Friday, October 18, 2013

New Web Sites this Week!





Kelly M. Canary, President has over 15 years experience in HR and Employee Group Benefits

NYS Licensed in Life, Accident & Health
KMC Consulting, Inc specializes in custom benefit packages for small and large group employers. We look at each company's individual needs ...


Schur & Rose PLLC 

located in the lower region of the Adirondack Mountains, has been granted the privilege of handling a variety of litigation matters 
including thousands of Matrimonial matters, Domestic and family matters, Personal Injury, Criminal matters ranging from traffic tickets to murder and while collar crimes, Civil litigation, real estate and estate litigation, and in general litigation all relative to the practice of law....

Aaron Mittler - Entertainer

I spent countless hours carefully choosing the songs on my list. I, of course, want to play the songs people want to hear, but also want to enjoy the songs I am playing.


I wanted my show to be different and to fill the void of songs people love by artists such as the Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, the Moody Blues, Pink Floyd and Jethro Tull....


Adirondack Jim’s Carved Signs

is a home based, part time custom sign carving business located in upstate New York, not far from the pristine Adirondack Mountains. 
My goal is to make original, rustic wood signs of the highest quality and craftsmanship.

I aspire to bring the outdoors to my customers to make their homes, cottages, getaways a place of memories and comfort.

My signs are all hand carved with specialized hand and power tools. I carve free hand and do not rely on any CNC (computer carved) technology.

Advertising Around the Great Sacandaga Lake

Advertising seems to be a bit of a dirty word here on the Great Sacandaga Lake! We spend all this money on an ad, then don't see an increase in our business - or even know if it REALLY worked for us.

Wouldn't is be great if every customer came in and told us how they heard about our special or what made them come in THAT day? Then we would know where to spend our money and what had a good return for us!

I know that most of us are pressed for time, and we generally so what we have always done because those are the people that come and speak with us. HOWEVER, I encourage you to take a look at what you spent on what last year. Then take a look at sales and see if there is a correlation between ads and sales.

Another tool is to look at your web site traffic during the duration of an ad campaign - to see if more people than normal looked at the site. Unfortunately, it is almost impossible to see if traffic converts to sales.

So you are looking at the numbers ... and you are not thrilled with the results..... Now what????

It is possible to come up with a plan and allocate your advertising. Print is expensive, but many tourists - and local people pick up the local papers to see what to do and where to go. You can always downsize your ad to a quarter page and still have a presence in these papers. Consistency is key!

Also - USE your Facebook and Social Networking pages. Make sure to get a QR code that drives people to your web site or Facebook page - THEN UPDATE your pages!!!!

Smart phones have changed the world, and even when using print you need to follow through on your web work.

Facebook allows you to set a daily or lifetime budget for an ad campaign, so you can throw $10 at it and see if it works for you. I did - and it did!

I also found a great publication that has done a REALLY great job for many of my retailers, restaurants and crafters. The Adirondack Explorer. It caters to small businesses like ours, has affordable pricing and hangs around for a long time because there are great articles about hikes to do etc. They also work with an online Almanac called the Adirondack Almanac which is a blog with much traffic. Anyway - if you are looking to speak to people outside our immediate area but still visitors to the park ( And IF you sell anything on line) I encourage you to check out this publication.

SO in recap What should your advertising plan be?


  1. Some AFFORDABLE Print with a QR code (you need repetition, so pick a series of ads rather than just one big one)
  2. Use your Facebook and other social networking. Just take the time once a week to post SOMETHING! A new product, daily specials, an old favorite and pf course PHOTOS!!!! People love looking at pictures. Pick a post and test it with a $10 ad - and see what happens!!!!!
  3. If its appropriate - use an area guide like my VisitSacandaga.com People are using their phones to find info now - be where they can see you!

    My site is a little different than most as the focus is to send them to YOUR web site and social networking rather than keep them on the site. We are up to 30,000 unique visitors/month in our top months and looking at 5,000 Facebook likes by January.


    There are also great seasonal guides put out by the local papers. Since they hang around all season and have web support they may be worth it for you.

  4. What ever you choose, make sure to be consistent and repeat your ads. Look at your traffic and see what works for YOUR business!!!
Good Luck!



Monday, October 7, 2013

All right, What is the difference between a Facebook profile and a Facebook page????



This is a Facebook PAGE
Last week not once but twice I had to explain the difference between a profile and a page… so I thought it may be confusing to others as well!
A Facebook profile is HOW you access Facebook and it is about YOU!  Back before Facebook had pages people would create a profile for their business as well. It requires its own email and password and can ONLY have up to 5,000 friends. (Also this is NOT allowed for your business anymore)
Currently, Facebook allows you to create a PAGE for your band or business. Pages have “Likes” and can have WAY more than 5,000. Multiple people can also administer the page, so if you have a tech savy employee ( or web site designer like me) They can   articles and updates to your page AND you can hide them, add to them and add your own!
Confusion with my customers last week came when they wanted a login and password to their Facebook Business Page. YOU MUST HAVE A PERSONAL PROFILE  account to access your business page. Neither of these customers have a profile and therefore they cannot login directly to the page. This is NOT easy to explain to someone who does not Facebook and I think they may be mad at me.
However – what any Admin can do is add ANYONE who has liked the page as another admin. They must have a profile and a password to do this.
Another interesting thing I found out is that if one admin takes out an ad for a page – only their Credit card – and no one but you can approve a charge! ( they can email results of the ads to you though – AND you can see what’s going on through your insights)
We will talk more about insights and advertising at another time!

Anyway – I hope this clears it up for you – feel free to comment and ask questions. Facebook is fluid and constantly changing, so things may be different in the future!


Monday, September 30, 2013

Deciphering Your Traffic Report







OK, so now you have a traffic report for your web site, but it just looks like a bunch of numbers. What do they mean? How am I really doing???

I grabbed this chart from VisitSacandaga.com this morning so we could take a look.

Every one is always talking about "hits" But honestly, although usually a very impressive number, hits don't REALLY tell you anything.

Hits

A hit generally refers to the number of files downloaded - be it programming files, photos, buttons, text that id really o photo. Lets say the average web page has about 15 of these. SO, in the long run ... hits don't tell us what we want to know, but they do make us feel good about ourselves.

Visitors 

Unique visitors are the statistic we are generally REALLY interested in!This statistic measures every device that has visited your web site - but only once - per month. This gives us an accurate measurement of how many people came to visit each month.

This is also a good one to look at on a daily basis if your are trying advertising. You can look at the stat while you are running an ad and see if your traffic has increased during that time period. This is particularly useful if you have previous years to compare traffic with.

I have been measuring VisitSacandaga.com for years and the data is remarkable. I can see that we spike in traffic every July, and if we have snow on the ground, again in February.You can also see that traffic is at its lowest in September every year. It literally takes a nose dive after Labor day and doesn't really creep back up until Columbus Day. You can view the numbers here: http://www.visitsacandaga.com/report_card.htm 

You can also see that weather plays a huge role in traffic around the Lake. 

For a detailed report on terms and definitions visit the Webalizer's Help Page here:  http://www.webalizer.org/webalizer_help.html

I hope this clears a few things up for you! I encourage you to take the time to look at your traffic report and you may be surprised at the trends it uncovers for you!

Monday, September 16, 2013

Why in the world to I need a domain name, hosting and a web site????

Most of my customers are small businesses who are quite busy trying to run their own shops!

It has come to my attention that portions of the web site design process may be a bit of a mystery, so I thought I would take the time to explain what these things are and why you need them for your web site!


Your Domain Name:


Your domain name is your address - much like the address of your house. In my case it is www.emerydesigns.net. This is where people find you on the world wide web. 

A domain name is in essence leased form a company like TUCOWS. You have to pay for this for the period of the lease (usually every year).

Many people purchase the domain name through their hosting company or their web site designer purchases it for you.


Your Hosting:


Hosting is a server where all your files are stored, much like the property on which your house is built. The files have to exist somewhere so people can visit them. 

There are many companies that provide a hosting service. I strongly recommend Hosting4less.com

This is also a service you purchase generally annually  and usually runs about $150/year. 


Your Web Site:


Your web site is a collection of files (the ones we have placed on the hosting serer). This would be similar to your house itself. 

Your we site designer designs these files with your information on them and that is what people see when they visit your domain name. SOme designers have a monthly fee for service.

I have a one time design fee, then maintenance fees or monthly maintenance programs - depending on how much updating you need! 

For example, many of my restaurants need to change their events every week. I change their web pages, update their social networking and submit the events to the newspaper on their behalf for a monthly fee.

I hope this clears a few things up for you! If you have any questions I would be glad to answer the for you!

-B

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Sport Island Summer Promotions

Usually we design the seasonal promotions in ad format for the web site, but as we are now posting them on Facebook as events, wanted to be able to print out posters, and post them on the web we designed the promotions as poster size.

We were able to use them as page photos on Facebook, and retain the ability for them to be printed out.

We also posted them on the front page at http://www.sportislandpub.com as a flash movie. This catches the viewer's eye so that they actually read the promotion, and is visible on most smartphones now.

Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Welcome to my Emery Designs Blog!

Hello and welcome to my NEW Emery Designs Blog!



At long last, the New Emery Designs Web Site will be posting live this week! I have been being a bit of a perfectionist, but I think we will post anyway and look for feedback from all of you!


Emery Designs is an independently owned small business located in the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains. I specialize in helping small businesses with websites, printed materials, marketing social networking and advertising.

I hope that in the coming weeks I can answer some of your questions about the mysterious world of images, dpi, html, and social networking. I will also be posting pieces of my portfolio! 

I hope you enjoy my work!