Today, I am excited to announce new features coming to MarkNet Mail in July.  We have received excellent feedback from customers using our email marketing tool.  As our customers rely more on email marketing to get their message out our team is hard at work creating new features.We encourage you to send us any feedback you may have so we can further improve MarkNet Mail.
 
What’s New in MarkNet Mail?

It includes many new features, the most notable of which are:

 • Contact segments to filter contacts across multiple lists
• 20 new industry-specific email template designs
• A new dashboard with better reporting and more help
• A web 2.0 AJAX interface which reduces page loading time
• The ability to choose which custom fields show on the “View Contacts” page
• A read only “View Contact” permission and screen
• Drag-and-drop to create website forms with custom fields
• Sort contacts based on custom fields and remember the sort preference
• Many more…

Be on the lookout for Kalen’s email announcing the updates. 

Thank you for allowing us to service you.

Best regards,

Gina

This is the final installment of my Internet Marketing series. As I come to the end of this series, I realize there is much more I can say to help you succeed. I see the need to write another series in the near future. Search engine optimization is constantly evolving and time consuming. That is why clients hire us. You need to focus on your core business. If you have the time and like spending a lot of time on the web, you can do it yourself and succeed.

This month I will cover link building strategies. How to find high-quality links to your website.This is part five of an article series on the Building Blocks of Search Engine Success. If you want to read the first four articles, you can read them on my blog.To recap, the building blocks of search engine success are:

1. Build a website that is search engine friendly. That means search engines can find your website and capture the content on your site.

2. Identify what search terms people use to find your product or service, then ultimately your website.

3. Identify reputable websites that can link to your website.

4. Analyze results and revisit the first three building blocks.

What are incoming links?

An incoming link is a link from another website that is pointing to your web page. When someone clicks on the link from another page they are redirected to your web page. Building high-quality incoming links to your website requires patience, but the rewards are excellent. There is a distinction between high-quality and low-quality links. Low-quality links may actually hurt your search engine rankings.

Search engines like popular web pages that have a natural link structure. So how do you get high-quality inbound links?

1. Find links from authoritative pages. Pages that are considered important and rank high in Google. If you are using directories, include sites like Yahoo and DMOZ.

2. Find pages that match the topic of your web page. When I write an article on how Business Coaching has helped my business and I link to Jim Reilly’s business coaching site, that is on topic. I If on that page I link to my hairdressers’ site, that is off topic. Google notices the difference.

3. Do not add your page to link farms. Those are pages that have 300 links on one page with no relevance. These links will actually hurt your rankings.

4. Find links from web pages that rank high on the search engines.

5. Be consistent in the format of your incoming link. For example, always use the same URL - http://www.marknetgroup.com/ or marknetgroup.com. If someone is writing about you, you may request of them “If you point to my website, please structure the link in this manner”.

6. Get links for both your home page and sub pages on your website.

7. Do not get involved with link exchange strategies. They may actually hurt your rankings.

8. Create great content that is worthy of links.

9. Start with the top directories. They are:

http://dir.yahoo.com/
http://dmoz.org/
http://wowdirectory.com/
http://www.botw.org/

10. Write articles that link to your website.

11. Participate in Forums and add your website to your signature line.

The most important thing to remember is that you want topical links from reputable websites. If you want people to link to your website you need quality content on your website. If you are not a great writer, then hire someone to help you edit your content. I highly recommend my editor, Anne Marie Parish. She can be found at http://www.amparish.com/. There you go, Anne Marie just got a high-quality link to her website.

Share your success stories by commenting on my blog. Good luck with your rankings…give us a call if you want to achieve high search engine rankings.

Greetings Everyone,

Its been a little while since I’ve written here, and changes are ever transpiring here at MarkNet Group. Permit me to update you on some of those changes.

Last I wrote, I shared that we were evaluating CMS (Content Management System) solutions to build custom web sites and applications for our current and future customer base. I’m quite pleased to disclose that our testing phase has progressed excellently. We have actually converted our website here. The conversion went quite nicely, and our developers were able to redevelop the site with relative ease while also keeping the current site active.

I’m being redundant by reiterating that the web and internet are in a constant state of change. We as a web hosting, Web Design and Programing company must continually evaluate and possibly change with the web and internet if we are to survive and continue to provide quality support and services to our customers. This is one of the reasons why, we are evaluating CMS solutions.

Another Change you will be noticing is the streamlining of our billing process and hosting management. This Web Application will enable our end users to manage their billing invoices, their hosting packages and their Domain names. However, this hosting management is not intended to supplant our customer service and our management of the customer’s domain. This is merely intended to supplement our web hosting and web management services to the customer. Enabling them - should they want, to manage and handle their web presence. The software enables us to better manage and serve our customers and help us serve a larger audience base. We hope to have Hosting and billing management service running within the month. We are excited about this!

Finally - a more recent change. We will be offering another hosting package! This hosting package is aimed at the budget sector. It does not boast an exorbitant amount of data storage or bandwidth, this is a low budget solution that will help you establish the beginning of your web presence. An ideal scenario for this hosting solution could be a local restaurant. A local restaurant may not have the customer base as a franchise restaurant, so the traffic and visitors to the site will be smaller. However - we are living in what has been termed the “Information Age”. Never before has so much information been so available to the public, with the web and internet being a massive facilitator in this. Information is key. A local restaurant can empower and win future customers by having a website, displaying information specific to its business. Examples would be - let future customers know where you are located, provide them your contact info, what your menu is, what the ambiance of your restaurant is like, let them know if you do any catering or hosting of events, join listing groups, etc etc. I see endless possibilities! The internet and web are a tool, that can be powerful when wielded effectively. Instead of having to take your time and resources to learn how to wield and effectively capture the capabilities of the internet, allow us to do that for you. My personal goal is to help you become successful. We are a service orientated business, operating on cause and effect. If I can help you and your business become successful using the tools of the web - then in turn I will become successful.

This is our goal with the new hosting package. We hope it is a stepping stone to your success.

We are nearing the end of my Internet Marketing article series and I am eager to hear your search engine success stories.  In last month’s Internet Marketing article, I explained how to select your keywords.  This month I show you where to place the keywords. 

This is part four of an article series on the Building Blocks of Search Engine Success.

To recap, the building blocks of search engine success are:

1. Build a website that is search engine friendly. That means search engines can find your website and capture the content on your site.

2. Identify what search terms people use to find your product or service and ultimately your website.

3. Identify reputable websites that can link to your website.

4. Analyze results and revisit the first three building blocks.

I should note that this article may contain some website building language that is unfamiliar to you.  If you are unfamiliar with these terms, contact a professional developer to add your keywords.

Keyword Placement

You will have search engine success if you follow all of the tips I shared in the previous three articles.

Focus

Focus on no more than three keywords for each page of your website.  If you have 15 keywords it is very difficult to place all of the keywords in the areas I list below.  For example, if you sell office supplies and copy machines, you want a page just for your copy machines. On that page you optimize your copy machine keywords only.

Title Tags

The most important location to place the keywords is within your title tag. The words in your title tag tell the search engines what your website is about.  I recommend placing your most important keywords in your title tag.  Avoid using a title tag such as “About Us”.  No one is going to type “About Us” into Google when searching for your product. 

Here is a sample title tag from my website.  I use “Website Design, Internet Marketing, Graphic Design - Putnam…”.   

Now let’s put it to the test. Go to http://www.google.com/ and search for “website design Putnam County”. I rank first on the first page.  Now try “Internet Marketing Putnam County”.  If you notice my page follows all of the elements of search engine friendly design as well.

 Header Tags

The header tags are the headlines on your website.  Use the h1 and h2 tags when adding headlines to your website.  You should try to have a header tag on each page of your website.

Let’s take a test drive by visiting my services page. In the services section of my website I use “Custom Web Design” as a header tag.  Now search for “custom web design Putnam county” in Google.  My website is on the first page.  Not only is the site on the first page but if you look at my results in Google the words “Custom Web Design” is in bold. 

Avoid the mistake made by many professional web developers and customers. To enhance the website, all of the headers are a beautiful graphic.  I have had, and continue to have, customers that order me to use graphic headers because they believe the look is the most important aspect of the website.  It is not…the most important aspect of a website is growing your business.

Body Text

The body text is the text people read on your website.  Use your keywords throughout your text; however, make sure it reads well.  Readers should enjoy your website and it should look natural.  I recommend hiring a professional copywriter if you have a lot of content on your website. 

There are more important factors to keyword placement than the areas listed in this article. I have listed the most important factors.

Share your success stories by commenting on my blog. Next month, I complete my Internet marketing series. 

As Creative Director, I have had the pleasure of being part of a team of people working on the design and development of most projects that MarkNet Group is contracted to work on. Lately, I have been working on the development of e-newsletter templates for a number of our clients. While doing so, unfortunately, I’ve come to realize that not all e-mail programs view e-newsletters the same way.

Here are just a few pointers to keep in mind:

Gmail removes anything before the body tags, so you will need to use “inline CSS” by adding a style inside an HTML element. All you have to do is specify the desired CSS properties with the style HTML attribute.

For example:

<p style=”background: blue; color: white;”>A new background and font color with inline CSS</p>

A new background and font color with inline CSS

Gmail doesn’t show the CSS style: font-family. You can use the HTML tag “font face” instead of, or in conjunction with your “font-family” CSS tag.

So you can specify font in two ways:

<p style=”font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif”><font face=”Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif”>Specifying fonts</font></p>

<p><font face=”Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif”>Specifying fonts</font></p>

Outlook 2007 doesn’t support background urls, so it is better to embed images. If you had planned on using an image as background and add “live” text over it, you will need to add the text to the graphic itself. This can become an issue if you had planned on changing this text on each issue of your e-newsletter.

Outlook 2007 doesn’t support “alt” text for images. Try using “title” instead.

One thing to always keep in mind, is to create both html and plain text versions of your e-newsletters.

If you or your organization needs e-newsletter service, we can create a template for you that will work on all e-mail programs.

Before I launch into the Wonderful World of CMS, Let me introduce myself.

My Name Is Kalen. My main two roles are providing inhouse server administration, IT technician, and Customer Support. I’m not very adept at writing autobiographies or being descriptive about oneself, so I’ll not bore you. I’m more inclined to simply state my name, and follow everything up with, “pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.” So enough about me.

Here at Marknet Group We’ve been evauluating CMS solutions. (Content Management Systems). A content management system is a web framework usually built using a scripting language (PHP, ASP, PERL, Python) and a database engine. (Mysql, PostgreSQL, MSSQL). CMS allows the user to collaborate on content and data in his/her website.

As I have stated before - CMS systems are built using a scripting language and a database engine. The script parses the content from the database, into an HTML template to build static views and pages. This allows for tremendous design capability and creativity, as we can design templates for various applications and styles. CMS solutions will also enable Marknet Group to quickly and efficiently design, build, and publish websites and web applications. The user will then be able to further customize and mature the content on his/her site.

No CMS solutions are identical. I’ve seen CMS solutions range from simple - to complex, requiring a dedicated server. I feel it is critical in the success of a web design company, to develop and become experts in a CMS solution that best fits their use. That is our goal here at Marknet Group. To master some key CMS solutions, so that we might better provide to our customer base quality websites that will grow with the ever changing internet. I’m excited about some future projects we have brewing! Keep an eye on our portfolio page to see our CMS based websites and solutions!

Hi, my name is Tony Nieves. I live in the Town of Southeast, New York (more commonly known as Brewster, NY) which is part of Putnam County. I make my living running a web development company also in Southeast. (No Commute!!). My wife Gina and I run this company together, and we have had a ton of fun doing this. It certainly doesn’t always feel like work. We have one son born in 2007. And we are part of the small percentage of Americans that doesn’t watch TV. We do own a television, but we have no cable TV or satellite TV accounts. We probably watch about 15 rented movies a year and we subscribe to mlb.com for our Yankee baseball fix. We do not miss TV at all, and I highly recommend ditching it.

We love our work. Did I say that before? It is challenging, exciting, and full of opportunity for the right company. On the surface it would appear to be competitive as there are many small one or two person shops out there. But in reality that are very few companies that provide quality end to end solutions. We have come to realize that it is impossible for small 1 to 2 person web design firms to do enough client work to survive and pay the bills, but at the same time do enough learning and training to maintain a fresh, relevant skill set and still find the time to enjoy life!

It’s also nearly almost impossible for the small shops to provide end to end services because many of the skill sets in web design are conflicting skill sets. I haven’t met someone who is both a great graphic designer and a great programmer. Search engine optimization (SEO) is also a skill set that really requires a marketing expert. You have to understand a client’s target market and translate that into good relevant content, good key words, and an overall great SEO plan. SEO work is labor intensive and it’s tough to find the time to do this right if you’re a small shop with just one or two people. Factor in technical support, project management and sales, and you can see why over the last few years, we have seen consolidation in our industry as the small one or two person shops find that they cannot keep up with the demands.

We love Brewster, NY. It’s a great place to own a business like ours. Our office is easily accessible from RT 84, RT 684, RT 22, RT 312, RT 6, the Saw Mill Parkway and the Taconic Parkway. The Brewster slogan is “all roads lead to Brewster” We are in the heart of the Hudson valley within easy driving distance from some of New York’s most populated suburban counties: Orange County, Rockland County, Dutchess County, and of course Westchester County. We are also minutes away from the Connecticut- NY border and very close to Danbury, Connecticut, and less than an hour from Stamford, CT Norwalk, CT, New Haven, CT, and one hour from New York City. The Town of Southeast also has two metro north stops; one in the village of Brewster and a few miles north, a second stop right down the road from our office.

We believe that our strategic location gives MarkNet Group a huge competitive advantage. Although it can be easy to do business on the web, sometimes it’s just too impersonal to invest thousands of dollars on your website and marketing collateral without meeting the staff of the company you are hiring. We understand that when making any type of significant investment in their business, people want to kick the tires of the company they are looking to hire.

What do people type into the search engines when searching for your product or service?

The answer to that question is important to your online success. The words and phrases people use to search are called Keywords. This article will explain how to identify the keywords buyers use when searching for you.

This is part 3 of an article series on the Building Blocks of Search Engine Success. If you have not read the first two articles, you can read them on my blog at www.marknetgroup.com.

To recap, the building blocks of search engine success are:

1. Build a website that is search engine friendly. That means search engines can find your website and capture the content on your site.

2. Identify what search terms people will use to find your product or service and ultimately your website.

3. Identify reputable websites that can link to your website.

4. Analyze results and revisit the first three building blocks.

Keyword Selection

Keyword selection can be tedious, but done right can lead to buyers on your website. I want to stress the word buyer. Our goal is to grow your business; therefore, we want to focus on bringing you buyers. Some Internet Marketing companies will boast that they can increase your website traffic by 50%. My answer to them is “No Thanks”! I can easily increase any sites traffic by placing Angelina Jolie’s name throughout the website. I need to bring visitors that are looking for your product or service and are willing buyers.

Keeping the above in mind, let’s start finding your keywords.

1. List the keywords (words and phrases) you think people will when searching for your product or service. Be very specific. Words like “handbags” are too broad. Keywords like “custom leather handbags” are much better.

2. Go to http://www.wordtracker.com/trial.html and https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal to see how many people are searching for your keywords.

3. Revisit your list from your customer’s perspective as customers rarely use industry jargon. How do your customers search? Contact your existing customers and ask them, “If you had to search for me in Google what would you type into the search box?”

4. Take a test drive. Type your keywords into Google and see what comes up. Take at look at your competitors and how many results appear for each keyword. If you are competing with over a million sites it may be difficult to show up on the first page.

5. For the most important keywords, consider variations of the keyword - misspellings, plurals, and merged words. For example “highend handbags” vs. “high-end handbags”.

6. Narrow your list to 15 keywords. I like to start off with the most important keywords.  

Now that you have identified your keywords, it is time to place your keywords throughtout your website. I can probably write an entire books on keyword placement. But…I won’t instead I invite you to read next months article where I will teach you how to place your keywords throughout your website.

How do you know if Google, Yahoo or MSN/Live will like your site? Or are you concerned that Google, Yahoo or MSN/Live will like your site? The information in this article will answer your question by describing how to accomplish that.

In last month’s Internet Marketing article, I explained search engine optimization (SEO) and outlined the building blocks of search engine success. To recap, the building blocks of search engine success are:

1. Build a website that is search engine friendly. That means search engines can find your website and capture the content on your site.

2. Identify what search terms people will use to find your product or service and ultimately your website.

3. Identify reputable websites that can link to your website.

4. Analyze results and revisit the first three building blocks.

This article will focus on the first building block - creating a search engine friendly website. There are many facets to creating a search engine friendly website. You may want an appealing or an attractive website, but you also want a website that is search engine friendly. You can accomplish this balancing act by understanding how search engines visit your website.

Search engines visit your website using a program called a spider to download the website pages, read the content and hyperlinks, and store this information in their database. Once it is in their database your site is “indexed”. You will want your website to be indexed by Google, Yahoo and MSN/Live. These are the big three search engines.

Two things must be accomplished by the spider for your site to be search engine friendly.

First, it must be able to read the content on your website. The website content tells the search engine what your website is about. When someone types “Honda Cars, Brewster NY” in Google, Google can tell that www.brewsterhonda.com sells Honda’s in Brewster.

Second, it must find every page on your website. To do that, it must find links to the other pages from within your website. For example, if on your home page you have a link to About Us, the spider can find the About Us page from the Home Page.

Basically, the easier it is for the spider to crawl through your site and gather your content the less risk you have of being ignored by the search engines.

The main elements of search engine friendly design are:

1. Use a Site Map - A site map is a web page on your website that has links to every page within your site. A site map ensures that every page on your website is one click away from the home page. You can view an example site map at http://www.marknetgroup.com/sitemap.php.

2. Avoid Frames if Possible - A site that is full of frames makes it more difficult for the spider to crawl your website. Therefore, the spider will not capture all of the pages on your website. There are ways to make frames more search engine friendly but we recommend you avoid them. Here is a sample frames site http://www.angelfire.com/super/badwebs/.

3. Avoid Flash Only Sites - The search engine spider cannot read the content that is within Flash. We can recommend ways to make it work but most designers won’t know the techniques. I should note, you CAN use Flash on your site but you should adhere to the following:

a. If your home page is one big Flash file the spider won’t crawl to the other pages and won’t read your content. Use Flash to enhance specific areas of your webpage but not the entire webpage.

b. Use the noembed tag. Yes, it is a technical term that you can pass on to your web developer if they created a Flash only site.

4. Avoid a Graphic Only Home Page - The spider can only read text. Therefore, if you have a home page that is one large graphic the spider cannot gather the content.

5. Keyword Placement is Important - Next month I will show you how to find your keywords and how to place them on your website.

Be sure to read next month’s issue, my article will define one of the most important aspects of search engine success.

One of my favorite web development activities has arrived. We now begin to develop a Logo for the website. We realized the website did not have a name so the first step was coming up with a name for the website. That was fun. My co-worker, Anthony Patino, opened up a ’select your baby’s name’ website and we began to combining female names. The name had to be appealing to women, hip and easy to remember.

We came up with IMANISAGE.COM. The combination of the names Imani + Sage. Patrice loved the name and we were all set to go. We purchased the name on GoDaddy.com and planned on designing a logo the next day.

By the next evening, ImaniSage.com was no longer a good idea. We all slept on it and realized some people may not know how to spell Imani. Will they go to the wrong website? Will they think the model Imani owns the site?

Back to the white board we went. After some hilarious ideas which I won’t share in this blog we came up with the name PattySage.com. It was an “aha” moment. Patrice loved it as soon as it came out of my mouth.

What do you think of the name?

We went back to creating the logo and finding the perfect tag line. We came up with several design concepts and Patrice selected a winner.

Introducing the PattySage.com logo…

Do you like the logo and tag line?