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Admittedly, I would enjoy the standard use of the term ‘nap’ right about now, but here I refer to some industry jargon; a company’s NAP is…
* Name
* Address
* Phone number.
My name is Rich, I’m the guy who looks at most of your websites to help you promote them, and I could really use your NAP.
“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet”– even if you called it a daisy, “that swirly pink thing on the plant over there,” ros, rosa, roos or, in Indonesian, “bunga mawar.” However, if you were searching online for a dozen roses, it would really help if you knew you to call roses by name. Likewise, if you wanted to sell roses, it would really help if you advertised them by name.
Since you’re not promoting rose bouquets, but a service-oriented business, it helps to have a name. Since many of our customers are single-practitioner offices, many use their given name as their business name, but this may still lead to complications. For many of us, we get a name, we stick to it, and maybe we add some titles to it afterwards. But sometimes there are complexities and subtleties to consider.
Security and Your Computer
Protecting your computer from viruses and other malware (malicious software) is absolutely essential if your computer is ever connected to the Internet. Luckily, there are a few simple behaviors you can engage in as a citizen of the Internet to help protect yourself, and there are a number of excellent free options for antivirus software that can help protect your computer and keep your mind at ease!
Update: Since the original posting of this article in 2011, Google has dramatically changed their process for creating listings for businesses. As a result of these changes, we are now unable to create listings for our customers in the Google Places directory. We still strongly urge all business owners to create listings in Google Places (or claim existing ones), and are here to assist you in that process!
Like photos, contact forms and maps, music and videos on your site can be great “enhancer” features. When placing music on a site, you have the option as to whether to have the website automatically play the music, or play the music only when the user clicks the “play” button.
While you should always be looking for ways to make your site more dynamic and engaging, it’s important to be mindful of changes that might provoke a negative reaction. Sometimes, what seems like a good idea at first turns out to be counterproductive. Consider, for instance, some arguments against autoplaying music…
For many of our customers located in densely populated areas, making their business known to potential clients is their greatest challenge.
A practitioner in Grangeville, Idaho is not likely to have direct competition in their area of specialization. However, in San Francisco or Manhattan there are probably hundreds of similar businesses which anyone can choose to patronize. How does a professional get their business noticed among the clamor of online ads/business listings, and advertisements in newspapers/magazines/bus stops?
We are asked quite frequently about “affiliate” programs. As an affiliate, your website can feature items or services for sale which a visitor to the site can purchase, and when any are purchased you receive a small commission. The relationship benefits all parties involved: the company offering the affiliate program receives exposure which doesn’t cost them anything until an item is purchased, you earn a commission on the sale, and your website visitor has found something they might not otherwise have known about.
Many of our website customers do not have a physical office where they see clients. Instead, they give consulting for their services by phone, email, or in online chats. This is referred to as a “virtual office” because it takes place online in the virtual world. Your physical location as well as the location of your customer could be anywhere, as long as both parties have access to a computer with an Internet connection. The professional and client could be in separate countries or even continents.
If you have read our other articles, you know already that your website will be discovered by Google and other search engines automatically. The website will then appear in a list of search results for terms that are in your site. Did you know that you can also get your site to be listed ahead of all of the others in Google and some other search engines, by bidding on ads using Google’s AdWords service? Your ad can be at the very top of results, the first seen of any listing, if you out-bid other advertisers.
So what is Twitter?
Twitter is an interesting social networking service which is a little difficult to define. While it is normally talked about in the same discussions as other social networking sites, it certainly isn’t the same as Facebook or Google+.
