I’d like to also congratulate my new partners – Graphically Speaking, Analytic-OR, and Black Point Marketing & Communications!  We all had a hand in making the Inns of Distinction web site a “site of distinction”!

I got a phone call from a friend a couple weeks ago saying she had heard about the recent addition of secure browsing to Facebook pages.  She had changed her Facebook account to enable it but then discovered that the URL for her page had changed from HTTP:// to HTTPS://.  She already had business cards and other marketing material with a Bit.Ly link to her page and a custom URL (Facebook.Her-Domain) printed on them.  She wondered if she could change them to use the new URL.

I happen to host her site and created the custom Facebook domain so I was able to change that, but Bit.Ly links cannot be edited so she was out of luck.  Because of that she decide to change her Facebook setting to turn off secure browsing.

Yesterday I discovered a couple other reasons why you might not want  to use secure browsing in Facebook.  This Mashable article – http://mashable.com/2011/01/27/facebook-https/ – is about Facebook’s implementation of secure browsing.  The last paragraph talks about how many Facebook applications will not work with secure browsing enabled.  Also, if you enable secure browsing it will slow down your pages since encrypted pages take longer to load.

Facebook’s default login process is secured by encryption to reduce the risk of someone gaining access to an account – you don’t need secure browsing for that.  Secure browsing is intended for people who use Facebook from public networks like libraries or cafes.

My first attempt at connecting my web site to Facebook was a failure.  I was using a plugin for WordPress that asked me to create a Facebook application to connect with.  I did that and it created a page that “looked” like a regular business page.  I eventually found out that although it acted like a business page it was not.  I could not find the page anywhere in Facebook.  The only way I could get to the page was through the configuration settings for the plugin – which produced a horrendous URL.  If I couldn’t find it how would my clients?

After creating a Facebook Business Page for The Wing and successfully using the very same plugin to connect to it from their web site (but in a different way) I knew I had to change something with my own Facebook “page”.  I dumped my old “App” page and created a proper business page.  After reconfiguring my plugin my web site was reconnected and things were working much better.  You can now find “Your Digital Coach” when you search in Facebook and I have a proper Facebook URL to use as a link.

ps – I found a tip to create a custom Facebook URL  – http://facebook.yourdigitalcoach.ca

So, now that I have all that mess straightened out I can get on with trying out some other customizing options.  Stay tuned for more of my mistakes!

Scott

What do you think?

http://actws.com/2010/12/good-reasons-to-acquire-a-digital-coach-for-your-business/

Previous attempts to work in another part of the yard yielded unacceptable screen viewing.  A search for devices to shade my laptop screen was pointless – there doesn’t seem to anything practical available.  I discovered a portion of our deck is shaded pretty much all day.  It makes a very comfortable office. (The Skeeter Vac visible in the distance helps a lot as well)

Today the smell of the Butterfly Bush (to the right in the photo) was very strong, even from 15′ away!

Scott

One of the reasons could be that they have their own web servers and it takes a lot of manpower to keep things running smoothly. To have your own servers means that you have to have a secure climate controlled room to keep all the hardware running safe and cool. You need to have technicians monitoring the equipment to make sure it is running efficiently.

But with so many businesses offering 3rd party web hosting – they own and maintain the servers and rent out space to other businesses that, in turn, re-sell the space – there is little need for small businesses to maintain their own servers.

That’s what Your Digital Coach does. We rent a large amount of space from a 3rd party hosting company at a discount. Then, in turn, we offer it to our customers at a discount. We’re happy because our hosting costs are being covered and our customers are happy because they are paying a fair price for web hosting services.

What do you get when you buy hosting from Your Digital Coach?

This list is very extensive, but I’ll give you the highlights…

• Web hosting provided by one of the world’s top 10 web hosting companies with more than 2,500,000 hosted domains. They have over 400 employees to provide superior around the clock support.
• Access to a very user friendly control panel – cPanel – that allows you to manage your web space, email accounts, software, statistics, and many other features of your web space
• Access to easy to use scripts to install all of the most popular web software such as WordPress, Drupal, shopping carts, forums, and more!  You also have the ability to upgrade many of these programs with just one click.

The biggest difference between many web hosting companies and Your Digital Coach is that we won’t just sell you web space and leave you on your own to try and figure it all out.  We’ll coach you through the steps to set up your very own web site.   We can either help you build your site or we can build it for you.

So, if you are in the market for web hosting, check out our hosting plans.  You will not be disappointed!

Scott

I decided to take my office outside the other day and work in the fresh air for a change. Was I in for a surprise!

I sat at our coffee nook, opened up the laptop and wondered why I couldn’t see anything on the screen. Then I moved closer to the screen and could barely make out the login screen. There was just enough sun coming through the trees that my eyes adjusted for that and made the relatively dim screen even dimmer!

So, I went on an internet hunt to find a solution. I searched for “laptop umbrellas” and found this interesting article…

You can see the post on Free Ideas Space.  It’s definitely an interesting use of, hopefully, an old laptop but not exactly what I was looking for.

I continued that search for a few minutes and found lots of laptop bags that come with regular umbrellas for rainy days, but nothing that I was looking for.

I changed my search terms to “using a laptop outdoors” and had a little better luck.  I found lots of folks talking about the problem of using a laptop with a glossy screen outside, and a few tips.

Thomas N. Burg had this unique, and inexpensive device posted on his blog.  He calls it a “Sunbox”. I’m sure it works well.  I’ll let you decide if you want to  use something like this.

I did find lots of forum and blog posts with people asking the same questions and getting the same answers – move to a shady location (easily done), get a laptop with an anti-glare screen (expensive), put the laptop away and have a beer!  One person did suggest adjusting the screen brightness.  Why didn’t I think of that!?

So I did.  After setting the brightness slider to the maximum level I could see the screen a little better – it was usable.  Unfortunately, setting the screen brighter will draw more power from the battery and reduce how long you can use your laptop without plugging in.

Here is another source I found with some tips for using a laptop in the great outdoors – Web Work Daily

Last month we looked at the web site statistics for two clients. We’ve tried a few inexpensive things since then to see how they would affect the visits to their sites. Well, things are looking up, but we have a long way to go.

Client #1
We didn’t really do all that we hoped to do last month to try to bring in more traffic. I did get his site listed on several web directories that cater to the types of products this client sells, but I had hoped he would have posted updates a little more frequently. Even so, traffic to his site is up by 15% and the number of pages visitors have looked at is up by almost 30%.

I think that regular updates to his site will definitely help to increase traffic, but I’m going to investigate a few other alternatives this month.  I’m sure that as we get closer to the Christmas season traffic will naturally increase as well.

Client #2
So far we’ve just scraped the surface of what we can do with this site.  We’ve been testing some AdWords advertising and have tweaked the keywords on his web pages.  The statistics are not dramatically improved but they do show that we are on the right track.

Visits to the site are actually down about 7% but the number of pages viewed is up by 30%.  So although we aren’t seeing an increase of traffic we are reaching a more focused audience.  They are interested in what the site has to offer and are spending time looking around.  We’re not sure if this increase is translating into conversions to customers, but it is encouraging.  We have to work on some tools to measure conversions.  Hmm….

It’s also encouraging to see that search phrases other than the company name are beginning to show up.  Finally, people that do not know about his company are beginning to visit his site.

We recently changed his Adwords keywords and we will be looking at the daily budget to see if it can be increased.  We’ll also be looking at on-line directories and the possibility of submitting some articles to on-line magazines to further increase visits to his site.

This exercise has been quite interesting to me so far.  I am learning many ways that I can help my clients to market their sites and their products with a little cost as possible.  I’m looking forward to finding new ways to accomplish this.

Stay tuned!

Scott

I was reviewing some site statistics this morning in preparation for a new service I’ll be providing my clients and thought what a great topic for some blog posts!  Some folks don’t even bother looking at their web site statistics, while others may look but do not really understand what the numbers are telling them. Like most statistics there is a certain amount of interpretation that needs to be done to really understand what the numbers mean.

Web sites statistics are extremely valuable and are often overlooked.  Without knowing what is happening with traffic to your site you have know way of measuring the effectiveness of your web marketing strategies.  You may be spending money or time on something that is not helping to drive traffic to your site or increasing visitor to customer conversion rates.  You could be spending more money or time on strategies that do work.

I’ll talk about a couple of my client’s sites to show examples of what I’ve experienced so far.  There has been no internet marketing, to speak of, for either site so these are good “control” numbers.

Client #1
This client’s site is averaging about 1000 unique visitors per month.  That may not sound like much to some people but when you consider this business is in a regional “special interest” market (of probably less than 1000) its not so bad.

When we look at total visits, we see that folks are returning to his site on average about 4 times.  That means there is something about the site that makes them return. We have some good ideas of what it is that brings folks back, but I’m sure there is more that we can do.  We just have to take some time to come up with ideas.

He is happy with the site we’ve built.  He feels his business has increased because of the web site.  We probably could do better though.  I’ll talk to him about some inexpensive (read “free”) ways that he can work with his web site to increase traffic and his customer base.

Client #2
This client’s site is averaging about 2000 unique visitors per month.  His target audience is potentially much bigger so we have some work to do.  We will try some strategies over the next few months to see if we can increase the number of visitors.

Another issue he has is that visitors only come to the site twice each month, on average.  So there either isn’t anything of value there or they’ve found what they are looking for and he has made a sale.  I don’t think his conversion rate is that high though.  So we have more work to do in that area as well.

He would also like to increase sales of a product that he feels could be doing better.  It also happens to be the part of his web site that receives the fewest visitors.  The strategies that we work on will focus on that product.

I’ll be writing more on this topic when I get time, or the inspiration.   I’ll try to use these businesses in future articles so you’ll be able to see what has happened through the strategies we’ve implemented.

I think this is a fascinating topic area and one that I know I have more to learn.

Scott