Dear
Friend,
This last month, my husband and I took all four of our kids (triplet
12 year olds and a 20 year old) to pay homage to "The
Mouse" at Disney World in Orlando, Florida. I've come back
refreshed and ready to share some great new reviews and
information with you.
Best Regards,
Nancy McCord
Graphic Electric Inc. Moves
to the Web
We've
just finished a new website
for the friendly folks at Graphic
Electric in Beltsville, Maryland.
The website uses Dreamweaver's AJAX search
engine friendly "fly out" navigation and include several
Flash slide shows of project photos. You'll find the show on the industrial
laundry services page interesting. The before and after pictures
give you a wonderful idea of
the scope of several of their projects. Slide shows of this nature
are wonderful ways to visually communicate the type of work that
a company does and these shows help prospects to realize that no
job is too large or too small for this regional electrical contractor.
With 99% of all images on the website coming
from their project portfolio and not stock
photos, readers will really get a feeling
for the type of services this business provides.
The site consists of 14 pages but looks and
feels like more by utilizing anchors within
the text which are then incorporated into
the navigation and site map.
We have created all the content for the website
with the help and oversight of the business
owner Randy Turco. The content is informative
and based on the services that they provide.
We invite you to click in to check out this
newly completed website even if you are not
looking for an electrician. You can visit
the site online at www.GraphicElectric.net.
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Facebook Advertising Reviewed: Is It Worth the Money?
Facebook is all the rage on the Web. It has massive exposure,
excellent reach and has been
widely embraced by nearly every
age group.
Sounds like the
perfect place then to advertise
your products or services,
right? Well, this last month
I started advertising on Facebook
as a test in preparation for
this article and I am here
to say that for branding and
name recognition Facebook may be
great, but for clients who
want sales and conversions,
Facebook will not generate
the results that Google AdWords
will for the same amount of
money.
Here's what I experienced in about a two week period:
| Platform |
Impressions |
Clicks |
Spend |
Conversions |
| Facebook |
11,346 |
127 |
$46.98 |
0 |
| AdWords |
6,839 |
95 |
$53.64 |
1 |
I received strong impressions and lots of clicks but no conversions and
no phone calls from my Facebook advertising program. In
the same time period I had one conversion which was a "live" customer
that I then spoke to by telephone.
Don't just trust just my results on Facebook advertising performance, Proctor
& Gamble pulled their Facebook advertising
program on Crest Whitestrips for some of the same reasons.
Seems to me that social networking may have the reach
and audience, but Facebook has just not figured out the
winning formula that brings sales to advertisers yet.
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Microsoft Releases a New Search Engine Called Bing
During
the first week of June Microsoft released their newest search engine
name Bing. In fact if you use FireFox, you've
been exposed to Bing fairly
early as this is the default
search engine and opening page
for Firefox.
I took Bing
for a test drive recently and
I have to say that I think
that Microsoft has a winner.
There are some new developments
in their new engine that Google
is sure to imitate in the weeks
and months to come, but here are
a few of the top features that
I noticed and liked that are
really unique to Bing.
1. Bing has a very polished look and feel. It has a nice graphic
at the top left and very soothing
gray color tones for the header.
It has an excellent look, much
cleaner and simpler than even
Google - very classy in appeal.
2. Mouse over any website in the search results and look to the
right where there is a line
and orange ball. Mouse over
the ball to see a synopsis
of the website, links to content
from the website's navigation
(like Google SiteLinks, but
is included for every website
in the results not just top
sites as on Google.com). Additionally,
you will see a phone number
and address for the site in
the box that pops up. Microsoft
must be pulling this information
from their local search engine
or from the website's content.
Personally this is one of the
nicest and newest features
that I have seen.
3. The placement algorithm appears to have been fine tuned. This
is good news for search users.
4. Bing uses a colored box at the top to show three sponsored
advertising ads above the organic
content. This is the standard
that Google has created that
we have all become used to
and Microsoft has embraced
it with Bing. Bing uses this
same block of color to highlight
the ads, but in a more sophisticated
sandy, vanilla colored color
scheme.
5. Bing will pay you Bling. If you use Bing you can get cash back
when you use PayPal for your
purchases. You'll need a Live
account with a hotmail.com,
Live.com, or MSN.com ending
to open up your account first.
To see this log in and then
at the top right click the
drop down "Extras" and then
"Your Cash Back Account". If
you use the Bing cash back
center to do a shopping search,
and then buy using PayPal,
Bing will pay you cash back
about 60 days after the purchase.
Or you can just simply use
Bing.com and buy from a site
that shoes the gold dollar
sign in a circle which is the
Bing cash back icon. 
It is
simple! Cash back amounts are
determined by the store and
vary by store and product,
but who doesn't love to get
cash back? It is an excellent
concept that seems just right
for today's economic environment.
My overall feeling about Microsoft's new search engine is very
positive. They have innovated
the typical search engine,
tied in the community, and
with the Bing Bling (my name
for their cash back program)
they have found a very cool
way to encourage users to utilize
Bing.com for their online shopping
searches and purchases.
In fact, I believe that Google will make an effort to imitate
the mouse over address link
feature as this is a very hot
item. Now if Microsoft could
only get some more market share
for their engine that would
have a very viable Google alternative
that truly has a different
look and feel. I understand
that Microsoft and Yahoo are
talking again about Microsoft
buying up Yahoo. This may be
just the real boost to become
a contender to Google.com that
Microsoft really needs. They've
built a very cool search platform,
now let's see if people will
come to use it.
To find about more about the Bing
Bling or cash back program you
can visit the FAQ page online.
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