 Once you have created your video you will need to make a transcript for it. There are services available that run about $2 a minute or less.
 If you create your own transcript, you should type it into a plain text file.
 Avoid using any special characters since YouTube will be using speech recognition software to match it with your video and add time stamps.
 If there are long pauses in your video use a double line break. These can also be used to mark a new sentence.
 If there is a change in speaker, add a tag like >> to denote the change.
 Here, as in the Video Description, add your URL at the end.
 To add this file to your video go to the Edit section of your video under VIDEO MANAGER.
 Then select CAPTIONS and ADD NEW CAPTIONS OR TRANSCRIPT.
 You want to select Transcript File under TYPE.
 After the file is fully loaded select VIEW to check that everything is working the way you wish.

There are many aspects of search engine rankings that are out of your control so it is important not to miss the areas where a little effort can produce results.

Wikipedia defines an elevator pitch (or elevator speech or elevator statement) as a short summary used to quickly and simply define a product, service, or organization and its value proposition. The name “elevator pitch” reflects the idea that it should be possible to deliver the summary in the time span of an elevator ride, or approximately thirty seconds to two minutes.

The elevator pitch comes in handy for any occasion where a concise presentation is needed. It can be used by a variety of people in business or personal scenarios and may be presented in oral, written, and video formats.

Keep in mind that as your business grows and changes, your pitch will need to also be updated. Your language, approach and what you choose to highlight should reflect these changes. Keep it fresh. Always be prepared to deliver your pitch. You never know when the opportunity will arise. Practice your pitch so it will be delivered smoothly and confidently. The pitch should reflect the passion you have for your business.

Remember the elevator pitch is not a full-blown presentation. It’s an overview and a pitch meant to catch the attention of a potential client and have them asking for more.

One of the biggest determining factors of which route to take is really what you want your clients/customers to be able to do. If you really just want to be able to have your customers easily find your nearest facility or easily find your phone # or email address, then a mobile website seems like a good fit. If you want to leverage the functionality of a smartphone for things such as using the camera, microphone, Bluetooth, or accelerometer, then you’ll most likely need to develop a native application. The benefit of building a native mobile app is that you are no longer confined to the restrictions of a web site, you can really get creative with all of the tools that a smartphone has to offer.

So with my two example companies you might at first think that it would make the most sense to have the doggie hairclip boutique build a small mobile website and the consulting business have a full blown app that can be found and downloaded from an app store. But after learning the needs and vision of those 2 businesses, it could be that the consulting firm really just wants their clients to easily find the contact info for their consultants while the boutique wants to let their customers snap photos of their pets and use a virtual dressing room to see what different accessories would look like on them. So now a mobile website would be perfect for the consulting company and the boutique will really need an app to do everything they want.

Another consideration is that a mobile website can load on all web enabled devices while a mobile app has to be built for each of the major mobile platforms out there (Apple iOS, Google Android, RIM BlackBerry, Windows Phone 7). So it could take some time to get a version of your app into all of the major markets for users to download while a mobile website will start working on all devices as soon as it’s deployed.

In the end you could very easily wind up with both. Starting with a mobile website is a good first step to help you determine the size of your potential app’s user base. By using tools such as Google Analytics, you will be able to see what devices your customers who visit the site use (like Android vs iOS). Having that information will help you determine which mobile platforms to develop an app for and which one to do first.

So like everything else in life, there is no simple answer. But don’t just assume you need one or the other without doing a little research and consulting with the experts!

How can I obtain a QR code reader?

Sounds expensive, doesn’t it? Well it is free! If you have a smartphone, go to the app store and search for a QR code reader. Download the free app onto your smartphone. Run the app and then hold your phone’s camera over a QR code to read it. Most likely the QR code will redirect you to a web page with additional information.

Why do I need additional information?

Knowledge is key! If you scan a QR code you could possibly receive promotions, surveys, special offers and subscriptions with just the click of a button. For example, if you scan a QR code on a package of graham crackers you might get a coupon, a reciepe, nutritional facts…the possibilities are endless. 

QR codes are great marketing tools to share information about your company’s products or services to the public. Nowadays, people do not leave their homes without their smartphone so their handy QR code reader will always be close by. Call AGIS to see how we can help you reach your target audience through a QR code.

SEO for the most part is left to specialized people both inside and outside a company who deal with SEO and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) on a regular basis.  Social Media and Blogs on the other hand can fall into the hands of a wide array of individuals, both experienced and inexperienced in SEO. As with SEO in general, for Social Media and Blogs there is no check list and a best practice today can quickly become obsolete in short time.

That said, one very simple concept that carries across all SEO, and for this example of blogs, is the idea of keywords and keyword phrases. Keywords for this discussion can be thought of as the words or phrases you would expect someone to type into a search query to find the topic you are writing about. The reason to include keywords and keyword phrases is to increase the keyword relevance to search engines for your blog, and therefore your ranking in search engine results

My topic is Blogs and Search Engines so let’s look at what I have included so far, often with multiple references:  Increase Search Engine Visibility; Google, Bing and Yahoo; Search Engine Optimization (SEO);  SEO;  Blog(s);  Search Engine(s);  increasing  links to your site;  page optimization; Social Media;  Search Engine Marketing (SEM);  SEM; keywords; keyword phrases;  search query ; keyword relevance;  ranking in search engine results.

A Blog must be readable and worth reading, but including keywords and keyword phrases will not only make it more relevant to the reader but also more relevant to search engines. So, as you review your blog look for ways to expand an idea, or be specific rather than general, why say results when you can say search engine results? Never use 1 word when 3 will do.

 A few years back, it was popular to have music playing on your website. Quite frankly these days, it’s a sign of being an amateur. 

Following are some things to consider if you think your website really needs music:

Copyright Infringement

Unless you specifically paid for the rights to use the music you are playing on your website, you could potentially be sued. 

It’s Distracting 

Take the scenario of someone working in an office environment with their speakers turned on…they happen upon your website that is playing music; it can be very annoying and distracting to that person and others around them. Besides being distracting, this could very well cause that person to immediately close your website before they even get a chance to see what you have to offer. Remember MySpace? If you do, there‘s a good chance you’ve come across a profile that had some crazy metal music playing and you found yourself either searching frantically for the stop button, or just closed the browser.

People’s Taste Vary

I have a wide variety of taste in music, and one of those is techno. Now granted, I generally like to hear it in a club setting but imagine if I put some techno trance music playing in the background of my website, complete with a hard thumping bass line. While I may think it sounds extremely cool, I’m very likely to annoy, say… my mom, for example. If my mom happened upon a website with techno music playing, she would most likely be frightened or at the very least, be extremely agitated. What you think sounds great, might have just the opposite effect on someone who is really just looking to get at your content, minus the ‘cool’ bass line. 

Clashing Tunes 

Many people are already listening to streaming music while they are surfing the web. If they happen upon your website that is also playing music, the two are going to clash, and never in a good way.

Interferes with Screen Readers

Another huge issue to consider is how visually impaired people access your content. They use screen readers, which actually reads web content to them. If your site has music playing in the background, it can be difficult for them to turn off and may result in a complete interference with their screen reader.

That is a question you may ask yourself everyday, perhaps even multiple times a day.

…is it worth doing this load of laundry now, knowing the kids’ practice clothes will be in the clothes hamper in four hours?

 …is it worth washing the car even though there is rain in the forecast tomorrow?

 …is it worth going to the gym this morning when the entire house needs cleaned and exercise will be obtained via vacuuming and scrubbing floors?

 Okay, maybe these are just the neurotic questions I tend to ask myself as I’m always looking for ways to be more efficient in time management, but you get the point! Does point 1 outweigh point 2? Does it make sense to do A, when you know what lies ahead with B?

In any business, one needs to ask questions and assess information to make good, solid decisions, especially in these volatile economic times. Most decisions directly affect bottom line, and that is where the question of “is it worth it” comes into play. Maybe the questions above aren’t the best to illustrate an “is it worth it” question from a financial standpoint (although with gas so high, daily exercise through cleaning house or jogging the neighborhood may outweigh driving 14 miles roundtrip to the gym and back). Every dollar matters today, and every decision made in business should be viewed from a financial standpoint.

 Take the situation of one of our clients. In the manufacturing sector, they and their peers, including other manufacturers, vendors, OEM’s, etc. participate in several trade shows per year. Trade shows are the perfect venue to display new goods/services, meet and greet customers, clients and prospective customers and clients, hold strategic planning meetings with vendors and distributors and generally speaking, “be seen”!

 But at what “cost” is it worth it to be seen these days?

 I’ve approximated the amounts below for a client’s participation in a recent trade show:

•  Booth space at expo hall: $33,000
• Exhibit company – prep, shipping, set-up/dismantle: $15,000
• Hotel for eight employees (3 nights/each): $5,400
• R/T airfare for eight: $6,000
• Meals, cab/bus fair, other incidentals: $5,000
• Meetings/meals for customers: $8,600
• New shirts for staff: $1,700
• Marketing firm work (i.e. advertising/press; coordination of all hotel, meetings, space, exhibit; correspondence with all staff, sales representatives, hotel staff, banquet managers, etc.): $8,000
• Other miscellaneous (i.e. shipping charges, special signage/printing, etc.): $3,000

 Total: $85,700

 Wow – a lot of ca-ching for three days of exposure! Think about the kinds of things a business could do to gain similar exposure with almost $90,000? That kind of money buys a lot of print advertising in trade journals and magazines. It would also buy a company a lot of air time on regional radio stations. A new website with all the bells and whistles, plus a mobile website for smartphone using customers? There is a good chance $90,000 would cover it! How about engaging the company in a new internet marketing plan, including SEO, PPC and a social media plan to go with? With $90,000 they’d be off to a great start!

 Now this article isn’t to knock trade shows as there is a lot of marketing benefit from gathering with peers, competitors and customers who are all like-minded in their business goals and who can share ideas, thoughts and product innovations. Instead, the point of this blog is to pose the question as you ponder business decisions for 2012…

 Is it Worth It?!

Call the internet marketing experts at AGIS for information and a quote (and yes…we do trade shows, too!)

To build trust you must first gain permission to communicate with your potentials clients. Here are a couple of ideas how do connect/educate and build a relationship with your clients.

1. Offer Subscriptions
2. Ask them to sign up on your email list
3. Blog Readership
4. White Paper Downloads
5. Helpful Tools
6. Twitter/Facebook/Social site engagement
7. RSS Subscriptions

Six steps to building that longer term relationship.

1. Ask for permission
2. Create stepping stones
3. Make your customers successful at something i.e. makeing a sale or increasing click through rates
4. Segment and treat them special. Give them something of value the can’t get anywhere else
5. Provide learning content
6. Be respectful of peoples time

If you focus on longer term relationship vs the One Night Stands you will win in the long run and gain repeat business.

The first thing I try to tell a customer is imagine taking all the words and phrases in your copy or links from your home page (the most important page to a Search Engine), jumble them all around, then reading  this mish- mash, can you determine what your site is about? Also, if you throw out all the generic words that could apply to most things or most any site, is there anything left?

How does SEO Optimizing help with this aspect of your site? SEO Optimizing starts by adding or improving your; Head Tags, Links, Titles, Descriptions and Copy.

Take the example above. Let’s assume after SEO Optimizing your copy is either good or with some minor tweaking has been improved. You should now have at least some descriptive Keywords and Phrases that help explain what your site is about. SEO Optimizing of your copy has likely increased the density of important words of phrases, so highlight those in your mind.

With your Meta Descriptions added or improved, you can now highlight, or highlight more, those words or phrases that are also in the Description. Same goes for the Title. Now, highlight further anything that is a Link or with a List Tag and strongly increase anything included in a Head Tag.

Throw out the words with no highlighting and rank the rest based on the weight of the highlighting. What you have left is simple example of what a Search Engine will take away from your site. Chances are if you do this before SEO Optimizing and then after you will see a vast improvement in your rankings for Keywords and Phrases important to you, from seemingly minor adjustments.

As luck would have it for you, AG Information Systems has a wide variety of plans from Basic to Advanced. Check out AG Information Systems‘ SEO page and request more information. With so many sites dependent on Search Engines for 75% or more of their traffic, can you really afford to let your competitors rank above you?

Although Helm has a nice easy section called Multi-Recipient Addresses, it won’t allow Forwards from an ACTIVE email account. This is set-up for outside senders who might email support@ or marketing@ so that those emails could go to various people in the organization without having to set up email accounts under those names or for deleted accounts of people who may have left the organization.

This is also how we will trick Helm into allowing us to Forward to Multiple Addresses for a temporary period when we might not want to delete the actual email account, say if someone was out on extended leave or a long vacation. 

First we set up a Multi-Recipient Addresses Forward for a non-existent email account say IAmAway@MyCompany.com. The @MyCompany.com must be your email domain name. Have the IAmAway@MyCompany.com Forward to the addresses you wish, for example we will use bob@MyCompany.com and jim@aol.com. Notice that the Forward from has to contain your domain but the Forward to could be to any email account. Then just go to the active account you wish to have the Forwards coming from, say jane@MyCompany.com and initiate a Forward to IAmAway@MyCompany.com.  

Now when an email comes to jane@MyCompany.com it will Forward to IAmAway@MyCompany.com which will then trigger the 2^nd Forward to bob@MyCompany.com and jim@aol.com.

It seems like a lot of effort and extra work, I agree, but that is the easiest way to Forward automatically from one active email account to multiple accounts. Don’t ask me why it doesn’t allow for it without these extra steps. 

Contact helpdesk@ag-is.com or go to http://www.ag-is.com/Corporate/Support.aspx if you have a hosting support contract and you need assistance.