I’d like to say “hello” to my friends at Girlfriendz – “The Thinking Woman’s Magazine” – which debuted recently in Southern New Jersey.  Girlfriendz is the nation’s only regional magazine devoted exclusively to Baby Boomer women.

What struck me about Issue 2, Volume 1, which is the first issue I saw, was the fact that two of our clients – Linda Kester, President of Institute for Conscious Development, and Frankford Umbrellas – graced the cover of the magazine.

This particular issue even has an article on blogging called “What’s All This Fuss About Jogging? Blogging? Oops. Never Mind…”  Sometimes I think there are more articles on blogging than blogs – it’s such a hot topic.

Glad to see also in this issue there is an interesting, light article entitled Adventures in Mid-Life Dating, written by Jackie Pantaliano, owner of ImPRessions’ public relations firm in Voorhees, NJ.  Jackie is our PR person, and she does a wonderful job.

Good luck with the magazine. 

One of the best films about baseball fantasies is A Field of Dreams. How does it relate to Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?

“If you build it, they will come” is likely the most memorable of all the famous lines in the 1989 movie Field of Dreams starring Kevin Costner. If you’ve spent marketing funds to build a website but are waiting for customers to arrive you’ll understand why the title of this article is “Search Engine Optimization is NOT a Field of Dreams.” Building a website requires planning to address the online marketing objectives of the organization. If objectives have not been defined it is time to do so.

Many of the business owners of small and medium-size companies I’ve spoken with proudly point to their website. Some have wisely allocated marketing dollars with professional site developers to create their online presence but wonder why there are not hundreds or thousands of daily visitors. Others have enjoyed good traffic levels but have not generated much business. If Tiffany’s were to open up a jewelry store deep in the Pinelands of New Jersey or in a densely populated but economically depressed city would it be successful by Tiffany standards? No way!

The same is true of the online world. A site may be state of the art design, but if no one sees it or if those that do are not good prospects the investment is wasted. But in the online world there are tools available so that the owner of any website can attract qualified prospects and measure defined conversions with accuracy.

A fundamental tactic frequently overlooked by small businesses is Search Engine Optimization (SEO). There are thousands of self-proclaimed SEO experts, and there are also articles available from true SEO experts cautioning about do’s and don’ts when selecting your SEO vendor. It isn’t simply keywords and Meta tags. Sound SEO requires planning, attention to detail, and continuous follow up. A guarantee of top rankings should be an alert flag. Unlike the magic formula “If you build it, they will come,” there is no easy, one step SEO solution to get to the top of natural search results.

If you build it, they will NOT come unless the site gives them reason to do so. SEO is important because, if done effectively, marketing tactics such as paid search, Internet yellow pages, local networks, directory submissions and email can be minimized. The visitor WILL arrive because the search engines know the purpose of the site. The purpose of the site is driven by the online marketing objective. So when you plan a website or look to enhance an existing site, rely on trusted professionals for necessary assistance and do your homework. If a site is optimized they WILL come.

Katz/Pierz, founded in 1983, offers employee benefit solutions by focusing on individual insurance products for professionals, business owners and self-employed.  The company specializes in providing cost-effective benefit strategies and integrated technology solutions that help businesses attract and retain good people and improve the bottom line.

Besides featuring updated content and several new areas, the redesigned website utilizes a handful of tools provided by World Wide Web Communications:

• Email this Page to a Friend – this is an excellent addition to the site.  It is called Send-a-Link.  It encourages site visitors to email a page to someone else. While browsing your website visitors click on a button, which appears on every page, and within seconds emails the page to a friend.
• ZipEdit™ Content Manager is a simple and convenient way to edit the content in your website. You do not need to learn HTML or any web design software.  If you have ever used a word processing program, such as MS Word, you can edit your website with ZipEdit™.  The ZipEdit™ Content Manager Component can be used to edit any of the static page content on the website.
• ZipEdit™ Article Manager stores a database of articles with posting and expiration dates, keywords, linked documents, and linked web addresses.  Articles can be assigned to multiple categories and marked as featured to appear on the homepage of your site.  You can specify the order of the featured articles too.  The ZipEdit™ Article Manager also has its own search functionality.  Editing the articles uses the same powerful tools found in ZipEdit™ for a full WYSIWYG experience from a supported browser.  The ZipEdit™ Article Manager also features RSS feeds of content, globally and by category, allowing visitors to subscribe to the content of your website.
• HTML Email Newsletter Template – we designed this for Katz/Pierz, which they are using with a third-party email newsletter system for email blasts to their opt-in list.

Seriously simple web application downforeveryoneorjustme.com answers the question:

“Is my website actually down or is there a problem with my connection to the Internet.”

If you are having a problem accessing your own site, this is a good place to start. Instructions not included, so just type in your domain name and click “or just me.“

Warning Signs
Look down at your desk. Do you see bills, proposals, faxes, memos, and random notebooks? Looking up at your monitor, do you see a desktop filled with icons or inbox containing thousands of emails? Do you store your Word documents on your computer? When you need a document or a piece of information do you have to ask multiple people?

You are not alone. Chances are if your work environment is in this state so is your employees and coworkers.

These conditions are indicative of a company in an information sharing rut.

Symptoms
The symptoms of being in an information sharing rut are loss of time, company knowledge and the inability to quickly react to the needs of your clients.

Cure
Luckily an Information Sharing Rut can be cured with a dose of modern technology. The best cure is a well thought out Intranet, whose primary goal is to share various types of information within teams and organizations. Intranets typically have the following features.

Document Management System
Saving a document into a document management system makes it discoverable and accessible to all members of your team. A few other features available in document management applications are:

• The ability to categorize documents as proposal, plans, specifications, applications or other categories that you define.
• Ability to quickly search for documents using keyword searches.
• Ability for teams to collaborate on documents while maintaining version control.

Shared Calendaring
This allows you to see your co-worker’s schedules. It typically alerts you when your meeting is nearing and allows you to manage and track meeting invitations and disseminate meeting agendas.

Wiki
This is website that is editable by everyone. The most popular wiki is wikipedia. Imagine being able to structure your organization’s knowledge so that every employee can contribute. Wikis are searchable and quickly becoming a popular way to share information.

Blogs
Blogs allow a person to organize and share writings or posts with a public or private audience. Blogs are searchable and allow for categorization of content.

Finally, Information Sharing Ruts waste time, money and energy. An Intranet enables you and your co-workers to quickly find and view the information needed to make timely decisions.