type of content you offer. The important part is that you stay on schedule so your subscribers come to expect your emails. We send out our e-newsletters once a week, on Thursdays. When and how often you send your e-newsletters may be different, but you should figure out and stick to a schedule so your subscribers aren’t totally surprised when they see an email from you in their inbox.

3. Text only messages
Very few people will take the time to read just text. Make your e-newsletter more engaging by using images and adding links to your website, social networks, etc. Make it look like something special instead of just a plain email.

The Apartment Therapy e-newsletter is a good example of how images add interactive elements.

You don’t have to go crazy and add tons of interactive elements, but just a little bit of pizzazz can go a long way.

4. Lack of “human” element
People like to talk to other people, not a company. A lot of e-newsletters make the mistake of talking from a corporate level instead of a more personal level. Let people know what is going on with your business, mention some of your projects, and make the conversation more casual. For example, we mention company news and give recommendations to different products we like in the sidebar of our weekly e-newsletter. Your subscribers will find your e-newsletter much more engaging if they feel like a person is talking to them.

5. Poor Design
Some e-newsletters aren’t making the cut from a design perspective. They might not be branded to the company, use few images, or have frustrating broken links. The most effective e-newsletters have a great, functional design.

The myPoints e-newsletter is branded to look similar to their website.

Just like any other type of marketing, your e-newsletter should be branded to your company. Set up a template and test out the look in as many different email platforms as you can (i.e. Outlook, Gmail, Yahoo, and Hotmail). Make sure the text is easy to read, the images display correctly and your links work. Once you have a look set, be sure to use that template whenever you send out an e-newsletter. The consistency of your design and a set schedule for sending (as mentioned above) will provide an enhanced professional image.

When done right, e-newsletter can make a big marketing impact. Is your company guilty of any of the above e-newsletter mistakes? Do you have any other tips to make better use of e-newsletter marketing?

Don’t forget to sign up for our company e-newsletter by clicking here.

What Your Customers Expect From Social Media

2011-02-08T13:00:00.005-05:00

Photo credit: Flickr

A common question for people starting out with social media is, “What am I getting out of this?” Instead of asking yourself this question, a more appropriate one to ask is, “What do my customers expect from this?”
Since social media has become such a big part of people’s everyday lives, customers expect the companies they buy from to be involved as well. In fact, according to a study from UK Customer Satisfaction Index, 1 out of 4 people are less inclined to buy online from a company that doesn’t use social media. The study goes on to tell the following about what customers expect from the companies they buy from:

Reviews
Social media is a great platform for customer reviews. Many people follow companies on social networks simply to hear what others are saying about the product or service. Displaying reviews gives your customers a way to interact with each other and gain important knowledge about your product.

Accountability
With social media, it’s not enough to just listen; you must react as well. Your customers expect 2 way communication through your social networks. If someone writes a bad review or has a problem, it’s because they want you to address it (and in a timely manner). Addressing issues through social media shows that you take customer satisfaction seriously and want to make sure that the problem doesn’t happen again. Remember that people are just looking to be heard, so replying shows that you heard what they had to say.

Transparency
Your customers no longer want to talk to just a company, they want to talk to you. Don’t market as a company on social media, market as a person that represents your company, because that is who you are. Show pictures of yourself, your team and where you work. Show a little bit about what it’s like to work at your company and do what you do.

ValueYour customers expect something that is of value to them, so give it to them. Let them know you are an expert in your field and give them information they can apply. Offering your expertise informs your customers and helps them make better decisions and instantly makes you a credible source.

With social media being used more and more, your customers expect different things from you than they may have just a few years ago. By giving your customers what they expect to see, your company will gain credibility and in the end, more customers.

What are some other things that customers in your industry now expect?

Create a Marketing Piece that Works

2011-02-01T13:00:00.019-05:00

Marketing pieces come in all different sizes, shapes, colors and finishes, which can make choosing the right one a bit difficult. How do you know which one is going to be worth your money? While there isn’t an easy answer, we have made a guide that can make the process easier. Ask yourself these questions before choosing your next marketing piece.

1. What are you trying to accomplish?

Knowing your marketing goal can help you better decide what type of product to choose. Will you be marketing an event? Do you have a new product? Do you want to try and reach a new audience? Before you start marketing, it’s important that you clearly know what you are trying to do.

You also need to think about the action that you want your target market to take. Certain marketing pieces work best for different actions. Knowing what you want your potential customers to do, whatever it may be, will help you decide the best type of marketing to get that response.

2. What should you say?
This may seem obvious, but putting your idea into words can be more difficult than it sounds. Remember who will be reading your product and always write from their perspective. Focus on the benefits, not the features, as that is what your end reader will be interested in. Remember, you know why your product or company is great, but your end readers may not. Don’t forget to clearly state on in your piece the action that you’d like your target market to take and always focus on them, not you.

3. What is the incentive?
You’ve figured out what it is you want your target market to do, now it’s time to think about the incentive they’ll get for performing that action. Motivate your reader to take action by offering them something they can’t resist. Good examples are including coupons, free gifts, or valuable information you can provide. Whatever it is, make sure you’re giving your readers a reason to want to check you out further.

4. How will you deliver this piece?
Your delivery helps determine things like size and shape or your final piece. Will you be at a tradeshow? Business cards, flyers or promotional items may be best. Doing a direct mail campaign? A small postcard could work for you.

Certain sizes and shapes will work better depending on the delivery. For example, you wouldn’t take big, bulky items to a tradeshow since people wouldn’t be able to easily hold that. Knowing where you’re going to be marketing will help you determine the best type of piece to use.

Asking yourself these questions can help you make better decisions on the types of marketing you should use. Always think about your audience, what you want to say, where you’ll be delivering your marketing piece, and the ultimate goal you want to accomplish.

What type of marketing piece has worked the best for your company?

10 Common Website Copywriting Mistakes

2011-01-26T12:00:00.004-05:00

2011 marks ACF’s 10th year in business. To celebrate the occasion, we’ll be featuring posts related around the number 10. To see more of these posts, click here.

An essential element of online marketing is copywriting. Good copy keeps readers engaged, promotes the benefits of a product or service and gets visitors to take some form of action.

Good copy generates leads, which generate into business. If your website isn’t generating the sales you had hoped for, your copy may be part to blame. Below lists 10 different common copywriting mistakes and what you can do to improve them.

1. Paragraphs are too long
Your visitors have little time and short attention spans, so long paragraphs of copy are generally a turn off. Don’t make your visitors work hard to hear what you have to say. Short paragraphs that get to the point are the best.

2. Titles Don’t Grab Attention
Most people generally scan a page before reading the finer details. If the title of your article doesn’t grab attention, your visitor may skip over it altogether. Consider writing your title first, before you dive into the paragraphs.

3. No Subheadings
Subheadings break up your content into smaller chunks that are easier for your visitors to digest. Without them, your copy isn’t easy to scan and seems longer and harder to read. Break up your copy into sections and give each section an appropriate subheading.

4. No Lists
People like lists because they are easy to read and make the copy flow better. Instead of having one long paragraph of text, see if you can turn that paragraph into a list that is easier to read.

5. No Pictures or Figures Used
We’ve all heard the phrase “a picture says 1,000 words” before. Pictures and figures heighten your copy and give it more meaning. A good photo can entice visitors to buy or give a visual representation of your explanation. Without them, your copy feels flat. Use diagrams and photos to back up what you are saying.

6. You Write About Features, Not Benefits
Writing about your product features won’t work very well if your visitors don’t know how those features can benefit them. Your visitor cares more about how your product will make their lives better, not all the fancy features it has. Make sure you’re telling your visitors what your product does for them.

7. You Have Weak (or no) Calls to Action
If you don’t tell your visitors what you want them to do next, they will have to make that decision for themselves. Often, they won’t make the decision you want them to. Calls to action help guide your visitors through the site the way you intended. Use call to actions prominently to let your visitors know what their next step should be.

8. You aren’t writing from the reader’s perspective
Your visitors are constantly asking “What’s in it for me?” If your copy doesn’t answer that question, it’s not doing its job. Let readers know what you can do for them and be sure to talk about the benefits of your product instead of just the features.

9. Readers Lose Interest After the 1st Paragraph
If you’re boring your visitors, they’ll most likely leave your site. Make your copy more engaging by using some of the above techniques.

10. You aren’t Proofreading
#10 is probably the biggest and most common mistake. It’s also the one that can be fixed the easiest. Spelling and grammar errors discredit you, your products and your services. Make sure someone (other than you) is proofreading what you write.

Copywriting is a crucial part of online marketing. Improving your website’s copy will help improve your overall business. Fixing the above issues with your website’s copy will help keep readers engaged, interested and more motivated to use your product or service.

Get off the IT Roller Coaster

2011-01-25T13:00:00.002-05:00

Your company may have an “IT Guy”, but more than likely, you are only using him when things go wrong. That is the normal approach to IT, sometimes called the “break-fix” approach (when something breaks, fix it). The break-fix approach to IT often results in costs similar to being on a roller coaster; one month you pay very little, the next month, your server crashes and you’re paying thousands.

There’s a new approach to IT. One that can help you get off the IT roller coaster. It’s called managed IT services.

The managed services approach to IT is a proactive approach, meaning that your IT guy will do updates and procedures to help eliminate problems from happening. They’ll spot small problems before they turn into big, costly ones. In the end, you’re saving money and getting piece of mind.

There are several other benefits of a managed IT approach. One biggie is that your company will generally have newer, equipment. With the break-fix approach, upgrades don’t generally happen unless the old machine is broken. Older machines are slower working, can have difficulty with upgrades and are more likely to break down. With managed IT, you’ll be getting equipment upgrades and updates regularly, which eliminate a lot of those problems.

There is also a lot less unscheduled downtime with managed IT services. With break-fix, you are generally down because something went wrong. Depending on what the problem is, it could be minutes or days until you are back up. With a managed solution, downtime is generally scheduled and done at a time when it won’t affect you running your business.

These are just a few of the benefits that managed IT services can bring to your business. If you’re ready to get off the IT roller coaster, choose a managed solution from ACF Consulting. Contact us today to learn more.

How to Create a Killer Landing Page

2011-01-18T13:00:00.000-05:00

In online marketing a landing page is the page that appears when a potential customer clicks on an advertisement. They can be linked to things such as search engine results, online advertisements or social media campaigns.

A landing page is a powerful tool for online marketing, but can also be a topic of frustration for many. We often hear people saying their landing pages aren’t getting the conversion rates they had expected. After taking a closer look, the reason for this is that the page doesn’t follow the basic structure that makes up a good landing page. After making a few tweaks to their page, they generally see improved results!

So how do you make a killer landing page?

Make Sure the Headlines Correspond with the Ad

Full Sail Banner Ad

Full Sail Landing Page

There are several different ways a person could have landed on your page. They may have done a Google search, clicked a banner ad, or typed in the address off a flyer. No matter how they landed there, it’s important to make sure that they are getting what they expected. If your ad is about sneakers and the page they land on talks about high heel boots, your visitor is going to leave. Be sure the page is what your visitors expect it to be.

Have One Focused Call to Action

The action Web Trends wants you to take is to fill out their form and download a data sheet.

A landing page is designed to get users to do one specific thing. Giving your visitors too many options can often mean them not making a decision at all. You probably want your customers to buy all your items, but your landing page should only focus on him/her buying the one item that is talked about.

Eliminate Distractions
Again, it’s important that your landing page is focused. Distracting visitors with extra links encourages people to browse your site. While this is good for your home page, browsing defeats the purpose of the landing page, so strip out any unnecessary links and be sure to only focus on what you want the visitor to do.

Be Brief

The deal.io landing page is brief and to the point.

Brevity is key for landing pages. Be straightforward, focused and keep copy to a minimum. Remember, the key to get the visitor to perform a certain action, not read a novel.

If your landing page isn’t giving you the conversion rates you had hoped for, you may be able to improve it with the above tips. Do you have any tips you’d like to add? Share them in the comments.

Friday Wrap Up

2011-01-14T15:15:00.000-05:00

Happy Friday folks! How has your week been so far?

This week at ACF, we wrapped up a website project that we've been working hard on for a long time. Check out the new and improved website for Jean Jacques Culinary Creations! We were so excited for this website launch and the folks over at Jean Jacques couldn't be happier with their new design.

We also started working on restructing the Golf Range Netting website. Golf Range signed up for a Momemtum product, which means we'll now be providing them with site management, SEO and social media management.
Before you go off to enjoy the weekend, here are some links we wanted to share with you.

Our Favorite iPhone Apps

2011-01-12T14:50:00.001-05:00

You’ve probably heard the big announcement that Verizon Wireless will start carrying the iPhone February 10th. For the many people that have waited (and waited) for this day to come, the announcement was very exciting. Since AT&T has had the iPhone exclusively since its debut, we’re excited to see how the competition pans out between both companies.

We have several iPhone users here at ACF, so we thought it would be fun to share some of our favorite apps to inform all the new Verizon customers hopping on the iPhone bandwagon.

Kyle’s (Development) Favorite’s
1. Gowalla
2. Angry Birds
3. Google Voice
4. Firefox Home
5. Dropbox

Barbara’s (Designer) Favorites
1. Angry Birds
2. Words With Friends
3. Hootsuite
4. Pandora
5. Stitcher

Teresa’s (Administrative) Favorites
1. Tetris
2. Target
3. Yelp
4. Pandora
5. My Light (turns your camera flash into a flash light)

Chris’s (Art Directors) Favorites
1. Cut the Rope
2. Mobile RSS
3. Netflix
4. Sirius/XM Radio
5. 20+ Apps that keep my kids entertained in the car

What are your favorite iPhone apps? Will you be getting the Verizon iPhone?

2011: The Year of the Social Butterflies

2011-01-11T11:23:00.001-05:00

A lot of businesses are in the process of getting their marketing plans in place for 2011. Here at ACF, we hope you remember to include something in those plans: social media. If you haven’t hopped the social media bandwagon yet, it’s time to start. If you’ve already jumped the gun, we hope you’re taking initiative to take it to the next level. 2011 is the year your company becomes a social butterfly.

Why is it Important
Social media is important because it’s everywhere. Companies are posting their twitter links in their commercials, you’ve surely heard of Facebook (and probably have your own profile) and might even read a few blogs. Social media isn’t going anywhere and companies are taking advantage of it. Plain and simple, if you don’t you’ll be losing out on business.

But I Already Have this?
There’s a big difference between having social media and being an active user. We see this lot; A company sets up a social media profile, posts a few times, then lets it sit for months. This generally happens because A) The company doesn’t know what to post or B) They don’t have anyone to do it.
Have a plan specifically for social media. Figure out your goals and set up a strategy that you can stick to. Whether you do it in house or outsource the important thing is that you have a plan in place so you know what you want to do.

What should I post?
When it comes to social media, a frequently asked question we get is “What should I post?” Many people are concerned that they will post something that won’t be what their audience wants to hear. What you post depends on what your goals are, so make sure you figure those out before thinking about content. Remember, that the types of posts aren’t set in stone. If something doesn’t seem to be working, it’s ok to try something else. The beauty of social media is that since it’s free, there can be a lot of trial and error. In your plan, write down your goals for each of your social media profiles and the type of content you want to post to them.

How often?
Another question we get is “How often should I post?” There is definitely a balance. You don’t want to bombard people with content, but you don’t want to post so little that people think you never use your profiles. Include a schedule for your plan that you’ll be able to stick to. At ACF, we post on Twitter and Facebook and least once daily, write a few blog posts per week and send out an eNewsletter every Thursday. Having a schedule will help you think about content and hopefully prevent you from falling behind.

In Closing
Social media is a free form of advertising…kind of. Yes, you don’t have to pay to join, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have to spend time to make it work effectively. Social media is a lot of work. The more involved you get in it, the more you’ll realize that it isn’t truly free. Including it in your marketing plan will help you achieve effective marketing results using social media. This year, turn your company into a social butterfly.

Need help getting social? Contact ACF today to learn more about the social media management services we offer.

ACF Recommends: Involver

2011-01-10T14:22:00.000-05:00

Do you want to add some pizzazz to your company’s Facebook page? If you answered yes, you should try Involver! Involver is a great tool that allows you to integrate a variety of different social networks to your Facebook page. With Involver, you can add your YouTube channel videos, Twitter feed, RSS and much more!

We are currently using involver on our Facebook page, which now includes our Twitter and RSS feeds. Involver made it so easy to do, we’re thinking of using some of their other features. We signed up for an account, installed the apps we wanted to use, and that was it! We definitely liked how easy it was to use.

If you’re looking to customize your own Facebook page, we highly recommend the tools Involver offers!

Friday Wrap Up

2011-01-07T16:21:00.000-05:00

Tampa Theater Image via Flickr

The first week of 2011 was an exciting one for ACF with 2 celebrations! This week, the company celebrated its 10th year in business and Barbara celebrated 2 years at ACF. Hooray!

Like lots of companies, we had a company meeting to kick off the new year. We discussed our goals for this year set some new plans in place. We’re so excited to get this year rolling!

Some notable projects we started this week:
• Tri-fold brochure for Avila Golf & Country Club
• Website redesign for Excel Medical Imaging
• Product catalog design for Electro Tape Specialties, Inc.

We’ll be back here on Monday, but before we leave, here a few links you may enjoy!

• Angry Birds Makes its Way to PS3
• Want to make your own Tron suit?
• Check out the winners of the 2010 Mashable Awards

We hope you have a great weekend!

The Dollar Redesign Project

2011-01-06T11:20:00.000-05:00

The Dollar Redesign Project 1st place winner submitted by Dowling Duncan

The Dollar Redesign Project was a contest that allowed people to submit redesigns of the current US currency in an effort to “rebuild financial confidence and revive our failing economy”. Hundreds of different designers submitted what they thought US money should look like. The submissions were colorful, unique and maybe a bit off the wall.

You can view the submissions and list of winners by clicking here. Although the contest is over, they are still accepting submissions if you want to show off your own design.

What do you think about this project? Is it something worth doing or do you think our money is fine the way it is?

Find Us on Yelp!

2011-01-05T15:16:00.000-05:00

ACF is on Yelp! Why not take a look at our profile or write us a review? Check it out here!

Yelp is a great way to find recommendations for local businesses in your area. Signing up for an account is free and lets you read reviews of businesses in the area as well as provide your own two cents.

Do you use Yelp? Do you have a Yelp page for your business? Share the link in the comments.

10 Things Every Website Should Have

2011-01-04T13:00:00.003-05:00

2011 marks ACF’s 10th year in business! To celebrate the occasion, we’ll be featuring posts. To see more of our 10th anniversary posts, click here.

As the internet has grown bigger and better, websites have changed quite a bit over the last few years. As technology advances, it’s important to make sure your company keeps up. Below is a list of 10 things every website nowadays should have.

1. Simple, Easy to use Layout
One of the best ways to attract customers is through a clean, simple and easy to use layout. The age of website layouts with tons of intricate flash animations and effects is dead. In fact, a lot of people are turned off by those types of websites. A simple, quick loading website that works on all browsers (including mobile phones) is the way to go.

2. An About Us Page
People like reading about the people behind the company, so let them know with an about us page. Tell visitors a little bit about your history, your employees and your mission. Let people get to know a little about the people that make your company work.

3. Contact Info
One of the most frustrating things for a website user is not being able to find contact information on a website. Make sure you include it on yours, in multiple places. Give visitors a variety of different ways to contact you (phone, email, address, etc.) and make sure the information is easy to find.

4. SEO
With the amount of people using the internet to find the majority of their information nowadays, your site needs to be optimized for search engines. Search engine optimization is an inexpensive form of marketing with lasting results. Through SEO, you’ll target quality traffic to your website that turns into customers.

5. Fresh content
Nobody wants to see content that is old and outdated, so make sure the content on your website is still relevant. Fresh content looks good to both humans and search engines. Adding updated content not only keeps customers coming back, but helps improve search rankings as web crawlers index sites with frequently updated content much more than stagnant sites.

6. Easy to use Navigation
Your site should be organized and easy to navigate. Structure your site so it makes sense to the user. Always have a way to link home, make sure all links are in working order and consider subcategories for easier use.

7. Descriptive Page names and Titles
The names of your pages should describe what you are talking about. Not only does this help the user identify the page he/she is on, but it benefits SEO as well. Instead of labeling your pages “page1” label them to fit what the page is about.

8. Social Networking
Social networking is a great way to create buzz about your company and draw traffic to your website. Make profiles on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and other sites and be sure to add the links to your website. Promoting your brand via social networks gives a more human element to your marketing and lets an entire new community of people discover who you are.

9. A Form
There are many different ways to include a form on your site. One of the simplest is to include a contact form as another option people can contact you. It is quick and informal and a great option for people that may not be ready to make a phone call.

You might also want to consider adding an eNewsletter sign up form or a form that allows people to get updates from your site via their email (great for blog sites) Both these options will keep your company on the mind of the visitors and drive reoccurring traffic to your site.

10. A Proofreader
Proofreading is a simple concept, but one that often gets overlooked. Spelling and grammar mistakes make you look unprofessional, so get someone (other than yourself) to proofread your content. Fix any errors immediately (there will be some) and be sure to always double check your work.

The internet is one of the best places to market your business. Take advantage of what it has to offer by incorporating these 10 things into your company website.

Would you add anything to this list? Discuss in the comments.

ACF Turns 10!

2011-01-04T11:56:00.001-05:00

2011 is a big year for ACF-we're celebrating 10 years in business!

One computer programmer started ACF and over the years, we’ve expanded to include marketing and IT to its list of services. Our industry and company has changed greatly over the last 10 years and it has been an exciting journey so far. We’ve made long lasting relationships with many clients and have had the opportunity to work on some very exciting projects.

To celebrate our 10th year in business, we’ll be writing a series of posts to commemorate the occasion. We’ll take a look at the people that make ACF possible, changes we’ve experienced over the years all while bringing new tips to help your business. Look for them soon!

We can’t wait to see what the next 10 years bring!

ACF Recommends: Social Media 101 by Chris Brogan

2011-01-03T14:25:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year everyone! We hope you enjoyed your holiday weekend. Did you set any goals for the new year?

One of our goals here at ACF was to get more involved in blogging and social media. In the process, we’ve been doing a lot of research and reading some books on the subject. If your business is looking to get more involved in social media, a book we recommend is Social Media 101 by Chris Brogan. It was a great read!

The information in this book is useful for both social media beginners and people looking to build on their current presence. When it comes to social media, Chris Brogan gets it and everything he talks about in the book are things he actually practices. The book is packed with information, useful tips and tactics in an easy to read package. ACF highly recommends it to anyone looking to get more involved with social media!

You can buy the book on Amazon.

Have you read any other social media books? Any recommendations?

2010 Year in Review

2010-12-28T13:00:00.012-05:00

As 2010 comes to a close, we’re joining the throngs of the internet and posting a “Year in Review” post. Let’s take a look at 2010 and a look forward for 2011.

2010 was a great year for ACF. Having just moved into our new Trinity offices towards the end of 2009, the beginning of the 2010 we were still getting settled into them. Even though we consolidated from 2 offices to 1, we all have much more space and working in one location has helped with productivity.

We got to work on some great projects this year and developed relationships with some new amazing clients. We’re thankful for our clients and happy they chose us to help achieve their own business success. We’re excited to be working with them in 2011.

Our president Adam and his wife Angie welcomed their first child, which surely has been the biggest event for them this year. As cliché as it might sound, he really is a little bundle of joy! When he makes his appearances at the offices, it instantly puts everyone in a good mood! Congratulations Adam and Angie!

Looking forward, 2011 looks to be a very promising year. We’re looking forward to working with our current clients on exciting projects and welcome the challenges new clients will bring to us.

We have several goals for the new year.

1. Providing more education and information
In 2010 we began our weekly blog to help educate and inform about our areas of expertise. It was met with such great response that we are now looking forward to increasing that effort to empower all of our viewers to make education decisions in the areas of IT, Development, Websites and Marketing. This coming year, you can expect more blog posts an involvement with social media. We invite you to contribute to the community.

2. Help our clients manage their online presence.
Website maintenance has become more time consuming, especially with social media and blogging becoming bigger and more important than ever. In 2011, we want to help our clients manage their online presence by helping them with everything from website maintenance, copywriting, SEO, social media campaigns, and general online marketing.

3. Increase our staff
Thanks to our wonderful clients we have enjoyed great success in 2010 which is allowing us to grow in 2011. We look forward to hiring new developer and IT technicians in the new year.

4. Increase our involvement in charity and the community
Our staff has so much to offer and so many interests, we look forward to spending our time in service of the community in many ways.

We wish everyone a very Happy New year. We can’t wait for 2011!

Resolutions for your Website

2010-12-21T13:00:00.001-05:00

The end of the year is fast approaching and that means it’s time to make New Year’s resolutions again. You might have already made some resolutions for yourself, but have you thought about your website? There are several resolutions you can make when it comes to your site that will help it become better in 2011.

Optimize your Graphics for Quicker Load Times
Most web surfers only remain on a page for a few seconds, so grabbing their attention is critical. If you have large images on your current site, it will make load times longer, so optimize your images for the web to cut down on file size.

Clean up your HTML
Invalid HTML can cause display issues between different browsers, so it’s important to make sure the HTML on your site is valid. Clean up broken or unclosed tags and remove any HTML code that isn’t needed.

Clean up bad/broken links
Make sure any outbound links on your current site are still valid. Broken links, even if they aren’t going to a page on your website, frustrate users.

Increase Quality Inbound Links
Quality inbound links greatly help with search engine optimization, so a good goal for 2011 would be to increase the number of links coming into your site that contain related content to your subject matter.

Work on Content
Take a look at the content on your site. Is it old and outdated? Could new pages be added to your site? If the content on your pages needs updating, take some time to rewrite it. If you think your site could use a few additional pages, add them. Quality content and new pages do wonders for SEO efforts, so not only will your site be more current, but you’ll actually help your search engine rankings by doing this.

Take the initiative to make your site better this year! Need help making your website resolutions happen? Contact the experts at ACF today!

Throw a Fun Company Party this Holiday Season

2010-12-14T13:00:00.000-05:00

‘Tis the season to be jolly, and with that, comes holiday festivities. Throwing a Holiday party is a great way to get you employees together for something other than work, but without proper planning, your company party could be more of a bust than a hit. Here are a few tips to make your Holiday party a fun event.

Start with a Budget
Parties are expensive, so knowing what you can spend up front will help with the planning. If you can afford a formal extravaganza, go for it, but remember, that something inexpensive and casual can be just as much fun.

Get Help
Party planning takes work, so don’t do it all by yourself. Get help from the social butterflies in the office. Get their opinions on food, music, decorations and venue. Letting them help not only takes some of the stress off of you, but gets your employees excited for the event.

Pick a Great Venue
The point of the party is to get everyone together outside of work, so don’t have your party at the office. Keeping in mind your budget restraints, pick a nice venue to hold the party. Local restaurants, hotels and clubs are all great places to consider. If that’s out of your budget, consider opening up your own home for the party.

Have Great Music
It’s not a party without great music! Not everyone likes the same music, so have a variety of good dance tunes. Ask your employees to recommend some songs they’d like to hear at the party and put together a great playlist to avoid hearing the Macarena and Electric Slide over and over.

The More the Merrier!
Allow your employees to invite their spouses or families to the party. Having people there that don’t work for the company will help with conversation (you’ll have something to talk about other than work) and will eliminate the need to get a sitter. If kids plan on being there, make sure you include activities for youngsters.

Be Responsible
If you plan on serving alcohol at your party, make sure your employees have designated drivers or ways to get home. The easiest way to ruin a great party would be if an employee ended up getting into an accident. Be responsible and make sure that doesn’t happen.

Give!
Before the party, have your employees pick Secret Santa names and have them bring their gifts to the party. Make sure you set a money limit so employees know what an appropriate gift is. This is another fun way to get all your employees involved in the party.

A Holiday party is a great way to get your employees involved in something fun and thank them for all their hard work during the year. The above tips will help make your company party an event that everyone in the office will be talking about!

Have any additional Holiday party tips? Share them in the comments.

Stop Spam Once and For All

2010-12-07T13:00:00.025-05:00

Looking to get rid of those annoying spam emails? Spam emails are more than annoying; they can cause viruses, malware attacks, and don’t forget time wasted reviewing and deleting them! Wouldn’t it be great if there was something to help get rid of them altogether?

Now there is with ‘off-site’ spam filters! Off-site filters take care of spam before they ever reach your office, eliminating the risk and time that comes with them.

How They Work

How Off-site Filters Work

Off-site spam filters are a cloud solution, meaning that they are on a server outside of your office. Before an email gets to you, it goes through the filter, where it goes through several checkpoints to determine whether or not it is spam. These “checkpoints” are updated several thousand times per day (yes, thousands) to keep up with those pesky spammers.

Once an email is determined not to be spam, it gets sent to your inbox. The great thing is, all of this happens in just seconds and if the filter does come in contact with spam, you’ll never see it, protecting your office and saving you time.

Why It’s Better

There are lots of benefits to having an off-site spam filter, but the biggest one is the fact that the spam emails are eliminated before they get to your inbox.

Savings
The biggest benefit of course is the fact that the spam emails are eliminated before they get to your inbox. This saves space, processing power, and eliminates a lot of virus threats. With on-site spam filters your network is still being exposed to every spam email. They may go into a junk or spam filter, but they are still on your network taking up space and still have to be filtered as spam.

Updates
A second reason off-site spam filters are better than on-site filters is the update frequency. Spammers are changing their tactics constantly and the only way to protect yourself is to stay on top it just as often. While on-site filters are updated about once a day, off-site filters are updated thousands! It would be a full time job to update your on-site filter as much as an off-site filter gets updated automatically.

Don’t Lose Any Emails
An added bonus to off-site spam filters is the store and forward feature they provide. If you lose power at your location or need to move your office, a big problem is losing important emails that come in during that time. With off-site filters, this isn’t a problem. If you lose power or switch locations, your emails are automatically stored for you for 24 hours so you don’t lose a single email.

Just Ask the Experts

At ACF, we offer comprehensive email solutions including, of course, off-site spam filtering. If you have any questions about how spam can affect your business or what an off-site spam filer can do for you please contact our IT experts today at 813-235-6357 option 1.

Have you heard of or experienced any issues due to spam? We would love to hear the story, let us know in the comment section below.

5 Reasons to Upgrade to Office 2010

2010-11-30T13:00:00.002-05:00

If you’ve done any research on Office 2010, you may have thought it was expensive and included a lot of things you’d never use. Microsoft added a lot of features and functions with their newest release of Office, all of which can really help an organization streamline their business functions. Sure, there may be cheaper alternatives that can do part of what you need, but when it comes down to it, no other product on the market gives you everything that Office 2010 offers in one package. In the end, you’ll more than likely end up spending more money trying to get the equivalent of what Office 2010brings to the table. Below are 5 reasons Office 2010 is a smart business choice.

1. Lots of new features
Outlook has been greatly improved with this version. Conversation and calendar management is much easier and the Social Connector allows for easy networking online. They even included an Outlook Hotmail connector that allows you to use Hotmail like an exchange server.

New audio and video tools were added to Powerpoint as well, finally allowing users to be able to easily embed videos into their presentations.

2. Easier to use interface
Microsoft improved upon the Office 2007 interface, making it much easier to use. No more confusing button at the top left that shows the File menu tab. Instead, they included an actual file tab! The new interface overall makes much more sense.

3. Skydrive Integration
Microsoft gives you 25GB of free online storage via Skydrive and this new version of Office allows you to take full advantage of it. Upload, save and share buttons allow you to save directly to your Skydrive account, clearing up some space on your computer’s hard drive.

4. Improved Auto Recover
Whether it was the power going out, your computer froze, or you simply closed your document without saving, we’ve all lost something we’ve worked on for hours due to not saving. Office 2010 attempts to prevent against data loss with their improved Auto Recover feature. If a document accidentally closes before you save, Office will work with you to help recover it. They also included a new feature that allows you to pick from previously saved versions of your document. Pretty neat.

5. It costs less than 2007 did
When Office 2007 was released, the cost was $680. Office 2010 will only cost you $499 (for the ultimate package) and if you buy a new PC, the cost lowers to $399. With all the new features and improvements 2010 brings, it’s well worth it.

Happy Thanksgiving for ACF

2010-11-23T13:00:00.004-05:00

Happy Thanksgiving friends! Can you believe that this year is almost over?

We love this time of year at ACF and we’re looking forward to spending our Thanksgiving with our families and friends. We like to think of Thanksgiving as the kickoff to the Holiday season.

2010 has been an exciting year for ACF and we are so thankful to everyone that helped make it happen. Whether you’re staying in or traveling this year, we wish everyone a happy and healthy Thanksgiving holiday. Before we leave, here’s a few Thanksgiving links we wanted to share with you. Enjoy!

• Simple Thanksgiving Crafts for Kids
• Want to try deep frying a turkey this year? Check out this recipe from Food Network’s Paula Deen
• Find all the Black Friday ads here. Perfect for holiday shopping!

We’ll be open for technical support Friday. Have a fun and safe holiday!

Microsoft Stops Shipping Windows XP

2010-11-16T13:00:00.007-05:00

A few weeks ago, Microsoft announced they would stop shipping Windows XP products to OEM’s (original equipment manufacturers). This means that OEM’s will not be able to install Windows XP on new PC’s anymore.

Microsoft’s decision isn’t much of a shock, since they announced mid 2008 that they were going to stop shipping XP to suppliers. With Windows 7 being out for a little over a year now, it makes sense to stop production on XP altogether.

So what does this mean for companies currently running Windows XP? Although you won’t be able to purchase a new system with XP preinstalled, you still will be able to install XP on a Windows 7 machine if needed. Although we are unsure of how long this practice will continue, at this time, Microsoft is still allowing this, meaning that your company won’t have to upgrade all your computers just yet.

If you have new computers that need to be downgraded to XP, ACF can help you! If you’re ready to upgrade your operating system, we can help with that as well! Contact the IT department at ACF today.

Put your Ideas into Action

2010-11-10T17:01:00.001-05:00

I’m sure this has happened to you. You have a great idea, forget about it, then a month later find out that someone is doing the exact thing you thought of. You may have even started to execute your idea, but after a few weeks, you put it on the back burner until you gave up on it altogether.

Sounds familiar right? It happens to the best of us.

Why do most of our ideas never see the light of day? Mainly, it’s due to our habits getting in the way of execution. So how do we break those bad habits and start executing our ideas? Below are a few tips to get started.

1. Divide work into 3 steps
a) References - Information you’ve collected
b) Action Steps - Things to do right now
c) Backburner Steps - Things to do later (after you’ve completed your action steps)

Dividing your work into steps will force you to constantly have something to do. By working in steps, the excitement of having a new idea will be less likely to fizzle out because you’ll constantly have something you need to accomplish.

2. Avoid Distractions
Things like email, phone calls, texts and social media can distract you from doing work. If you’re worried about answering emails, voice mails, or updating your company Facebook page, you’ll lose focus on the work you need to get done to make your idea come to life.
Try to set aside time each day that is “distraction free”. Ignore social media, leave the emails for later and set your phone to silent. Without being bombarded with distractions, you’ll find you get much more work done.

3. Measure your Meetings
Meetings are much more effective with a plan in place. Have a kickoff meeting regarding your new idea and give action items for each person in the group. In the meetings that follow up, measure the progress on those action items and set new ones. This will make sure all team members have a role in making the idea come together and will keep the excitement level for it high.

New ideas are always exciting at first, but after a while, that excitement can fade, along with your motivation to work on the idea. Don’t let this happen! Stopping work on your idea means someone else does it before you. Use the above techniques to help turn your ideas into the next best thing.
What are some things you recommend that help you concentrate on your ideas?

Do you have a great idea in the works? ACF’s team of experts can help turn that idea into reality. Contact us today to learn more!

NYC is Going Cloud

2010-11-02T13:00:00.015-04:00

Photo credit

We’ve talked about the benefits of cloud computing on this blog in the past. Going “cloud” increases productivity, saves money and helps consolidate business applications. So on October 20, when mayor Bloomberg announced a new five year deal with Microsoft that would place several of their city contracts into a cloud environment, we thought it made a lot of sense.

The first phase of the cloud project will place 30,000 city workers into three categories: occasional users, basic users and power users. Using several Microsoft development tools and software database products, the cities major applications will be placed into a cloud environment that will allow these users access from their office as well as on the road. While the city can’t eliminate all desktop versions (power users will still use them), the more software that Microsoft hosts, the more money the city will save, which is estimated to be close to $50 million.

NYC isn’t the first major American city to go “cloud”. Los Angeles recently announced they were adopting Google’s e-mail system for 30,000 city employees. While many major cities are struggling with difficult economic times, cloud computing offers a solution that helps save money and ease employee workflow. With a substantially lower cost, clearly, cloud computing is a solution that can have a big effect on the way business is done.

Is your business “in the cloud”? What effects have you seen from it?

If you would like more information on how cloud computing is used for businesses, contact the ACF IT department today.

Make Them Feel Exclusive

2010-10-26T11:02:00.000-04:00

When they first start out, a lot of entrepreneurs believe that in order to be successful, they need to be everywhere. They think every person should be their customer and their products should be in the homes of all people. In reality, this isn’t the case. Marketing to everyone can often mean your marketing to no one.

Women love handbags, especially expensive designer ones. What makes them so special? The fact that you can’t get them just anywhere. If a woman wants a Gucci handbag, she has to buy it in a high end store that sells them. If you were able to buy a Gucci handbag in every Wal Mart across America, the value of that bag would go down because everyone would be able to buy it. By limiting choices, Gucci has increased the value of their brand and made women who own a Gucci handbag part of a special group of people.

Target your product or service to the group of people that can best benefit from it instead of targeting it to everyone. Show off why you are better. Tell people you offer the highest quality that cannot be found anywhere else. Show why you are the Gucci purse instead of the Wal Mart handbag. Making people feel exclusive creates higher brand value.

It’s ok to not be the right fit for someone. Remember, not everyone is your customer. It’s better to give the best possible service to the people that fit your niche that trying to find a way to provide to everyone.

Need help finding your target market? Our marketing department can help draw attention to that target market you are looking for, helping you become a leader in the industry. Contact ACF Consulting today.

Why you Should Have a Disaster Recovery Plan

2010-10-19T13:00:00.001-04:00

We’ve said it several times and will continue to say it: every business should have a disaster recovery plan. 93% of companies that lose their data for more than 10 days file for bankruptcy (According to National Archives & Records Administration in Washington). Have a plan in place so it doesn’t happen to you.

We’re all familiar with the BP Oil spill and the tragic effects it’s had on the environment, tourism and businesses. One of the big problems BP faced was not knowing how to stop the oil from flowing, which is something that should have been addressed with a disaster recovery plan. If BP had a disaster plan in place, employees could have addressed the situation much quicker, which would have caused a lot less damage to the environment.

More than likely, your business is not as large as BP, meaning that having a disaster recovery plan is even more important! Because BP was such a large company, they were able to survive the economic impact of this disaster. If something that catastrophic happened to your business and you weren’t able to take care of it for months, could you survive? The answer, more than likely, is no, which is why many businesses that experience data loss fail. Simply put, you need to be prepared for the worst.

Depending on your industry, your disaster plan will vary, but there are several actions every business can take that can help in the event of a disaster. ACF recommends offsite data backup in the event of hardware failure or natural disaster. We also recommend all of your systems have up to date software and virus protection to help prevent disasters from happening.

After taking the above steps, you should write down your disaster plan and store it in a safe location. Your plan should include everything that should be done in the event of a disaster. Depending on your industry, you may have different plans for different types of disasters. Make your plan as detailed as possible so anybody in your office can follow it.

Are you not sure what to include in your disaster recovery plan? Do you need help figuring out how to get your business computers up and running in the event of a disaster? ACF can help! We’ve helped several client develop detailed disaster recovery plans and can help you get one in place. We believe that preventative maintenance and planning are keys to helping businesses succeed. Contact us to get help with your plan.

Microsoft Office Installation and Use Rights

2010-10-12T14:26:00.001-04:00

A common question we hear is “I have a copy of Microsoft Office. Why can’t I just install it on all of my employee’s computers?”

Microsoft’s Installation and Use Rights do not allow for this type of use. If your business is caught installing Office illegally, you could face fines up to $200,000! To do things legally, you will need to purchase special licensing for the product. Licensing can be a bit confusing, so this post will hopefully clear up some of the confusion. To read an online copy of the licensing agreement, click here.

At ACF, we offer 3 different types of licensing for Microsoft Office.

Original Equipment Manufacturer
This type of licensing is for pre installed versions of Office software that come when buying a new computer. If you planned to upgrade the computers at your office and needed to have Microsoft Office installed on them, this may be the licensing option for you.

Pros: Reduced price

Cons: The copy of Microsoft Office cannot be transferred to another computer. If you had a computer that did not have Microsoft Office installed on it, you could not legally install a version of it using this type of license.
Retail
Retail licensing stays with the software, meaning that if you upgraded your computer, you could legally install Microsoft Office on the new machine. It allows for use on one desktop and one laptop

Pros: If you have a desktop and laptop, you can install Microsoft Office without buying another separate license.

Cons: Two different users cannot legally use the software. So if you installed Microsoft Office on your desktop, you would have to purchase another license to install it on your wife’s computer.
Volume Licensing
Volume licensing is for commercial use. It’s the best option for a business that wants office installed on their machines, but doesn’t want to upgrade their computers.

Pros: Multiple people can use Microsoft Office legally. Easy to maintain licenses.

Cons: Sometimes more expensive, but the legal option.

If you need more information about licensing for Microsoft Office, or you are unsure of which licensing you should purchase, please contact our IT department at 813-235-6357 and choose option 1.

Building your Brand through Dissatisfaction

2010-10-05T13:00:00.004-04:00

If you just read the title of this blog post, you are probably thinking that doesn’t make any sense. Why would anyone want to dissatisfy their customers? The truth is, the brands we are most familiar with do this to us all the time.

Remember the first iPod? It only played music, storage was limited, and the screen wasn’t in color. Look at all the different things your iPod can do now. Apple continues to release new versions of the iPod that promise to be better than the last one. Why? Because people aren’t satisfied with the current versions. They want it to do more, be faster and be more powerful. By continually releasing newer, better updates, Apple builds their brand by making sure you have the latest and greatest version.

This concept isn’t just limited to products. Being election season, surely you’ve seen advertisements for politicians running for office. Politicians are good at playing on dissatisfaction as well. Every commercial talks about how you should be dissatisfied with the other guy because he didn’t follow through on his promises. A vote for the guy in the commercial promises that things will be better. Politicians build their brands by making promises to satisfy the issues that are important to you.

So how can your company use dissatisfaction to build up your brand?
One way is to listen to your customers. What do they want your product to do? How do they think your product can be better? Use your customer’s opinions to improve your product and make it something that people can’t live without.

Another way to use dissatisfaction is to pay attention to your competition. What are they doing that you do better? Do they offer services you aren’t offering? Find out what your competition is doing and promise to be better than them.

Seth Godin said it best on his blog “Great brands are built on dissatisfaction.” Whether you are just starting out or have been in business for years, a key to building a great brand is finding out what it is that people want and making sure you deliver it. Knowing what people are not satisfied with can help you continue to improve and gain customer and brand loyalty.

Do you need help with building your brand? We can help! Contact us today?

Taking a Look at IE9

2010-09-27T13:00:00.003-04:00

Microsoft released a beta version of Internet Explorer 9 a few weeks ago, allowing users to see a preview of what the final product will be. This new browser offers several new features and aims to load websites as quickly and accurately as possible. Anyone with a Windows Vista or Windows 7 OS can download the new IE9 by clicking here.

According to Microsoft, the goal of IE9 is to present web pages faster and make “The sites the star of the show.” There are many features included in IE9 designed to do just that, including a download manager, panel enabling features, and support for HTML 5, the rising standard for multimedia content on the new web. These new features will modernize the Microsoft browser, allowing web developers greater freedom to create rich web applications.

IE9 has a simplistic style similar to Windows 7, allowing the use of the Aero Snap screen-split feature similar to the operating system. It also allows users to pin their favorite websites to the windows 7 taskbar, allowing them to launch them the same way they would launch a web application. The websites are identified in the taskbar by their favicon (the icon you see when typing in an address in your browser).

The full version of IE9 is expected to release fall of 2011. Until then, we can get a preview of the new features IE9 has to offer. Have you downloaded the new IE9? What do you think of it?

How to Turn a Pocket Folder into Marketing Gold

2010-09-21T13:00:00.008-04:00

When you think of pocket folders, you more than likely think about the standard ones that you buy in an office supply store. Those are great for storing important papers, but for marketing they don’t make the cut. Using creative design and printing options, you can turn a pocket folder into a tool that will help you get noticed and be remembered.

Here are just a few examples of how you can turn a simple folder into something that can make a statement for your company.

One Pocket Folders

An effective marketing pocket folder should not be stuffed with tons of inserts, so why do you need two pockets? Instead use the left side to showcase high-level information on what sets your company apart and put the specific information on sell sheets in the pocket. This custom look is simple but makes a great impression.

Brochure Pocket Folders

Take the concept of the one pocket folder to a whole new level by inserting one or more staple bound pages into your folder. This gives a high-end brochure/catalog feel to you piece to provide a wealth of information in an easy to read format while maintaining the versatility of a folder.

DVD/CD Slot Pockets

Folders with special pockets for DVD’s or CD’s are great for storing extra information that you you’re your potential customers to view on their own time. The pockets of these folders are sturdy enough to hold a DVD or CD as well as important papers. There are many different ways you can use this type of folder, and you can even add a small hub where the CD can be mounted to making the entire disk visible.

Tri-fold Folders

You have probably seen a tri-fold brochure before, but did you know that the same concept can be applied to a folder? If you plan on using folders to hold a good amount of papers, but still want a place to show off your company, this is a good option. You get a panel for advertising, but instead of one pocket for papers like the single pocket option, you get 2 for extra storage.

Die Cut Folders
Like many other marketing options; you can create a custom die cut for your folder that will make it really stand out! Die cuts can be used on any type of folder, so get creative and make your folder something that is truly unique!

The printing option you decide to take for your pocket folder will greatly depend on what you plan on using them for. Knowing some of the different printing options can help you make your decision. Do you need someone to design a folder for you? Have questions about which option would work best for you? We can help! Contact us or ask questions in the comments!

The Impact of Google Instant

2010-09-14T13:00:00.005-04:00

A few days ago, Google launched a new feature that allows you to see search results as you type. Have you used it? It’s pretty neat, right? This new feature will surely greatly change the way we use Google.

How does Google Instant work? Using a combination of their auto complete feature and some Ajax code, Google takes what you have typed already and predicts searches based on the most likely completion. This makes searching on Google faster and smarter than ever before.

Along with impacting the way we search the web, Google Instant will also change SEO. Although it’s too early to predict exactly how and what will change, a few predictions can be made that will make SEO more important than ever for companies.

Being on the front page will be even more important
The dynamic results provided by Google Instant will make it less likely for people to search past the first page of Google’s results. Google users will also be able to refine their search results on the fly, so instead of searching through pages of results to find what they want, they’ll be able to narrow down their search much quicker. Top Google rankings will have more value than ever before, so you’ll want to do what you can to get on that first page.

Long tail keywords will become more Important
Since Google users are now able to refine their searches easily, long tail keywords will have more value. For example, if someone in Tampa is looking for a plumber, they may start by typing “plumber” in Google. They’ll instantly see search results for plumbers. If they continue to type the words “in Tampa Florida”, their results will be refined to plumbers in that area. If you were a plumber in Tampa Florida, you would want to make sure that your business is coming up first, right? Adding long tail keywords like the example above will be more important for SEO since results are now dynamic.

People may pay more for keywords
If you currently pay for keywords, you may notice that the price may go up. If long tail search terms become more important, people will be willing to pay a little more to use them to get to the front page. You may need to set aside more money to purchase keywords or rethink the ones you want to purchase.

There’s no doubt that Google Instant is going to greatly impact our search behaviors and the way we do SEO. Although it’s too early to know exactly what the impact will be, it’s important to think about how these changes can affect our marketing efforts.

Is your company is looking to get started with SEO? Want to make sure that you stay ahead of the game? Get our “Guide to Search Engine Success” and start learning all about how to optimize your site through search engines. Click on the button below to get it now!

Web Marketing in a Bad Economy

2010-09-07T16:31:00.003-04:00

Marketing becomes even more important in a bad economy and one of the best ways to market during these times is through the web. Web marketing can deliver during poor economic times because unlike other forms of marketing, the web doesn’t go away. Making changes to your website can really help give your business a marketing edge during a challenging economic time. Below are strategies you can apply to your website to help make it a better marketing tool.

Look through your content
Go to your website and read (don’t skim) the content on your pages. Is it engaging and informative? Is it still relevant? What can be done to make it better?

Start by removing any content that is no longer relevant and rewrite content that seems uninteresting. To make content better and more engaging, you may want to consider using graphs, charts, or videos in place of just basic text. The more informative and engaging your content is, the more likely it will be that a visitor will stick around.

If you’re interested in rewriting some of your pages, but don’t know where to start, our copywriters can help! Contact us for more details.

Check your links
Broken links are very frustrating for users, so make sure all the links on your website are still in working order. If you don’t have a custom 404 page for broken links, create one. This will help give informative information to your visitors instead of just a generic message that may cause them to leave the site.

Another thing to consider is image links. Go through your website and make sure there are no broken images. Fix anything if necessary. Having all links in working order will greatly help user experience.

Make it better for search engines
If you haven’t signed up for Google Webmaster tools yet, create a profile. This tool allows you to submit a site map to Google which helps you learn what you can do to improve your search engine rankings. If you already have your account set up, take the time to review the data provided and make changes that could improve your rankings, which will get you more business.

Need help understanding what this information means. Let us help.

Take a look at the presentation
Does your website look its age? If you’ve had a website up for years, it may be time to give a more modern look. If an entire redesign isn’t in your budget, you can make simple changes to achieve a more modern look. Changing things like fonts, call to action buttons, or breaking up text into smaller paragraphs can greatly help make your site look more attractive to visitors.

Do you need advice on what to change? Just ask.

During bad economic times, it’s important to do whatever you can to market your business. Making a few improvements to your website can help greatly improve your online marketing presence, so take a good look at your website and see what you can do to make it better!

How Computer Upgrades Save Money

2010-08-31T16:26:00.000-04:00

Although upgrading can be expensive, upfront cost, it will save you a lot of money in the long run. The more efficient your equipment is, the more competitive you will be. Upgrading equipment can result in many money saving opportunities which are outlined below.

Faster Equipment
Failing to upgrade your equipment can result in slower machines. This can lead to a loss of productivity, and even delay delivery of your product or service to your client. Having a faster machine will let you do your everyday tasks quicker, resulting in more productivity at the workplace and happier customers.

Better Security
Security hazards are more common with older machines. Up to date computer equipment has the highest level of security features so things like viruses, malware and trojans are less of an issue. Removing these harmful things can cost a lot more than it would have cost to upgrade.

Fewer Compatibility Issues
If you are running outdated software or are using an older version of popular software, you may run into compatibility issues that could cost you time or prevent you from performing tasks altogether. If you are unable to perform a task, it could cost you business. Having the most up to date software makes sure you are getting all the features and benefits of the new program and will help you better work with your customers.

More Energy Efficient
Newer computer equipment can be much more energy efficient, leading to lower electric bills and energy costs. Computers, monitors and servers are being made more energy efficient and can really help you save a lot of money!

Periodically, computer equipment needs to be replaced. Upgrades may be a big one-time expense for, but in the long run, getting upgraded can actually save you money. Take the time to think about what upgrading your equipment could do for you.

Not sure if an upgrade is necessary yet? Want to learn more. Feel free to ask questions in the comments or contact our IT department directly!

Where Does your Website Stand?

2010-08-24T13:00:00.016-04:00

Keeping track of your websites traffic is important. We’ve mentioned Google Analytics in a previous post, but there are lots of other tools available online that allow you to track different statistics that can be useful when promoting your website. Below outlines some popular website tracking tools and explains their uses.

Alexa – www.alexa.com

Alexa offers free traffic metrics, search analytics and demographic information on your website. The more popular your website is, the lower your Alexa ranking number will be. Alexa provides data similar to Google Analytics, but also gives demographic information about the people visiting your site, which can be very helpful in making sure your site is reaching your target market.

Compete – www.compete.com

Compete lets you see how your site matches up to your competition. Simply type in your URL and the URL of one of your competitors and you’ll get a chart of your pageviews compared to the other site as well as a list of both sites popular keywords. Although most of the information is free, some features require you to sign up for a Pro account.

Google AdPlanner - www.google.com/adplanner

Were you planning on advertising on other websites? Then Google AdPlanner is for you. AdPlanner shows you statistics of popular websites so you can determine whether or not it would be worth it for you to advertise there. Stats like number of pageviews, audience interests, and other sites people have visited are all available with AdPlanner and can really help determine whether your site is the right advertising fit.

Biz Information – www.bizinformation.org

This website estimates how much your site is worth based on the number of external links, pages and submissions to social bookmarking sites. Enter in your URL and find out how much you’re worth!

All of the above are great resources to examine how, when and where website traffic is coming from. You can find out information about your site as well as learn how you measure up to competitors.
Are you not sure what all this information means? Need help understanding how to make your site better? We can help! If you have a question, feel free to ask it in the comments or contact us!

ACF Consulting Blog

5 Ways to Improve your LinkedIn Profile Now

Privacy Concerns with Google’s New Search Feature

Business Cards-Small Offline Marketing that Still Packs a Punch

The Keys to Documentation in the Google Age

How to Promote What Makes You Different

Want News? Go to Twitter

Opportunities Abound for Small Business’ to Do Good

4 Ways technology can Help you Save This Holiday Season

Getting your Company On Board with Social Media

ACF Supports Lung Cancer Research with the Free to Breathe 5K

Tampa Bay Business Journal Up and Comers Awards

4 Quick Ways to Improve Customer Service through Your Website

When it’s Time for a Change: Successfully Rebranding your Company

Email Archiving in Office 2010

Notes from MSP University in Miami

What Every Business Should Learn From Steve Jobs

Notes from the Blue Glass SEO Seminar in Tampa

Business Social Media – Insight from the Jeffrey Gitomer Seminar in Tampa

Dangers of Bad Antivirus Software

Social Media 101: Should Kids Take a Course on Social Media?

The Art of Customer Service

Things You May Not Have Known About Facebook

How to Create Raving Fans

Data Loss and the Importance of Offsite Backup

There’s No Such Thing as Multitasking

What Everyone Needs to Know About Phishing

Google+: The Next Big Thing?

Website Redesigns: Things to Consider

What Really Makes a Great Website

3 Simple Ways to Cut Down Business Expenses That you May Not Have Thought About

Making Your Website Defensive

The Affect Colors Can Have on Your Brand

How Linkedin Can Work for You

Browser Usage Stats and Why People are Switching

5 Ways to Have More Fun at Work

What Makes Good Website Navigation

What Makes a Good About Us Page

Simple Ways to Improve Your Website

How to Get More People to Read Your Content

Simple, Easy to Avoid Mistakes that Will Cost You

Free Ways to Promote Your Website

Social Buzz: The New SEO Ranking Factor

5 Blogging Sins

How to Gain Twitter Followers

5 E-Newsletter Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

What Your Customers Expect From Social Media

Create a Marketing Piece that Works

10 Common Website Copywriting Mistakes

Get off the IT Roller Coaster

How to Create a Killer Landing Page

Friday Wrap Up

Our Favorite iPhone Apps

2011: The Year of the Social Butterflies

ACF Recommends: Involver

Friday Wrap Up

The Dollar Redesign Project

Find Us on Yelp!

10 Things Every Website Should Have

ACF Turns 10!

ACF Recommends: Social Media 101 by Chris Brogan

2010 Year in Review

Resolutions for your Website

Throw a Fun Company Party this Holiday Season

Stop Spam Once and For All

How They Work

Why It’s Better

Just Ask the Experts

5 Reasons to Upgrade to Office 2010

Happy Thanksgiving for ACF

Microsoft Stops Shipping Windows XP

Put your Ideas into Action

NYC is Going Cloud

Make Them Feel Exclusive

Why you Should Have a Disaster Recovery Plan

Microsoft Office Installation and Use Rights

Original Equipment Manufacturer

Retail

Volume Licensing

Building your Brand through Dissatisfaction