Archive for the ‘Blog’ Category

Carts, Carts, and Carts!

By flyingforms on February 10, 2012 | Category: Blog,Online Store,Revenue,Shopping Cart | Tags: cart, membership software, non-profit, online store, shopping cart |

This last year has been an amazing adventure in testing and developing with a variety of online shopping carts. If you’ve ever purchased anything online it most likely was through a shopping cart on a web site. And it would be just like the internet to create a question from another question as in, is a Shopping Cart a web site or part of a website?

Sorry to underwhelm you with what you probably already guessed or knew; a Shopping Cart can be either an entire web site or just part of a web site. Some software is designed to provide everything you need for an entire online store including regular web pages, blogs and the cart features. Other software “integrates” into your web site or blog and adds cart features. And of course some carts are hosted in the “Cloud” (BigCommerce) and others live on your web site hosts (self-hosted).

In the following weeks I’m going to give my evaluation of the carts I’ve been exposed to in the last twelve months which include Interspire Shopping Cart, various WordPress carts, Big Commerce, OpenCart, PrestaShop and XCart and WildApricot (which is Cloud-based Membership software with a cart feature). Some are free, others have a fixed one-time fee, and others are annual subscriptions.

Stay tuned as picking the right cart or software for your needs is the first BIG decision you’ll make about your online store.

Apple Computer and Chinese Factory Workers

By flyingforms on January 7, 2012 | Category: Blog | Tags: Apple Computer, China, chinese factory worker, factory, IPAD, IPHONE, manufacturing in China, Steve Jobs |

This morning on This American Life, the radio story focused exclusively on the working conditions at Apple manufacturing plants in China.

Please note: Your author has just, as in December 26th, 2011, availed herself of a used first generation IPAD satisfying two years of continuous longing and CraigsList doodling for that device. And let me add, that I am wholly satisfied with my acquisition. (1st Generation IPAD, 64 gig and WiFi)

I only share that factoid to establish that while I found the story of the workers, from the workers point of view and voice, to be tragic, I am also not a ideological puritan.

However, if you use technology and mostly love it, check out this week’s episode of This American Life. All of our technology we get from China is relevant to this story, not just Apple. It seems the storyteller in this instance is a devote of the late, well technically not late, Mr. Jobs and Apple products. A real #1 Fan, however with a journalist’s integrity and a storyteller’s wit, he went to China and with his translator interviewed Chinese workers at the plants, toured the plants, and reports back to us, the truth of the matter.

Google Explains Why Duplicate Content Hurts Your Rank

By flyingforms on November 12, 2011 | Category: Blog | Tags: canonical, Google, SEO, URL |

You really can’t get it from a better source than Google. I mean, does anyone’s opinion even matter (more of that rant later) besides Google’s when it comes to your web site. This video also includes an explanation and examples of Canonical URL’s, what that means to you and how you can easily correct pages that appear to search engines with different URL’s. An example is some pages may come up as www.mysite.com while others may appear in search results as

http://mysite.com/index.htm.

Google’s Matt Cutts explains it all here. It’s not a new video but the information is still correct and current.

Web Marketing: It starts when you call

By flyingforms on September 10, 2011 | Category: Blog | Tags: Advertising, Blog, Marketing |

It’s easier to do nothing than to do something. This is as true for marketing your web site, as it is for other “new” activities you may embrace. Like going on a diet, you can expect results if you follow the “plan.” This is true, if not overly simplistic, for marketing your site. What holds many business owners back from forming a relationship with a web marketing consultant is being unclear about the specific results they want to achieve.

Of course the bottom line is “I want to generate more revenue.” But on the internet, revenue comes in different ways and if you provide a service, rather than a product people can order, the results are not necessarily as instant or as obvious, but they are just as real.

The first two things you need to determine is your budget and your goals. We can help with the goals by asking a few simple questions, and perhaps some follow-ups depending on your answers.

Do you want the phone to ring more often, get more leads, touch your contacts more often, sell more products, build relationships for future sales/service appointments?

Give me a call and we’ll talk. There is no charge to call and if nothing else, you’ll be thinking about where you want to go, who you want to connect with and what you will need to gather to arrive at your “destination.”

971-409-3832

How Marketing Companies Fail Their Clients

By flyingforms on May 21, 2011 | Category: Blog | Tags: Advertising, Blog, Facebook, Marketing |

Ok, not all marketing companies fail their clients. I admit it, BUT, let me give you a real-life example.

Company A provides print, television and radio advertising for their client(s). They see an opening for online marketing and an opportunity to add services to their offerings and increase their revenue.

They advise the company, whose online marketing is being managed by an experienced consultant, to stop everything and they will take care of the rest. They advise the company to stop posting images of their satisfied customers on Facebook. They tell them it’s a bad idea. They (the BIG company) knows best and will provide them with a generic unified message, custom Fan Page, etc.

Why this is misguided at best!

What could possibly be more persuasive than photos of real people proudly displaying their joy at ownership of your product? What is more convincing, a fancy graphic banner promising results, or a photo of your clients or customers with your product?

So why would this happen?

The BIG company can’t provide the photos of every customer leaving your business with your product. In order to extract as much revenue as possible, they will attempt to control every aspect, word and image of your online reputation. Since they can’t provide the on-site, in-the-moment image of your customers, they shut them out. Maybe they will use stock images, purchased to “convey” how satisfied your customers are.

Which would you find more convincing?

Why online marketing must be personal

Sure you could go this route. Hire a company to create the impression of happy customers, but nothing is as powerful on the internet, than real people expressing real happiness and satisfaction about their purchase, or investment. Nothing is as powerful.

Sure we at Flying Forms help our clients plan out and execute online marketing strategies, but we can’t do it all for you. We provide the recipe, the plan. We can even execute most of it for you, online reputation management, set up your custom Facebook Fan Page for your business, and provide you with Search Engine Friendly content for your blog or website. We’ll set up your infrastructure, tutor you, add content for you, post your customer photos, but the ingredients come from you, and from your clients.

The fact remains that you and your customers provide the most powerful content in the form of photos and testimonials, and no third party message will ever be as potent. When you think about getting help for your medium to smallish size company, consider Flying Forms for personal service that takes the time to consider the idiosyncrasies of your business, you and your customers.

And remember flashy doesn’t trump personal. Not on the internet.