Domain Emails

Importance of a Domain Specific Email Address

By Shannan DuShane

November 20, 2012

While maintaining an email address is a common business practice, maintaining a professional business email address is another drill to tackle.  I’ve been in the web/marketing industry for more than 7 years and I can’t tell you how many professionals that comes along and use a Gmail account or a Yahoo account for their business.  There is no credibility or integrity in a non-domain email address if you are representing a professional organization; that is just a fact.

An email address that is domain specific; for instance shannan@jemcologics.com instead of shannan@gmail.com, presents a professional image of who you are and who you represent.  A generic webmail service like Yahoo, Hotmail, Gmail and others present a substandard and an amateur persona, where the domain name version tells people you are more serious about what you do and authenticates that you are a real business and can be held liable for your actions.

Business’ and organizations needs to take business seriously and let your audience know that you can be trusted. Domain specific email addresses are low cost and easy to maintain, but email addresses are just the beginning, the other factor is to make sure that the signature attached to your email address is business professional and represents your organization with the vision you expect to reach.

 If you need to start somewhere feel free to contact me at marketing@jemcologics.com and take advantage of the coupon below.

Shannan DuShane is the Marketing Director for the past 12 years. She is a social strategist, marketing enthusiast, internet specialist, and networking fanatic. You can normally find Shannan at numerous local networking events and conventions, or in the office working diligently. 

Feel free to connect on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+.  

The Hype on SMO

What is all the Hype?

By Shannan DuShane

November 18, 2012

 

I recently received an email blast from a well-known national company that focuses mainly in domain names and site hosting; they were advertising such services as search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine submission (SES).  While that is all good and well, when I looked closer they were actually trying to sell social media account creation as search engine submission. I will tell you straight out that there is no such thing.  They are tricking the common business person with no knowledge of search engine optimization and submission.   Now you can optimize your social media accounts, but not necessarily submit them as under normal circumstances for a website pertaining to Google, Yahoo, Bing, ect.  The process I am referring to is termed creating an account to a specific social media platform and optimizing that account; but you cannot just submit your website to a social media platform (ie: Facebook, Twitter, Blog, ect), so do not fall for the hype.

When we talk about submitting a website, we are submitting the domain name or URL to Google and the other worldwide search engines; while the process of submission is simple the process of optimizing takes three abilities 1. Time 2. Talent and 3. Technology; all which are not free and to receive real and measurable results you need to hire a professional, even if only for a consultation.

A quick note on social media and optimization and the implication is that when your page is shared or "liked" by a user on a social network, it counts as a "vote" for that page's quality, so the number of outlets that utilize social media to generate more awareness to heighten the awareness of their brand and products will generate more “likes” and interaction within that page will receive a higher quality score among those specific search engines.   My next post will extend on these thoughts more.

If you allow these companies to supposedly submit you to these accounts; they sign you up for an account and never touch them again, half the battle is to post and interact with you audience and customers – just creating an account gets you nowhere.

A final word – SMO is similar to SEO in that the goal is to generate traffic and awareness, SEO in terms of a website and SMO in terms of your social media account.  You have to create an account with that specific social media platform, keep it up to date and optimize it, if you cannot put time aside or assign this task to someone then don’t start this; you can’t submit it like a traditional website. It is just not possible.

 Shannan DuShane is the Marketing Director for Jemco Logics. She is a social strategist, marketing enthusiast, internet specialist, female entrepreneur and networking fanatic. You can normally find Shannan at numerous local networking events and conventions, or in the office working diligently. Feel free to connect with Shannan on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+.  

Socia Media Marketing Madness



SEO What?

What's the Deal with My SEO?

By Shannan K. DuShane

October 14, 2012

Search engine optimization and search engine marketing are two of the bigger strategies that companies are trying to incorporate into their efforts to rank on Google, Yahoo, MSN; the problem is they are trying to become experts in a field they are so new to and can’t comprehend the importance, and won’t accept some of the methods to become successful that it doesn’t work and in turn they become frustrated.  SEO is a process; it does not produce overnight results and it isn’t a band aid for other marketing strategies that have failed in the past; if you’re not loyal with time management and putting dedicated time aside to work on your website and SEO each week; then just don’t do it at all.  You will become frustrated and your efforts will have gone to waste.

Search engine optimization is meant to heighten your marketing efforts and utilize your services and products to achieve better ranking results.  It won’t help you develop better products and services, this is where many fail, and you need to use it in conjunction with other tools; such as a marketing professional, whom knows the secrets, and that has experience in the field with the understanding of the methods and strategies that work and don’t work; as well as why specific tactics won’t work for different instances. The familiarity of search engine marketing can be quite extensive even if you are a small business. 

Search engine optimization or SEO is the process of implementing a strategy that will escalate your organic positioning in any search engine.  Your websites position is determined by quality content, inbound and outbound links, meta data, title tags and much more.  The tactics that you will implement will highly determine how your pages are ranked. The one mistake many make; doing this once and never coming back, this is a process that you should look at once a month if not more; page rankings can change from day to day; week to week and without constant monitoring you putting your website up for undesired positioning.

An SEO professional will help you understand why we do what we do and discuss your ROI as well as many other things such as monthly reporting.  There are many factors and questions we must ask before we run and jump into an SEO marketing campaign, analyzing your past efforts, what you are currently advertising and where, what if any new products or services are you coming up with, and if you have a brand that is public, are you utilizing social media, who is your target market, and what future audience would you like to target.  I could go on and on, but you get the picture. 

The final thought, do your homework and hire a professional!

Marketing in the 21st Century

21^st Century Websites and the Marketing Behind Them

By Shannan DuShane

November 9, 2012

If you are a business owner and you have a website, what is the one thing you are most concerned about? Most of the time the answer is; it has to be visually stimulating and business functional.  These days you still want those objectives; but you want a company that has a focus on much more than just that; you need a company that focus’ on the entire picture of the design and marketing strategies as a collaboration together.

Websites today have several unique components; from open source management systems to the ability to use ERM software and integration of custom applications.  Sometime the thought of marketing does not even cross their minds until the completion of the website and then it is too late.  Well not too late but if definitely depends on your marketing strategy what you will have to change and implement after the fact into the website to accomplish the goals you have set forward. 

With my clients, I always start with a design and development questionnaire and that includes an in-depth analysis of the marketing strategy; both online and offline, to ensure complete overhaul of the website takes on the same advantage as the company marketing initiative.  Knowing that it is unquestionably lengthy, it is undoubtedly an important necessity in the complete knowledge and understanding of the tactical approach I will take in the concept, design, development and completion of the website.  I take into consideration each factor including their current branding strategies, brand awareness, online marketing, social media efforts, PPC advertising, search engine optimization and search engine marketing; off line marketing and local marketing efforts as well.

While the concept is done and approved, I am researching the company, doing marketing and target audience analysis, and a search engine analysis of where their current position is, if a current Google account is setup and in place with all of the tools such as analytics, places, webmaster tools, ect. Other main objectives I look at would be if there is a sitemap in place and has it been submitted and the cross linking strategy in place. Obviously there are many other factors but I’m not trying to write a book here.

Search engine optimization is one of the most important factors to consider implementing into your new website. While this is a constant items to attend to because organic results are never guaranteed it really depends on your designer/developers ability to understand influences and dynamics of the search engines and what they look for.

Some items you want to take into consideration would be your positive ROI; because this is a long term tactic you will need to set aside a minimum time each week to review and make adjustments.  This marketing investment is a solution that will bring you higher return-on-investments if you keep up on setting time aside and not letting it go.  SEO marketing also increases your brand awareness, this is an important for any company’s long term success to ensure a broad awareness of it brand. Non-stop marketing, just consider the costs of having just one marketing consultant promoting your site online 24hours a day! Now that would be expensive! SEO resolves this issue for your brand, as it never stops nor sleeps.

So many businesses build websites and either assume traffic will just flock to them or find them that they don’t need to pursue any other avenues of marketing.  WRONG! Search Engine Optimization (SEO) makes your website work for the proper rankings and position on the engines.  This will in turn bring you more leads, increased consumer traffic and improved visibility overall.

 

Blogging

Blogging One-0-One By Shannan K. DuShane November 4, 2012

Blogging is more than unbiased writing; it is about knowledge, thoughts, opinions and especially, personal experiences; some that have put you where you are at today.  Through my professional career there have been many learning and educational situations;  some that have taught me that listening, learning and reading from others more experienced allowed me to grow personally and professionally, in real life scenarios unlike anyone could possibly learn in an educational institution.  There are definite do’s and don’ts when you are writing blogs, making sure you are portraying professionalism and a balance of opinions, and depending on if the blog is for a business, individual or politician; you just want to be aware of who your audience is and be prepared to answer to your audience with feedback, and questions of your posts. One of the more important aspects of having a blog is to create a positive engagement of great discussion of information to a group of people; sometimes a specific audience.  Unlike other marketing channels with third party sites, such as social media sites where you have to abide by their rules of what you can and can’t post or advertise or anything else that they want to prohibit. A blog is like a website; you can have your own little piece of the web without any specific rules of engagement. This is where you will be held to a degree of commitment to your audience, but these days’ people love to have discussions and be out in front of people; and sometime not really have anything to say but opinion, but never the less, the entire point is to gain a following that brings the general public into the eye of communicating with you and grow.   Don’t Just Work It….Network It! Shannan DuShane is an independent blogger, marketing specialist and graphic designer in the Grand Rapids area. She is a social media specialist, marketing enthusiast, and network fanatic. Feel free to connect with Shannan on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and Google+