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Here's a video designed to walk you through our popular SEO Cheat Sheet. The free SEO cheat sheet and the video will help you learn about many on-page factors that affect

Keywords: internet marketing, online marketing, search engine optimization, seo  |   2 comments

Part 2 of 2 Step Three: Strengthen Credibility & Relationships Over Time This step is where the most important shift has taken place over the past few years. It's a

Keywords: auto-responders, economy, internet marketing, marketing funnel, online marketing, recession  |   2 comments

There's been a fundamental shift in the way people buy products and services. It affects small businesses and mega-brands alike. Sadly, just about everyone is missing it.

Keywords: advertising, economy, internet marketing, marketing, online marketing, recession  |   6 comments

This latest installment to the Spire Marketing Vault shows 3 email marketing examples and explains why each are ineffective. You'll learn 4 things that make an email effective and see live examples of what to avoid.

Keywords: email, email marketing, internet marketing, online marketing  |   1 comments

This week's internet marketing training video explains the concept of a marketing funnel. You'll learn: how to determine if your site is a good fit for a funnel,the 5 components of a marketing funnel, and how to use a funnel to double your results.

Keywords: auto-responders, internet marketing, landing page, marketing funnel, online marketing  |   0 comments

Today's teaching video is created for Spire customers who already have a website powered by SpireCMS. But for those of you who don't it may be helpful to watch and see what's possible. Enjoy!

Keywords: internet marketing, online marketing, spirecms  |   1 comments

Tonight you'll find a new button at the top of most pages on the Spire website. The Google +1 button will allow people to +1 your pages, which will get shared through th

Keywords: google, google+, online marketing, social media  |   0 comments

In March, Google released the "Panda Update" which made significant changes to their search engine algorithm. Changes to Google are always scary. We, and many of our clients get a lot of traffic through organic searches, so you never know what impact changes like these will bring.

Keywords: internet marketing, online marketing, search engine optimization, seo  |   0 comments

Just received an email from a customer. He builds decks, and he wrote: I am trying to get my friends to like and share my website.

Keywords: blog, facebook, online marketing, social media, viral marketing  |   0 comments

Here's an extremely simple example of a pretzel stand using mobile marketing. Every customer who visits their stand has a mobile phone in their pocket.

Keywords: mobile coupons, mobile marketing, mobile web, online marketing  |   4 comments

Are you using Facebook? There's a 65% chance that you -- and your future customer -- would say yes. This thing has been like an avalanche -- slowly, steadily steamrolling

Keywords: facebook, online marketing, social media  |   0 comments

We just completed a research study and the results were a little frightening. We looked at the websites for hundreds of small businesses in our local area, and checked them on 9 costly mistakes that we tend to see people make on their websites. When looking at 3 of the most costly mistakes, we found that 99.6% of local businesses were making at least 1 of these 3 mistakes.

Keywords: auto-responders, internet marketing, online marketing, search engine optimization, seo  |   2 comments

Jason Fried recently had an article in Inc Magazine titled "Why is Business Writing So Awful." A great read that I strongly recommend. We design a lot of business websites each month, and too often, the writing provided by the client can be an afterthought... stuff used to fill an empty space on a page.

Keywords: copy writing, copywriting, online marketing  |   0 comments

Whenever we design a website for a client, we do a lot of search engine optimization work - to help ensure that Google and the other search engines can find the content. However, the structure of the site is only half the battle. Once your site is structured the right way, it's extremely important to get inbound links that point people back to your website.

Keywords: online marketing, search engine optimization, seo  |   0 comments

Planning to promote your company in a Super Bowl commercial? Better make sure your website is ready to handle your offer.

Keywords: advertising, online marketing, television  |   0 comments

We had a full house at this morning's internet marketing seminar in Mansfield! Thanks to the Mansfield Richland Chamber of Commerce for hosting the event and promoting it to their membership.Today's event booked up in under a week and there were more than a dozen people on a waiting list.

Keywords: email marketing, internet marketing, online marketing, search engine optimization, seo, social media, training courses, web marketing  |   3 comments

Before starting our advertising & web design company, I worked in a small company that had a traditional "sales department." This group of sales people literally made phone calls all day long. Many were cold calls - and their rate of failure was very, very high. If the company wanted to increase its sales, it could make incremental increases by finding better sales tactics, OR it could hire another sales rep who -- if they worked hard enough -- would earn their keep while bringing in a little extra. I'm sorry, but I just wouldn't be able to do that. I don't like the idea of calling people who weren't expecting my call, and trying to sell them something they didn't ask to buy. That's why effective marketing is so important to grow a business. You still need to do sales, but the approach is different, and the success rate is much higher. I'll explain, but first let me prove my theory from first hand experience.

Keywords: advertising, marketing, online marketing, sales leads, seminar, web design  |   0 comments

It's official. I'm tag-teaming with my friends at the Mansfield-Richland Area Chamber of Commerce to present an internet marketing seminar at the Mansfield Chamber Conference Room. I'll be presenting three 1-hour presentations on the latest topics like lead generation, online sales, search engine optimization, email marketing & social media.

Keywords: marketing, online marketing, search engine optimization, training courses

Question: "So what is twitter, I signed up tonight, is it just a spin off of myspace and facebook but with a business twist?"

Keywords: mary kay, online marketing, twitter  |   0 comments

Bottom line, if you are paying one or more monthly fees to have a listing on somebody else's website, please consider the three powerful alternatives explained here.

Keywords: advertising, adwords, online marketing, pay per click, ppc, search engine optimization  |   0 comments

Most folks know that to get more revenue out of their customers, they should sell add-on products. However, some well-crafted add-on products not only give you more revenue at the time of the sale -- they practically GUARANTEE that you will get more repeat business.Here's a perfect example.

Keywords: marketing, online marketing, upsell  |   0 comments

Snow Trails Ski Resort opened this weekend for the first time in the 2008-2009 season. It was great to see how they used their new website to promote the opening weekend.Spire launched their new website on November 6. In just five weeks since the launch, the new website has hosted nearly 50,000 visitors, and more than 500,000 pages viewed.

Keywords: blog, email marketing, mansfield ohio website design, online marketing, snow trails, web 2.0  |   0 comments

Imagine if you could walk up to the prospective customers who are looking at your company's website and ask if they're ready to buy. What would they tell you? In fact, if you asked every website visitor -- how many do you think would be ready to buy your products or services right now... today... right on the spot? If you're selling expensive products or services, it's probably no more than 3%. So what are you going to do with the 97% who "walk out" of your "online store" without making a decision to buy?

Keywords: auto-responders, email marketing, online marketing  |   1 comments

We've been working with the inventor of a North Carolina-based golf swing trainer since we designed & launched his website last Spring.We started assisting with marketing strategy late this summer, and while we had some early challenges, a lot of good things are finally starting to come together. Here's what we're doing:

Keywords: advertising, adwords, landing page, online marketing, optimization, pay per click, ppc  |   0 comments

If you are a member of the Ashland or Mansfield Chamber of Commerce, you will be receiving our new postcard sometime this week...

Keywords: advertising, chamber of commerce, cms, content management system, local businesses, online marketing  |   0 comments

I've been aware of Twitter for a while, but have never been terribly impressed. Cool for personal use, but businesses are raving about it being the next big thing, and I've just never seen the marketing benefit to using it.

Keywords: online marketing, social media, twitter, web 2.0  |   0 comments