One of the biggest - and most fun - parts of launching a new site is coming up with the domain name. This is it - this is going to be your identity on the Web for the foreseeable future, and it’s important to get it right the first time. Sometimes the decision’s made for you - you go with the name of your business or something like that. That’s fine. But other times, you’re presented with the unique challenge of coming up with an online identity from scratch. On those occasions, here are five tools to help you come up with great domain names.

Read the rest...

I had someone write me in a panic the other day. They had just switched their Web site between servers, only to watch their search traffic plummet from Google. In the week after they switched, they went from about 150 unique visitors from Google to just 20. What was the problem?

I went through a quick checklist with the site’s owner, checking to see if he may have been penalized by Google or if there was a problem with his site. Did he start selling links on his site, or was his site hacked? No, so a penalty was unlikely. Did he delete or change the links to his content? No, so errors weren’t the cause. So the only explanation left was the mythical Google sandbox effect.

Web developers are in disagreement as to whether the sandbox actually exists, and it has never been confirmed or denied by Google. I’m a firm believer in the sandbox effect’s existence, at least for certain sites. What is it and how can you escape it? Read on.

Read the rest...

This man and this business card are not famous, but I ran across it on Matt Cutts’ blog last night as I was browsing around the Internet. He found it in a book, knows nothing else about it but he’s never going to forget it. That’s the whole point of a business card, right? So I got to thinking - what do the business cards of the rich and famous look like? I spent some time scouring the Web for as many examples I could, hoping I could find some common thread in their business cards that got them to where they are today. Didn’t happen, but the resulting collection is pretty cool nonetheless. Have any more examples? Let me know in the comments.

Read the rest...

Business software is expensive, especially if you need licenses for multiple company computers. But take pause before you purchase your next software package — there are quite a few products you can download on line for free. From accounting to e-mail, more and more of your business software can be free or open source.

Here are a few you should check out:

QuickBooks Simple Start 2008 - Accounting software is crucial for every business, and, typically, it comes with a pretty hefty price tag. But not QuickBooks Simple Start 2008. It’s easy to use, simple to learn, and is a great way to stay organized–and it’s free! This program can help you process credit card transactions, track inventory, and automatically keep an eye on tax-related income and expenses, which will make tax time a cinch.

Adobe Photoshop Express - Photoshop is a fantastic program, but it carries with it a hefty learning curve and a steep price for most small businesses. But Adobe’s Photoshop Express is different. As long as you have a Web browser and an Internet connection, this new version of Photoshop is 100 percent free. It’s sleek, easy to use, and extremely practical. Images can be uploaded from your computer or from other services,like Facebook. Users can control brightness, contrast, color temperature, and color balance with the click of a button, and can also correct red-eye in just seconds. In addition, all edits are non-destructive and non-linear, so, if you’re unhappy with some of your edits, you can revert without losing the rest of your work.

Read the rest...

A typical e-mail pitch by the Obama campaign. Companies can draw several lessons from Obama’s approach to use in their own campaigns.

Politics aside, Barack Obama’s use of Internet small donors to build his campaign has been nothing short of impressive, and his strategies will certainly become the model for politicians in the future. But some of the successes of the Obama campaign will translate well to the business world as well. One of the linchpins of Obama’s success has been his e-mail campaign. When the campaign needs a quick influx of donations to bolster its monthly figures or to run a new ad, they turn to their e-mail list. Why is their approach to e-mail marketing so successful, and what lessons can you take to improve the conversions on your own e-mail campaigns?

Read the rest...

In the early days of your blog, you may feel like Sam Brownback during the 2008 primaries: perpetually speaking to an empty room.

For a business, the Internet can be a brutal place. And businesses that blog are businesses that put themselves in the center of the storm. Blogs take a while to mature, and along the way, every business blogger will deal with languishing in obscurity, cutting criticism, and a lack of motivation. Here’s a guide to handling the growing pains along the way, but keep this in mind too: the payoff is worth it. Those bloggers that can weather the rough, early days, will be rewarded with a collection of strong content that attracts new readers, promotes discussion and feedback, improves search engine ranking and ultimately generates new business.

Read the rest...

When Facebook opened registration to just about anone in Sept. 2006, the social media giant grew by more than 88 million active users. Clearly Facebook isn’t just for high schoolers and the collegiate crowd anymore. With the variety of services available on Facebook, this social site can be as useful for a small business as it is for young people. Many people have jumped on board the Facebook bandwagon in the last two years, using it as a tool to communicate efficiently between employees and spread the word about their companies.

However, simply having a Facebook profile isn’t enough. Currently, Facebook offers an abundance of applications that can be added to your profile, many of which can be powerful networking and marketing tools. Here are five of the best:

Read the rest...

Setting out to improve a Web site might seem overwhelming. There are so many factors that come into play - design, user interface, conversion rates, SEO and so forth. But chip away at something every single day and before long, your Web site will be better than ever.

In the spirit of this, here’s our a 30 day plan for improving your Web site. Some of these steps might seem basic, but we’ve found even some experienced Web designers forget about them sometimes. By putting in just a few minutes of effort each day, in a month’s time you’ll have a Web site compliant with many of the best practices online.

Let’s get started.

Read the rest...

With a portrait of Osama Bin Laden on the wall and an American flag burning in the fireplace, many are finding the incendiary cartoon on the current cover of The New Yorker not only utterly unpleasant, but outright offensive.

And it is.

The illustration of Michelle and Barack Obama as terrorists pounding fists in the Oval Office is an attack on the very image the Obama campaign is trying to rid from the minds of many mindless Americans. But anyone who knows anything about the democratic presidential hopeful knows he is neither a Quran-thumping terrorist nor a Muslim at best. (Has everyone already forgotten Reverend Wright?) Yet, many of us are scratching our heads and wondering how this cover made it through the magazine’s hierarchy of editors all the way to newsstands around the nation. But the answer is really quite clear.

It brought in readers.

Yes, the cover is offensive whether or not you vote red or blue. And yes, it was in poor taste. But it was a brilliant move from a business perspective. It will increase traffic to the company’s Web site. It will sell magazines. It will attract a new audience. And ultimately this provocative cover will accomplish exactly what the editors were hoping for: it got people talking.

Read the rest...

Meet Myrtle. It’s the first Wordpress theme we’ve at Fletcher/Giglio developed since our launch, and it’s completely free to download and use on your own Wordpress site.

Simplicity and flexibility is key in Myrtle. We designed the theme to be fast, readable and eminently usable. Myrtle goes beyond a blogging platform to become basic content management system, giving bloggers a way to easily feature content on the home page. Want something in the featured box at the top? Simple - add it to the “featured” category. Have a popular post you want spotlighted? The three most recent posts in the “popular” category are always on the bottom of your home page. And you can include as many recent posts as you like in between. Plus, the sidebar at the top is widgetized, giving you added flexibility.

Read the rest...