Running A Website in a Vacuum Sucks

I’ve just finished going through the entire database of my Vancouver Island tourism directory at http://www.Vingo.ca. I made some changes to the ranking criteria and had to ensure everyone’s details were correct to keep things fair and just. The database contains over 650 websites, all based on Vancouver Island, with a tourism, shopping or services theme. Some of the sites have been listed with us as far back as 2007, and strangely enough, some of them look like they haven’t been updated since that time either.

I shouldn’t say I was horrified, but I was certainly surprised to see how few of these websites are incorporating social media into their sites. Of those 650 sites, only 56 of them use Facebook groups or pages and 49 have links to their Twitter accounts. And this is in a tourism-based economy struggling with recession and a strong Canadian dollar. Modern marketers all know that social media is a cheap and easy way to connect and create a dialogue with existing and potential customers.

Another statistic I found surprising was how few of these websites use and maintain a links page, fewer than 40% of the sites I visited were using the tool and fewer still keep that links page current. I realize that blind link trading is no longer effective in the SEO and SEM worlds, however living and working in an online vacuum is not the way to maximize your return on investment. Maintaining relevant link trades and providing your site with some placement and perspective within your local business context is key to success on the World Wide Web

Guerilla Marketing Your Small Local Business

The successful promotion of a small local business takes either a lot of ingenuity or a lot of money, and sometimes both. Getting your brand out, no matter what product or service you’re offering your local community, takes a measured, considered and holistic approach that is not always easy to control.

Obviously your website is going to be a vital part of your campaign, but its importance and cost will depend on your product and your market. Will it be a two page online ‘pamphlet’ or a $5000.00 E-Commerce juggernaut? How you promote that website is the subject for another article, however Craigslist is one cheap way to advertise online, as is Kijij and the Used-InsertTownHere.com family of online classified sites. Other local directories and classifieds abound, and you should explore their availability in your area.

My particular one-man service business has a vast territory, upwards of 100-150 km in any direction, and as a result, I do a lot of driving. Advertising on my vehicle was a great way to reach a high number of people for a relatively low cost. I paid about $500.00 to get my car emblazoned with my logo and contact info. I spend more than that per month for a small 2 square inch classified ad in our local daily newspaper, (also a crucial spoke in my promotional campaign) however, my vehicle advertising travels with me everywhere I go.

Highway signs are another low cost, high visibility advertising opportunity. I’m not talking about the huge billboards that few of us can afford, but the small, 2 to 4 square foot signs you see on trees and hydro poles up and down the roadways. My rural district attracts signage by local businesses advertising their firewood, well drilling, tree topping and electrolysis services, and often you will find a cluster of signs around a crossroads or other landmark. Get yours printed on weather-resistant core-plast and keep them simple. People can’t read many details while zooming by at 80 km. The cost can be as little as $10.00-$20.00 each, which is a great return on investment.

You might not get away with nailing a sign to a tree or hydro pole in the middle of the city, but the higher amount of pedestrian traffic lends itself to postering. I learned the art of postering 20 years ago as a young musician when it was the tried and true method of advertising a gig. The downside of posters are their fleeting nature, city crews tend to remove them within days of you putting them up, and there tends to be lots of competition However, you can still manage a big impact in a short time because of the high, street-level visibility and the low low cost.

These are challenging times for small business, and you have to be tenacious and creative if you want yours to be successful. Every and any angle that can give you a leg up on your company’s branding and visibility is worth a look.

So You Bought a New Mac, Now What?

Congratulations, you’re one of the approximately three million lucky so and so’s who got a new Apple computer so far this year. It’s agreed, that sleek aluminum unibody looks gorgeous on your desk, but now that it’s out of the box, are you getting the most out of your new computer?

For those of you ready to dive in but just need a gentle nudge in the right direction, here are the first five things you should know about your Apple computer.

Menu Bar

Across the top of every screen lies the menu bar. It has consistencies across every application and is the key to the functionality of your system and commands. Ever-present in the top left corner is the Apple Menu, a drop down menu which holds root level commands over your basic system preferences. The Apple Menu contains some handy day to day operations, including force quit, software update, and a shortcut to your 10 most recent documents and applications.

To the right of the Apple is the active application preferences menu and next to that is a file menu (open, save, print etc.) edit menu (cut, copy, paste) a number of app-specific menus, (bookmarks, view, share,) and finally the help menu. It’s comforting to know that whatever program you happen to be using, the basic navigation is essentially the same. From the right side you can expect to see your Spotlight icon, active user name, keyboard language, clock, speaker volume, Bluetooth, Time Machine and various other icons.


Dock and Dashboard

The Dock is the graphical panel that shows your currently open and chosen favourite applications. You can customize the dock to sit on the left, bottom or right of your screen, or disappear altogether and reappear with the scroll of the mouse.

The Dashboard also lives in the dock and contains various handy tools and widgets such as calculators, weather reports, dictionaries and stock-tickers at the click of a button. There are hundreds of fun and/or useful little apps available for download at the Apple site.

Spotlight

This is the blazing fast and ultra-thorough search tool that appears at the uppermost right corner of your screen. It indexes every character in your entire home folder and can find not only files, folders and applications that match your search term, but also documents, web pages and emails that contain that term. It’ll also display exactly where in your home folder said document resides.

Time Machine

It’s true, sometimes bad things happen to good computers, and if something in your computer is going to fail, chances are it’ll be your hard drive. Time Machine is the built in, automatic back-up tool that can prevent that sinking feeling you get when you realize your computer has died, taking with it your family photos, music collection, masters thesis or client database. Simply attach external hard drive and never think of it again.

Viruses

The actual science on this matter is misunderstood. Apple quite rightly claims that its computers are immune to all viruses that infect PC’s. However that doesn’t mean there aren’t malicious files out there that can affect the Apple OS. True, the Unix platform on which the operating system is based is more robust and secure, but immunity to malware simply does not exist. The short answer is that yes, Mac computers can be susceptible to various non-PC based viruses. Anecdotally speaking, neither I, nor anyone I’ve ever met, has ever (knowingly) suffered from a computer virus.

In the future we will explore some more indepth features of your Apple computer. For now, the most important lesson to learn is that, short of physically breaking it, there’s not much you can do to ruin your new computer, As long as you keep your data safe, you can feel free to explore your Mac system, change the settings and layout to your specific needs and comforts without fear. Enjoy.