Whirl Wind Media Web Power Box - Websites That Think

Web Power Box Content Management

There are a million and one web publishing tools on the market place but how many of them can actually think for you and manage you?

Many companies have a difficult time knowing what do with their website management and online marketing and how and when to maintain it. There can be literally hundreds of possible tasks when managing your web presence depending on the nature of your business. These tasks could include adding a new blog topic, responding to a form inquiries, monitoring a forum, adding new file downloads, managing an event calendar, maintaining a product catalogue, running a shopping cart, posting a career opportunity, building and sending email campaigns, following up on website leads, posting online coupons, Search engine optimization, updating social media accounts and literally hundreds of more possiblities. It is easy to get lost and fall behind in the shuffle of things and matter of fact, most companies do!

Imagine a web platform that could let you know what to do next with your online marketing and sales strategy. Imagine a solution that had the ability to provide you daily feedback and reports letting you know what online tasks need your attention and provide you instant access to the appropriate publishing application to address it. In other words imagine a website that thinks and manages you rather than you managing it ensuring that your online communication and marketing presence is updated, consistent and effective.

Stop imagining, because the Web Power Box is that platform. Due to the unique Web Power Box integrated e-track system, users from a single screen can monitor their entire online strategy to ensure you’re not falling behind the competition.

Marketing Automation

The Web Power Box is a comprehensive web marketing platform rich with out-of-the-box integrated marketing automation features that you can use to jump-start your business. You can create your own e-mail campaigns, lead capture forms, product catalogs, online selling, e-commerce systems, and credit card processing yourself—without the help of a web applications programmer. The following is just a small portion of the web marketing capabilities that are available using the Web Power Box. Modules can be used independently or in any combination, providing virtually limitless possibilities in the design of your marketing automation.

Email Marketing

The Web Power Box has an integrated mail-room facility that provides ready-to-use email marketing capabilities. You can import existing email lists, and manage mass emailing of newsletters, advertisements, promotions, send electronic invitation cards, and anything else that you can think of. You can also gauge the success of your email campaigns by tracking opens and clicks.

Automated Lead Capture & Data Collection

Leads can be tracked on assets downloaded by potential customers driven to the Web Power Box integrated Download Center, where you can manage your white papers, brochures, datasheets, etc. Email addresses are automatically compiled into a leads list. Leads can also be collected from over 20 different areas of the suite including the integrated Event Calendar, Forum, Blog, Form Builder and E-mail Marketing features. All of this capability is ready for you right out of the box.

SEO & SMM - Make your website visible to your customers

Having a website designed, live and read to go is only part of the job. The next job is to make sure that your customers can find it, and to do that, you need to ensure that your website and content are Search Engine Optimization (SEO) ready. Fortunately, the Web Power Box is equipped to provide you with every advantage. SEO-helpful, built-in meta-tag builders and SEO text modifiers support an SEO-friendly authoring environment and you can detach from the database to publish very easy search engine crawlable static pages and control file names of each page in your site. Quick access to social media accounts through a global settings panel, proper html text modifiers, control meta titles of every page and a Backlink Manager round out the Web Power Box CMS SEO-rich offering.

Web Development Automation - Simple to Advanced Website Publishing

"The Web Power Box currently has over 25 plug and play modules that can provide your business with more than 250 online self managed marketing functions and features at the tips of your fingers." The most amazing aspect of all these plugin applications is that they automate a programmer for you behind the scenes through easy to use drag, drop and type interfaces.

 Lead Management


There are dozens of lead capture points built into the applications that can be deployed to your website which capture leads based on theme and area of interest of your site.  These leads are automatically organized and put onto e-mailing list within the Mailroom. The leads are also inserted into the lead management tool for you to qualify each lead and submit valid leads into the sales process.
 
This tool gives organizations the ability to open a lead file, assign leads, attach  notes, set reminders and follow-ups, set meetings and tasks, archive leads to a later date, set indicators of where the lead is in the overall sales process and essentially manage the lead until the close of the sale.

The Lead center shows a snapshot viewpoint of all communication that was inputted from website users and provides the ability to the sales team to evaluate and manage each lead.

Leads can also be imported into the system from a source other than the website so that lead management can be centralized to one application.

 Web Power Box Value Proposition

The  Web Power Box provides literally hundreds of benefits, but if we were to summarize them into 5 basic core categories they would be:

 1.  Drastically Reduce Website Costs 
Once the Web Power Box is installed you don’t have to continually pay professional web development firms or freelance consultants every time you need something new, modified or removed from your website. If you are keeping your website updated and refreshed the way that it should be, this will save you thousands of dollars every year. Most professional firms will change from $80 to $200 per hour depending on their level of skill and experience.  You can save tens of thousands per year!

2.  Empowerment & Control
Be able to do what you want and when you want it! The Web Power Box allows you to publish on demand and in real time. No more waiting on the schedules of outsourced resources to post your critical and timely web communication and marketing messages, promotions, notices and email marketing campaigns. You can easily eliminate steps in your marketing and sales processes through self-controlled toolsets.

3.  Online Competitive Advantage
Larger companies have tens of thousands of dollars to throw into their website application development enabling them to offer more online services and capabilities then smaller to midsized companies. Forms & surveys, shopping carts, client portals, media centers, digital file distribution systems, newsletter builders, lead generation tools, interactive event calendars and much more! The Web Power Box can offer a lot of similar functionality as the larger players at merely a fraction of the cost. This levels the playing field in a BIG WAY!

4.  Increased Online Revenue Potential
Generate qualified sales leads through multiple online lead collection tools as well as create demand through various types of built in email marketing campaigning tools. The Web Power Box will help you open new distribution channels for your products and services and Increase selling and operational hours to 24/7 through direct online selling solutions such as shopping carts, subscriptions, paid events and more.

5.  Integrated Web Strategy
Are you tired of multiple software solutions and services that cannot be accessed in the same area all with different login credentials and separate databases of information that will not share data between each of the applications? The Web Power Box is the answer! You get one login and one system with applications that can seemliness talk and share information to streamline business process. Website management, email marketing, lead generation, analytics, direct online selling capabilities, web marketing planning tools, search engine optimization tools and much more all living under the same roof to make your life easy. 

Easily Configure The Web Power Box To Your Specific Needs


Each client can customize the expansion of their Web Power Box configuration through a wide variety of available marketing automation toolsets. As modules are added to a Web Power Box configuration, your online communication abilities become much more than just a website building tool.

Here is a listing of the modules available to expand your Web Power Box:

1. Form And Survey Builder
2. Media Center
3. Download Center
4. Career Center
5. Event Calendar & Registration System
6. Presenter
7. Newsletter Builder
8. Extranet Builder (Password protected website sections)
9. Forum
10. Mailroom (Email Marketing)
11. Etalk
12. E-Cart (Product Shopping Cart)
13. Ecard System
14. Image Gallery Tool
15. List Manager
16. Custom Application Portal
17. Blog
18. Comparison Tool
19. Coupon System
20. Account Portals
21. Affiliate Program System 

For More information on how the Whirl Wind Media Web Power Box can help you out, please email us at info@whirlwindmedia.ca

5 Ways To Generate Leads With Google+

Social Media is a great way to generate traffic to your website and leads for your business. Google+, as one of the newer networks has a lot to offer. Here are five ways you can use Google+ as a Lead Generation Tool.

1. Boost your Adwords campaign with +1's

The Google "like" button is the "+1" that people can click to show that they enjoy or "like" your content. The "+1" button can show up everywhere: in Google's search results, your Google+ profile or page and even in your AdWords ads.

When you link your AdWords ads to your Google+ page your friends, family and clients can support you by clicking that "+1" button. This will help you by increasing your social awareness and relevance.

To start this process, you need to have your website linked with your Google+ page, and verified that it is your page. There will be a check mark next to your website link on your Google+ page once your website is verified. Then you need to link your website to your Google+ page. You can do that by adding a Google+ badge to your website.

Once these pages are linked you can enable social extensions in your Adwords Ads. Google will then see who "+1'd" the page and link it to the landing page you are advertising. This will lead to more visibility and more exposure.

2. Share your content

You can share content on your page which should inspire discussion if it is interesting enough, and send visitors to your website.

You can use a variety of content such as:

Blog posts

Images

Videos

Webinars

Reports

Interviews

Ebooks & whitepapers

When you post content, make sure you use the same language you use all the time, making it personal. You can also add a signature like you do in an email.

You can get more "+1's" by mentioning other users adding "+1's" next to their posts. You will then appear in search results next to their name.

The more content you share with your contacts, the more links you have back to your website and the more opportunity for the right people to find you. Do experiment with images on Google+ as you can link each image back to your website. You can also make your Google+ page look amazing with images.

3. Connect with your circles

One feature that Google+ has is its circles where you can place different clients in different circles and market specific relevant content to each circle. You can place each contact in a circle that is relevant to them. Or you can ask your new contacts in which circle they would like to be.

You can then segment the content and send targeted content to each circle. You can even use the "notify" feature to send them an email. Just make sure your content is excellent and relevant otherwise they are going to be irritated by it and mark you as a spammer. They can even mute your posts or block you altogether, and you don't want that.

4. Add a +1 Button and a Google+ Badge to your website

A +1 Button or a Google+ Badge linking to your Google+ page from your website is a great way of getting more traffic and therefore more prospects. You should add the "+1" button at the bottom of every blog post, and the Google+ badge in the side bar.

This enables people to share it on their profiles or pages, which will give you more visibility, and a higher rank in Google's search engine, which is what it is all about.

5. Events & hangouts on Google+

The Google+ Events feature is superior to that of other networks because it is integrated with Google+ Hangout, Google Search results and Google Calendar. Your followers can also share their experience at your event which they can't do in most of the other social networks.

Because of the integration with Google Calendar when people sign up for your event it automatically goes to their calendar as well, reminding them to attend. Google Calendar sends reminder emails as well.

Google Hangouts can work together with Google Events. This is a great video tool where your followers can meet you and see you.

You can see that Google+ has a great variety of ways for you to interact with your target markets and to generate new leads for your business.

6 Ways to use Linked-In for Lead Generation

There are 6 primary ways you can use LinkedIn to generate leads for your business.

1. LinkedIn Answers: This is one of the more useful (and under-utilized) tools on LinkedIn. It’s a section where people who want to ask questions about business go to get advice. And guess who’s giving the advice? You are, because you’re an industry-insider with a lot of helpful knowledge, right? We know someone who answered questions about marketing research on
   a regular basis. Over the course of one year, he generated more than $80,000 in new projects
   using this approach.
   
2. LinkedIn Applications: One of the more interesting places to visit on LinkedIn is the Applications area. This is where you can go to add new and interesting apps that will improve the experience people have on your LinkedIn page. If you’d like to add your blog posts to your LinkedIn page, it’s easy. Or, if you’d like to let people know what business books you’re reading, that’s easy, too. You can even set up simple polls to find out what’s on the minds of your customers and prospects.
   
3. LinkedIn Groups: As we mentioned earlier, you should definitely join several groups on LinkedIn. But the trick here isn’t just joining the obvious groups in your industry, it’s joining groups that are outside your industry that might help you grow your business. By stretching out a little bit, you’re expanding your reach, which is always good for business. So, for example, if you’re an accountant, you don’t want to just join accounting groups -- you’ll want to join groups for entrepreneurs, small
   business owners, restaurateurs and other groups outside of your immediate circle.
   
4. LinkedIn People: This is terrific for sales people, people looking for jobs and business-to-business owners who want to get their foot in the door at a large corporation. Just do a search in the upper-right-hand box for your target company. Click on the company. Now, on the right hand side, you’ll see a box that will show you your first connection (also known as a direct connection) and your second connections. Assuming you have no first or direct connections, click on the second
   connections link. This will bring up a list of names of people at your target company. At the bottom of the profile, you’ll see a list of your shared connections. From that point on, it’s a cakewalk -- just ask your friends to introduce you via LinkedIn to the people at your target company. Bingo, you’re in.
   
5. LinkedIn Direct Ads: LinkedIn has an advertising program that can be used to drive new prospects to your landing page, LinkedIn group or other destination. The ads work the same way Google paid search ads work. You simply write a headline, add some copy and create a destination link. Then you bid on how much you’ll pay LinkedIn every time someone clicks on the ad. If you pay $1 to LinkedIn for a clickthrough, and it takes 50 clicks before you convert a customer, then you’ve just spent $50 for 1 customer. If your product sells for $500 each, investing $50 to generate $500 is not a bad return-on-investment.
   
6. LinkedIn Mobile: Yes, LinkedIn has a mobile application. If you haven’t already downloaded it to your smart phone, just go to your app store and download it for free. The LinkedIn mobile app is best used when you’re at a trade show or an event where you’re making one-on-one contacts. During a conversation with a prospect, ask them to turn on LinkedIn on heir smart phone. Then, bump your phones together lightly. If they have their settings correct, then LinkedIn will transfer your contact information between phones using Bluetooth. No typing, no misspelled words -- just instant transfer of information.

If you require some extra help with your Linked-In or Social Media Strategy, please give Whirl Wind Web & Design Studio a call.  We would be happy to help.

12 Most Effective Ways to Market Your Business with Facebook

Marketing your business with Facebook can produce tremendous results if you are willing to commit time and energy. What’s more, Facebook is a powerful tool when used in conjunction with a well-designed and strategically executed marketing plan.

Build a presence and establish your voice within the social sphere by incorporating these 12 effective ways to begin marketing your business with Facebook.

1. Set your unique URL
   Obtaining a unique URL makes your page both memorable and easily identifiable. As you set your page URL, determine how potential fans will be searching. Have you branded your name or your business name? Stay consistent in your online presence and ensure that wherever they are searching, they can find not only your Facebook page but any online profile.
2. Optimize your profile
   Your Facebook profile projects not only the image but the tone of your business. You should therefore be keen while designing the profile to ensure that it sends the right image to the community. Aim at providing detailed and accurate information concerning your business.
3.  Customize your Facebook page apps
   Facebook Timeline contains standard and customizable apps which were formerly tabs. Tailor these apps to your business by adding links to products or services, video tips or tutorials, upcoming event information or your latest blog post.
4. Announce your page
   Do you consistently market to an email list or database? If so, send an announcement to your list detailing the benefits of joining your page. This announcement could coincide with a sweepstakes or event that gives added value to their “Like.”
5. Add a link to your email signature
   Promote your page via email correspondence by adding a direct link. Rather than simply adding a Facebook icon, consider adding a call to action. An example of this could be “Click Here to see the Insider’s Secret to Selling More Homes in Your Area Now!”
6. Keep your content fresh and relevant
   One of the fatal mistakes most new Facebook marketers make is starting a page, inviting people to join and then failing to post meaningful and relevant content on a consistent basis. Keep your posts fresh and exciting by rotating between images, links, video and a simple status update.
7. Be responsive
   Always ensure that you respond to comments and questions in a timely manner. Failure to do this will send a message that you really don’t care or simply aren’t interested in what they have to say. Responding quickly goes a long way in spreading your message via happy fans that want to share the love with friends and family.
8. Post pictures often
   Images are a great way to get your post to go viral. They help you quickly catch the attention of fans as they sift through an often times overwhelming barrage of media in their newsfeed. They also take up a lot more real estate in the newsfeed which translates into more people viewing your content. Most importantly, posting images as opposed to a simple status update have been found to increase your engagement rate by 37%!
9. Use a landing page for sweepstakes or promotions
   Creating a separate tab with its own unique URL allows you to drive traffic directly to that page. If you have a special discount coupon or deal available, use the link in your offline and online marketing. Be careful with this one though. Facebook is very specific about sweepstakes guidelines and explicitly prohibits placing conditions on a “Like.” You must make participation voluntary, and announce and administer your promotion using an application within the Facebook applications tab.
10. Create a Facebook badge
    Add the Facebook Like Box to your website and blog and make sure that they are prominently displayed. If you use WordPress, there are many simple ways to add this through a widget or plugin.
11. Facebook Ads
    Paid Facebook advertising can be a great way of expanding your customer base. Facebook Ads put you in front of the right people by allowing you to target a specific audience by gender, age group or even geographic area. You control how much you spend on each ad by setting the pay-per-click price and a campaign budget. In the event that your campaign is not yielding the desired results, you can withdraw or edit and update your ad immediately.
12. Create consistency
    Last but certainly not least is building out a strategy that creates consistency within your posting. This is where auto-posting may come in handy. I am not an advocate of automating your social media marketing altogether, but rather using it to create balance. In my opinion, a little bit of auto posting is a whole lot better than disappearing from Facebook for days at a time. Scheduling posts will also help the planning process as opposed to a hit-or-miss strategy.

The bottom line in Facebook marketing is to never stop engaging your fan base. What strategies are you using to effectively market your Facebook page?

Post by Rebekah Radice

SEO Checklist Strategy for eCommerce Sites

1. Site and Product Page Speed
   Remove unnecessary plugins and applications to enhance the loading speed of your site’s pages.Employing GZIP compression for pages that have larger html size.Speeding up your site’s loading process will strengthen your visitors’ mood that can lead to conversion. Search engine crawlers also give high scores for this site’s usability aspect that can help boost its search rankings.
2. SEO Friendly URL's
   Include your pages’ targeted keywords on the URL. Search-friendly URLs signal search engines that the page is relevant to the search query.  The best way to create optimized, search-friendly URLs is to include the primary keyword in the URL.
3. Unique Title Tags
   The benefits of optimized title tags with keyword phrases are twofold.  First, the keyword phrases help the search engines understand what the page is really about.
4. Unique Description Meta TagsMake use of description Meta tag; this gives search engines and users a summary of what the page is about.
   
5. Unique Product ContentGoogle actually penalizes sites that use duplicate content and nothing will drop your rankings faster than copying and pasting manufacturer product descriptions.  In Google’s eyes, unique content represents an authority site.  In the eyes of your visitors, unique and compelling content is often the deciding factor in converting them into customers.
6. Product ReviewsA great strategy for guaranteeing unique content is displaying user generated content from your customers. Allow customers to review products they’ve purchased or comment on one’s they haven’t.
7. Internal Contextual LinksSite navigation links don’t tell search engines very much information about the page. Within a paragraph of text, link to a relevant page using keyword rich anchor text.
8. Create a Product RSS FeedCreate a product feed and submit it to relevant content aggregators. Google Base accepts an XML like product feed and displays your results for Google Base searches. Product feeds can be a great way of picking up free backlinks directly to your product pages.
9. Crawl-able NavigationAvoid JavaScript or css based navigation structures that don’t allow spiders through. If you’re stuck with one, at least duplicate your navigation in the footer of every page with normal hyperlinks. In additional, don’t rely on form based navigation such as drop down lists since the SEs can’t follow them.
10. Optimize your ImagesPlacing alt tags in images is a simple yet commonly overlooked strategy to improve search engine optimization.With images now popping up in the regular SERPs, every image on your site should be optimized. Make sure all your product images contain unique alt text attributes. By simply populating the alt text with the product and brand name, I’ve seen a huge increase in traffic from Google Image search. In addition, you’re making your site more useable for the vision impaired.
11. Blog for Content UpdatesFor content freshness and linkbuilding.It allows your site to generate more organic traffic as blog posts have good chances of getting higher search rankings for long tail keywords related to your industry. Can certainly improve the site’s internal linking structure, in which it can be advantageous for the site in ranking for more relevant search terms.
12. Product Compare OptionProduct Compare Option for user.Comparing your top products will help your visitors in making wise decisions in purchasing and it also generates highly relevant internal links to your top products.
13. Create Brand Landing PagesAvoid Session IDs in URLs.If your site sells branded products that customers may be searching for, setup an optimized landing page for every brand.
14. Product TaggingWith the advent of social media, customers have become accustomed with the concept of tagging. Allow your customers to tag products with their own keywords. When you allow users to tag your products, you’ll likely start ranking for slang keywords that you would have never thought of on your own.
15. SitemapsWe need XML and HTML Sitemap.Every eCommerce store with more than 100 items should have an HTML and XML sitemap. It should automatically update as you add or remove products.
16. Keyword-rich internal linksUse internal power of the website for your categories and product pages. If the first link pointing to your category is an image, insure that this image has an appropriate ALT text.
17. Trust indicatorsWell optimized about, contact and support (email ticketing) pages.Presence of physical business address and local numbers.Photos of business founder(s) and staff members.Privacy policy, terms and agreement, disclaimer, disclosure and user testimonials page.Certificate badges from associations and/or organizations.
18. Video sitemapAdding a video sitemap to your site is very efficient, since it can help your site generate traffic through universal search as videos posted within your site can improve its own search rankings for highly competitive keywords.
19. Weed out duplicate contentsFix URL canonicalization of the site, wherein the site must only direct to one preferred URL version (non-www or www. version), since this can cause duplicates within your site if both version are showing up when looked up.
20. Regularly updated section on homepageInclusion of recent blog posts or twitter updates.
21. BreadcrumbsBreadcrumbs are the small text navigation that shows where you are in the eCommerce hierarchy. They often look like this:Each word should be a link back to its category or sub-category page.
22. Page SizeYou want to keep your pages loading as quickly as possible. Use good sized images, but don’t serve a 1000×1000 pixel image and display it at 300×300 using CSS or HTML. Keep external scripts, images, CSS, and other elements to a minimum.
23. CheckoutBlock everything from the shopping cart into checkout and completion from being indexed using the nofollow tag. It serves no value in a search engine.
24. Social Sharing ButtonsSocial sharing buttons on product pages are a good idea. The goal of a product page is to get someone to buy, not to get them to tweet or like the page. Sure these social signals can help, but personally I’d rather not distract people from buying my product. Facebook, Google Plus, Twitter, Linked-in.
25. Q & A ContentAnother big opportunity for eCommerce websites is the integration of question and answer content focused on products. As mentioned above, eCommerce websites have always had the problem of getting unique content onto product pages on scale. Question and answer content can help solve this problem and gives you great scope to get user generated content onto lots of your product pages.
26. Product VideoI’ll admit that this is a tough one to execute, but it is one that I feel is very worthwhile for eCommerce sites. There are many websites already adding videos to their product pages, but they are not always doing it in the most optimal way. A great example of the right way to do this is Zappos who now have over 50,000 product videos.
27. Rich SnippetApply Rich Snippet in product page. Review, Rating, Price that is boost SREP and also product selling.
28. Mobile SiteAn impact a mobile optimized website can have on the conversion rate of your store.

If this all seems like a daunting task, feel free to give us a call at Whirl Wind Web & Design Studio.  We would be happy to sit down and take a look at all your eCommerce and Search Engine Optimization requirements.

Mission To Vision Communications - Canada’s Development and Marketing Agency for Non Profit Organizations

Mission to Vision Communications is Canada’s first development and marketing agency dedicated to the sustainable growth and promotion of charities and non-profit organizations.

Competing for attention in a crowded marketplace

There are more than 160,000 non-profit organizations across Canada competing for the attention and support of donors, members, funders, subscribers, volunteers, sponsors and policy makers.

The services of Mission to Vision Communications are designed to enable both large and small organizations to engage more effectively and strategically with a local, provincial or national audience.

Moving from mission delivery to vision achievement

As our name advocates, Mission to Vision Communications encourages sustainable growth for non profit organizations through strategic services and marketing tools designed to enhance mission delivery by steering towards vision achievement. We offer a consultative process to help organizations define and articulate their long range vision and performance metrics. We follow up this process with assistance to activate the vision through the design of a strategic business plan. Finally we offer a wide range of creative communications and marketing services to brand the organization’s messages in the marketplace to connect directly with stakeholders and supporters.

Comprehensive development and marketing services

Whether the vision for your organization is enhanced service capacity, sustainable financial resources, increased membership and donors, enhanced brand and cause awareness, or policy and legislative change, the Mission to Vision Communications team is available to complement your team.

For more information about Mission To Vision Communications visit our website at www.missiontovision.ca

 

The Vacuum Store Ecommerce Website Now Up and Ready for Business!

Whirl Wind Web & Design Studio is proud to announce the launching of The Vacuum Store (www.thevacuumstore.ca) ecommerce website.  It is running on InForSite Web Marketing Automation Software.

If you are in the market for a complete central vacuum system or any other brand name vacuums, The Vacuum Store is the place to go.  Currently for the month of October, they are offering some great deals.  Come in and check them out.