TCwebsite » News

Are you paying attention to what your customers are saying about you?

TCwebsite — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 17:13:52 +0000

The world of Facebook and Amazon has created a slew of review sites that are magnets for conversation about your business. Are your customers saying good things about your business? Not so good?

It is critical to pay attention and contribute to these new social properties to ensure that they are not driving away potential customers… and are in fact working for your business.

Watch this video [7:58] presented by Peter Ericson (to SCORE in Hanover, NH) to understand what this is, and what you need to do to stay on top of your reputation online:

The Foundation for Social Media Success (video)

TCwebsite — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 18:04:10 +0000

This presentation was sponsored by The Hanover Chamber of Commerce, SCORE and The Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth.

Watch this video (42:58) to learn what your business must be doing today in social media. Pete focuses in on 2 fundamental web activities that will drive new customers to your website and engage your current customers and fans.

Please pardon the sketchy footage of Pete as the room was a tough one to find a good camera position!

Benefits of publishing your magazine online

TCwebsite — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 16:33:09 +0000

Watch a comprehensive overview (10 min) of the main benefits of publishing your magazine online. If your current magazine doesn’t cover all the bases, you are missing opportunities to reach more readers & subscribers which… naturally hurts your ability to sell ad-space and charge for subscriptions.

We launch our Foundation Magazine Solution

TCwebsite — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 18:25:52 +0000

If you need an issue based magazine solution set up quickly and inexpensively and yet is scalable to satisfy the needs of major growth, then our IssueManager Foundation Magazine Solution might be for you.

WordPress based and open source, IssueManager combines the features of satisfying your issue based workflow with real time blog stories. Get pricing and more information here.

Please note we are offering this price level to a limited group and may not be available at all times. Let us know if you are interested.

We launch our 1st instant magazine

TCwebsite — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 15:59:16 +0000

Ok so Eastman turned our instant newsletter service into an online magazine. We take that as a compliment :)

This print and now online magazine plans to reach more home buyers in the NH area that are interested in a lakefront, active, 4 season community.

Since each story online is a magnet that attracts visitors searching in Google, the goal is to broadcast the richness of the community online, and then move the visitor to the main Eastman site to entice them to learn more. The more on-target visitors to both sites increases the chances that someone will ultimately purchase a home there.

View this magazine at EastmanLiving.com

The importance of Google and social media for the medical practice

TCwebsite — Sun, 01 May 2011 11:00:23 +0000

I was recently interviewed by ENT Today about the need for medical practices to optimize their websites to be found in Google search and to take advantage of Facebook and Twitter to communicate with patients. If you run a doctor’s office, find out how you can attract more patients and serve them more efficiently. Read the article here.

Your Website Performance Review – what’s it all about?

TCwebsite — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 17:07:14 +0000

“That was a fabulous website review this morning! Before we began, I was puzzled about how to expand the reach of both my coaching practice and my new book (The Midlife Woman’s Journal). When I hung up, I had a plan with clear steps that seemed individually tailored to my strengths. You actually made Facebook sound like it could be fun! Thanks so much for your expertise and inspiration.”

Bonnie @ BonnieLeonard.com

Reviewing your website’s strengths and weaknesses at least once per year is the secret to success online. How many websites have you landed on and thought “wow this site looks 3 years old!”? What did you do? You probably went away, never to return.

Our annual Website Performance Review ensures that you continue to build on what’s working and pare away the pages and content that visitors are not interested in. It guarantees that your website will help you build your business year after year.

So how do we do it?

Our Website Performance Review is based on your visitor activity report (see image on right). We comb through your website visitor data to understand:

your most and least popular pages
what keywords visitors used to get to your website
where visitors are getting lost
what pages are the stickiest
what calls to action are working and more

From this data we produce a video review which involves walking you through your website and explaining what’s working, what’s not, and this is where we suggest what needs to be done to improve your site’s ability to attract visitors and get them to act on your website (see the video review below for one of our clients to get a feel for it).
>>

Visitors actions you might desire include:

signing up to your email mailing list or Facebook page
filling out a request for quote form
calling/emailing you
downloading an e-book
buying a product and other what we call “calls to action”

Once you have the video and recommendations we usually follow up with a focused business and website discussion to determine what updates are a priority for you. Many times you can edit copy and images yourself with the WordPress CMS editor. Other times the edits are more significant and we will quote you on what it costs to make the changes (most edits are fairly minor once the site is built). We also take this time to hear about your latest business news and developments so we can discuss ways to make sure they are included in your site.

Implementing recommendations from our Website Performance Review produces a more effective website for your business year after year. Is your website building your business?

Need more info? Contact us today and ask us about our latest success story. You will be glad you did.

We launch our newsletter publishing service: IssueM.com

TCwebsite — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 17:08:48 +0000

Broadcast your news everywhere

If your organization publishes a traditional newsletter and would like increase readership and lower mailing costs, IssueM.com might be for you.

Today, getting the news out is a scattered affair. You have your print edition, email subscriber list, Facebook and possibly a Twitter account to update… and you want your organization found by potential customers in Google search. Think your newsletter is reaching everyone? It’s not. Today we consume news via the web, Google, Facebook, Twitter, and on smartphones and iPads.

The integrated solution is at hand and it’s name is IssueM.com. Here’s what it will do for your news publication:

Your news will live on your domain ie: news.yourwebsite.com (or similar)
Each issue is browsable online, on smartphones and iPads
Readers can download your pdf versions
Your news will be found by potential customers in Google search (in fact over 75% of your news readers will come from search engines)
1 click publishing: you can add your current email subscription service (Constant Contact, Aweber, etc) and send your news automatically into Facebook and Twitter
You will have ad space to sell/give away
All your old issues will live (and continue to draw visitor traffic) in the News Archives section
You can reduce printing and mailing costs by shifting to an integrated online solution
Pricing starts at $15/mo (free trial) and if you like, we can add each newsletter for you for only $20/issue

If you are ready to get serious about broadcasting your news today, sign up for a no credit card required 30 day free trial and see for yourself. If you have questions or would like to discuss a custom solution for your business, please feel free to contact us.

Get your website found in Google search for free

TCwebsite — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 17:09:06 +0000

If you want to be found in the search engines the answer is simple:

Write news articles on your website’s blog. It’s free and each article attracts visitors from Google search like a giant magnet. Check out the image below and look at the the #7 page (It’s a news article about a “voice over ip checklist”). See how a site attracts visitors with 1 blog article? This article is the 7th most popular page on a large site. And this is only 1 news blog article. Imagine the visitor traffic that would be attracted if news articles were being written on a regular basis!

Take a look at the 7th most popular page on the site

Print magazine goes 100% online and gains subscribers

TCwebsite — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 20:50:38 +0000

Yes you read right.

In January of this year we launched Front and Finish magazine, moving them out of print and into our IssueManager™ web based magazine solution. They were previously printing their magazine and also had a number of flip-book digital magazine subscribers. The digital magazine was not producing a natural reading experience for subscribers (and could not be read on ipads, phones or kindle readers) so they came to us to convert to a web based magazine that was fully integrated with todays mobile technology.

After launch and the announcement that their print magazine was being replaced by an online only version the dust settled. Front and Finish gained more new subscribers than it lost in January, and most readers were excited about the new format.

We are extremely happy for them!

Add Facebook comments to your WordPress blog to increase… yes, commenting!

TCwebsite — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 22:01:45 +0000

This is brilliant… and will get your crowd talking.

Here’s how blog comments typically play out for a commercial blog post: You publish a story and enable regular commenting… but wait, very few readers actually drop off a comment. Why? Well many reasons but 1 biggie: is it’s a pain to type your name, email and website, and what are you going to do with the commenter’s email address? Spam them?

Facebook to the rescue. Take a look at the snapshot below or follow this link to see Facebook comments in action. What is happening here? You can add a comment to your blog post via Facebook! Yes you are already logged in to Facebook, you don’t need to do anything extra but type your comment. Easy, fast, social. And if you are the publisher/company each comment in facebook is automagically linked back to your blog story… and all the commenter’s Facebook friends see the comment and the link back to your blog story.

How does it look in your profile? See the 2nd image below.

This is big. Do it. Get Facebook into your comment area and watch your comments grow (and yes we’ll do the same).

Here’s what the comment looks like in Facebook. Note the nice headline link back to your blog story.

Comments? :)

We launch a WordPress magazine for dog obedience competitors

TCwebsite — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 20:15:16 +0000

Front & Finish is the leading magazine for those competing in obedience competitions worldwide.

This WordPress based online magazine replaces a flip-book style online version as well as Front and Finish’s print version. It features a membership subscription model that offers automatic subscribe and unsubscribe with PayPal and membership gateway. A new visitor typically sees teaser text and must pay to have access to the current and past issues. It also generates revenue through an ad banner network throughout the site and it’s archives.

The magazine uses our IssueManager™ issue based magazine publishing solution for WordPress.

Find out what the best dog obedience trainers are doing at FrontandFinish.com

How to start using Twitter

TCwebsite — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 15:41:43 +0000

Twitter will ultimately serve as your main news portal. Yes that’s a big statement but it is already happening. 80% of Twitter users use it to follow their own personal news interests from a variety of sources (newspapers, magazines, bloggers, colleagues). The other 20% Tweet about their own opinions, share links and thoughts about their interests. They acquire followers if they stay on topic and provide valuable info with their Tweets. Some become leaders in their industry.

So how do you get set up to really use Twitter? Let’s get started with some homework:

Step 1 of 2 If you don’t have a Twitter account, sign up here (it’s free).

Fill out your credentials. I recommend you use your own personal name for the username (people tend to follow other people). You might want to have a separate company twitter account for official postings.

Follow 1 person or organization.

Let Twitter browse your email addresses to see who else you know that is already on Twitter. Follow those that interest you. Many newspapers and magazines mirror their stories on Twitter. Use Google to search for your favorite news IE: search: “nytimes arts twitter” to find the arts section on Twitter and follow it.

That’s it, you are now on Twitter and Twitter does a nice job of suggesting who you might want to follow (oh and follow your fellow friends & colleagues). Make sure you upload a photo of yourself (or company logo) so people can see who you are.

Step 2

How to actually use twitter:

You will want to manage your Tweets, Mentions, and Direct Messages through TweetDeck. This is an insanely fast, fun and friendly way to stay on top of what’s going on in your area of interest.

Install the TweetDeck Desktop version to run minimized so it is always available. With 2 monitors you can run TweetDeck on your 2nd monitor to quickly check your news feed. I try to check TweetDeck 2x per day and go through my entire news feed only at those times (sometimes I slip :)

Now that you have TweetDeck setup it will automatically stream news from colleagues, newspapers, blogs or magazines your are interested in. You will be building your own custom news portal. If you want video training head over to support.

Most importantly have fun and don’t pressure yourself to get up to speed fast. It will take time to find people and websited to follow, unfollow Tweeters you don’t care for and build up your own personal efficiently supercharged fun news portal :)

Today… we start rolling out invitations

TCwebsite — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 21:09:47 +0000

..to our instant online magazine and newsletter service: IssueManager™

If you have a monthly, weekly, or otherly newsletter or magazine that you would like to drive more visitors to have a look at our…
Read the rest

Social Media Presentation to Lebanon Area Chamber of Commerce (NH)

TCwebsite — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 17:40:41 +0000

Peter Ericson presented a foundational understanding of what social media is, how it’s being used by organizations and why it is critical to your business’s success.

The topics include:

What is social media and why is it important
Traditional advertising vs. social media
Social media roles
Blogging for business

Turnkey online newsletter and magazine service to launch on Halloween

TCwebsite — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 16:43:49 +0000

Sign up for our IssueManager™ closed beta!

If you have been looking for an easy, Google and social media friendly way to move your newsletter or magazine online, have a look at our WordPress based IssueManager™ solution. On Halloween we will be opening the doors on our newest version: a turnkey, free, and instant publishing service. This service is designed for you the issue based publisher… in otherwords, if you need to load up several news or magazine stories at once and publish them in one shot, IssueManager is for you.

Some background:

A couple of years ago we started up DartmouthEngineer.com which needed a way to put their print magazine online in an issue based format. DartmouthAlumniMagazine.com came next with more refinements to handle their issues… and so on. These magazines needed a way to manage all their stories an issue at a time. We realized we had something that other issue based publishers would like, and since it was WordPress based it was a natural fit for them.

We also see many organizations that produce print/pdf newsletters that can benefit by putting their stories online (Google visitor traffic, social media distribution, email subscriptions, etc.) in order to spread their word. We are currently working with Chambers of Commerce now that will use the service to promote their news and sell more ad slots.

As of today we are close to launching a beta version of this instant publication solution and are shooting for Halloween. It’s pretty new ground for us but the clients we have so far like it… and once you have a publication going you can take it to the next level by exporting it into a single WordPress installation, and customizing it with your favorite WordPress developer (we will make the theme/plugin available).

If you are interested in trying it out, we invite you to sign up for our closed beta and, if you are looking at offering this solution to a niche market, please let us know. We think there are many markets (IE churches, hospitals, etc) that could benefit from this.

Pete and the TCW crew

WordPress advanced search functionality

TCwebsite — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 21:25:15 +0000

WordPress continues to amaze us. It’s ability to flex into a publishing platform and then be able to create a powerful yet easy to use search feature is almost a snap.

This search engine for WordPress (see it on DartmonthEngineer.com) allows the user to easily find the story post they are looking for in the magazine by keyword, issue (meta category) and the built in categories. This magazine uses the Issue Manager™ system found at OnlineMagazinePublishing.com

Here’s a screenshot:

A little bit about the technology behind this online magazine:

Issue Manager™ enables you, the publisher, to launch each issue online in one click. Every story you produce is a Google magnet, feeds into Facebook & Twitter, is shareable, offers email subscription, and can serve up ads… forever. Use the same technology that CNN, Best Buy, Tech Crunch and millions of other publishers use: WordPress, and step into the future.

Internet Marketing Success: The Kendall Hotel

TCwebsite — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 14:25:49 +0000

The Kendall Hotel in Cambridge MA is in a tough market. It’s in a great location for visiting Boston – near the T, next door to MIT – but surrounded by competition, including some big name hotels. It would be easy for even an incredibly charming boutique hotel to get lost in that hospitality shuffle. Yet, in spite of a tough tourist economy, the Kendall has done more than survive. In fact, they’ve had their best year ever!

How did they do it? By focusing their marketing investment on effective and affordable internet outreach. While we can’t take all the credit, the Kendall’s Brenda Anderson says, “working with a great team at TCW is the key to our successful–and long-term–relationship.” We’ve collaborated with the Kendall as an ongoing strategic partner, and together we’ve built a site featuring:

search engine friendly construction
optimization for search engines that is updated regularly
targeted upgrades–like a custom solution to automatically age out and reactivate special offers–that have streamlined their outreach efforts
visual appeal–with embedded video and rotating sidebar call-outs, and
strategic blogging–consistent and current updates promoting hotel specials, and reaching out to Boston travelers headed to high-profile events, like the Boston Marathon and Cambridge Carnival.

Many businesses still approach a website as a brochure–built once and then ignored. The Kendall’s site work has been conservative but active, with meaningful changes that have proved the site’s strength to Google. With just two strategically written news posts a month, the Kendall Hotel has slowly built real Google credibility, and statistics tell the story:

a 30+% increase in overall site traffic
an 85% increase in visits for the search term “hotels in Cambridge, MA”
a 153% increase in visits for “hotels near MIT,” and
#2 ranking for “Boston Harborfest Hotel.”

But success can’t be measured just by Google statistics. The Kendall’s online popularity has translated into reservations, with the hotel reporting a stellar season and a 12% increase in bookings. With rooms full, and online credibility on the rise, the Kendall Hotel has a website that’s building their business. That’s the power of our WordPress construction approach and smart website strategy.

Need to get your newsletter or magazine online?

TCwebsite — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 14:38:09 +0000

Sign up for our October closed beta launch of IssueManager™

IssueManager™ enables you, the publisher, to launch each issue online in one click with no software. Every story you produce is a Google magnet, feeds into Facebook & Twitter, is shareable, offers email subscription, and can serve up ads… forever. Use the same technology that CNN, Best Buy, Tech Crunch and millions of other publishers use: WordPress, and step into the future.

We will launch our IssueManager™ cloud service in October which will allow you to instantly start up an online magazine or newsletter (oh and for free).

Request an invite to our beta

Watch the video below to discover how to easily publish each issue, reach new audiences, and engage them online:

WordPress and Pinnacle Cart integration

TCwebsite — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 15:23:24 +0000

We knitted Pinnacle Cart (e-commerce) and WordPress together to create an integrated, seo friendly solution that is also PCI compliant. The homepage is WordPress and feeds the shopping cart categories into the sidebar. The news blog headlines are also fed into the home page for recent news postings and easy Google crawling ability. Both WordPress and Pinnacle Cart are styled for a seamless experience.

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