1. Aviary provides Photoshop-like photo editing features in this SaaS program. This hosted program provides a pretty wide range of photo editing options, from simple red eye removal to complex photo retouching. This application works via the Web and supports several mobile platforms, giving a great deal of flexibility in its usage.

2. Salesforce is one of the most well-known SaaS providers available, with one of the most widely used CRMs around. The cloud benefits Salesforce by providing a uniform server environment, whether the client’s business is large or small, along with making implementation as easy as creating accounts and learning the software. Salesforce has many related applications that work hand in hand with this service.

3. Microsoft Office 365 is similar to the same old Microsoft Office that has been installed on workstations and home computers for years. Instead of buying all of the licenses and going through the pain of installing it, however, the entire suite is accessed in the cloud. This makes it easier for IT departments to handle user access and upgrades as well as making users’ data available no matter what platform they’re using.

4. CoTweet is a third-party cloud hosted application that simplifies Twitter for marketing, support and more. This software is designed around making it simple for large and small businesses to keep up with multiple social media accounts. Social network marketing doesn’t need to be complicated, especially when there is a hosted application that does a lot of the work itself.

5. Box is a fairly simple SaaS product that provides easy file hosting. For any business that needs to share files among users and a quick and easy way to make this work, this is a solid option for a cloud hosted service. Cloud hosted files can be easily shared, negating the need to email multiple versions throughout the creation process. Plus, the provider takes care of backups and disaster recovery, keeping data secure.

There are dozens, if not hundreds, of SaaS providers around, many of whom have created novel, interesting concepts for cloud usage and are trying to leverage the full benefit of cloud computing to make it easier for businesses to focus on their core objectives. It’s easy to find a cloud service that will suit nearly any need.

In order to stay competitive in their markets, companies are having to rethink the way they design their site and make sure that their IT professionals are just as good at developing products with a specific focus on the customer. Many companies with large IT departments are trending towards this change. When asked about the issue, Vinay Mehta, chief information officer of Paycor, had this to say to:

“There is a trend toward developing more IT professionals who are not as deep into the bits and bytes of things as they are into whether the end user is going to appreciate the product that they build. I think that’s a good trend.”

(Source: Enterchange)

Strange words to hear from an online payroll company, but they, along with other companies with substantive IT departments, realize that in addition to giving clients a top-notch product that works well, they have to create an attractive interface and make the site easy to navigate in order to retain, and gain, customers.

In order to decide which techniques they should put to use, companies need to think about their target audience. Is the teenage crowd? Working moms? Wealthy senior citizens? By doing research about their end user, companies can better choose the colors, fonts, photos and overall style of their site in order to gather a wider audience. They need to know what their visitor wants, and then be able to give it to them.

Groupon is a prime example of a company that did excellent research in their beginning stages in order to propel it into a household name amongst the younger generations. They have a clean, simple page design and offer daily deals that are in line with the wants and needs of its target market. Even their blog fits their unique brand of humor. Other sites offer their information in fun ways, with flipbooks or rotating pictures with text to reach the same audience.

Asking visitors to subscribe via email or RSS feed helps ensure the company name stays fresh in the minds of the consumer on a daily or weekly basis. On-site forums and message boards allow users to interact with each other and bring the most dedicated users back quite frequently. Social media buttons, strategically placed and with a clear call to action, make it easy for website visitors to quickly and easily share the site with their social networks. The booming mobile market is also helping companies and individuals interact with their target audience as more and more sites create an interface for use on mobile devices.

It’s not just websites that are experiencing these changes. Software and online products also need to keep up with the times as it becomes easier, and cheaper, for new companies to join in the competition. No matter how great your product is or how long it’s been around, if it runs too slowly, looks outdated, contains bugs or just isn’t easy to navigate, customers will look elsewhere to fulfill their product needs.

Even with their pages of great content and updated site load times, many of the websites of the early 2000s are no longer good enough for today’s savvy Web users. They want a clean, simple design that just tells what they want to know, and then, what they should do next, whether that be to “like” the site on Facebook, Tweet something to their followers, buy a product or download a free eBook. Companies with sites or online products that aren’t already user friendly need to get them updated today to ensure that they keep an edge over their competitors.

Here are the rules:

Top 5 rules for guest blogging

1. Don’t spam, don’t be crass with your commercial messages or overtly self-promotional
2. Open a New Window when you link out to other websites
3. Include a subtle but professional byline at the bottom with a single back link

Tips for effective Guest blogging

1. Think about and decide on the most important point or message
2. Research your subject material so you know it well
3. Break the blog post up into 3-5 paragraphs
4. Put a heading (Heading 2) above each paragraph
5. Find a relevant photo or image that compliments the article
6. Write for the target audience of the host website
7. Write well, edit your work, deliver professional quality content
8. Search engine optimize your site with headings, tags, and SEO images

Below are three examples of how smartphone brew technology has evolved:

1. The end of proprietary applications. With so many operating systems on marketplace, apps must be designed to work over a variety of platforms. An iPhone user can play Words With Friends with someone who uses the new Droid. An Office suite for business tools is available on most mobile operating systems. The need to develop applications with more general applications has prompted independent designers to get creative and work hard on their projects.
2. Expanding the market. Forget being a Mac or a PC, people are smartphone users or not. How often have you heard someone express surprise or frustration when their friends can’t receive a picture message? Or, on the flip side, someone who lives on their Droid gets irritated when someone calls with elaborate directions. “Just text me the address and I can plug it into my GPS.” New brew technology means that people with feature phones can enjoy all the advantages of smartphone devices — and more. FOX Television recently launched a Brew application for users to watch select programming right on their phone. Customers can stay tuned into the news via ticker and text alert.
3. Brew devices. Brew teamed up with Samsung to create the Reality, a more affordable touchscreen phone with a social networking focus. This feature is one of the main reasons buyers cite buying a smartphone. The ability to bring it to the masses through Brew technology will bring down costs and open up new possibilities in phone design, allowing us to leave the smart-or-not dichotomy once and for all. A slider keyboard and a camera with Instagram-like effects makes the Reality stick out from the mid-range competition. Users can post instantly to Facebook and YouTube, and unlike some Google phones that stick you with un-deletable apps, Brew technology allows for almost endless customization.

Brew devices are surely a sign of emerging and future trends in mobile design and applications. The unique software and platforms put power back into the hands of the consumer. Often, new phones are saddled with an experimental operating system. The bugs may take weeks or months, along with several downloaded updates, to resolve, resulting in frustration and an inability to use the device to its true potential. Brew platforms, by opening up smartphone functionality, not only will create more affordable phones, but may just make it a little harder for companies to justify outrageous prices for new models. When apps are available across a multitude of platforms, the motivation to spend hundreds of dollars on a sleek white iPhone melts away for some customers. Instead, the mobile world will join the ranks of Netflix, offering customizable a la carte entertainment so that the consumer can design a phone that fits his or her specific needs and desires — nothing more, nothing less.

One of the more interesting developments in digital marketing is creating a game for people to play that advertises a product – otherwise known as “advergaming.”

Years ago, Burger King sold a triad of games with their Whoppers that they creatively named “King Games.” Each of them retailed for $4 and offered a concentrated, yet perfunctory experience on an Xbox disc. The games were intentionally bizarre (in keeping with their bonkers ad campaign at the time), but fun despite itself. It served as an experience that would pull more customers into BK restaurants. Those games must have been successful because advergames have reappeared in marketing strategies, and this time they are bolstered by social media.

Here are a few advergames that I’ve come across (while working on research, er-hem…) that show how advergaming has grown and could possibly portend what we could see in the future:

The Hunger Games:

The critically acclaimed youth-murder book series will likely become the biggest motion picture phenomenon of the spring (read: the opposite of John Carter). It will also use a Facebook game to build anticipation for the film’s release and keep die-hard fans hooked into the fictional world of Panem. Facebook obviously offers a platform that reaches about 850 million people, and the game allows you to create your own avatar and take place in the Games against series favorites.

It’s a simple formula, but as long as the game can appeal to more than just die-hard fans, it’s poised to become a huge draw and turn over a huge ROI for the marketing budget.

Self Workout in the Park

Self Magazine has hosted its Workout in the Park event every year for the past two decades. This is, however, the first year where they will dip their toes into social gaming to promote the nationwide health and fitness event. The game is incentivized by typical game fare – puzzles, virtual goods, avatars, etc. – and represents where magazines and other legacy media are trying to pull new customers and revenue. The game is aimed at women and makes its mission to illustrate how “the more you play, the more you’ll see how diet, exercise and overall well-being can affect your life. All while having fun! It’s virtual fitness with real-life benefits!” (Source)

Red Bull’s The Art of Flight:

The Art of Flight is a straightforward high-score game with a simple gimmick: GET AIR, BRO! The title is part of a branding campaign Red Bull is executing that emphasizes its high-octane sports image. It probably took 45 minutes to code this game, but it appeals to a rudimentary sense of being the best at an easy thing. This is accommodated by the social sharing buttons on the game’s page asking that you “Challenge your friends” on Facebook and Twitter. It’s the simplest game marketing formula in the world, but it works.

Advergames have become an ascendant form of web marketing in the wake of the social media boom. The Hunger Games on Facebook with be a litmus test for whether these social games can succeed on a huge platform rather than just a short Flash diversion on a company’s website. If it does, we could see a whole new branch of social marketing bloom up from the already rich sod.

But what about for the individual who is just starting a small business and has little or no clue as to the importance of SEO and how it can make or break the amount of traffic you get to your Web site?

For those that are a little green when it comes to putting together and running a company Web site for their small business, keep several factors in mind if you decide to go outside for a web content writer, be they full or part time:

• Look for someone that understands keyword importance – Keywords are crucial in order to attract the major search engines and drive traffic to your business site. A word to the wise, however, the keywords should flow with the copy you are putting out there and not be a distraction. If your business is selling home, health and auto insurance, having keywords related to phone systems in the copy makes no sense. Find a writer that understands how to craft the words into the copy so that a Google or other search engine will zero in on those words and bring those interested in home, health and auto insurance to your site;
• Look for a writer that provides regular content – One of the worst things you can do for your site besides bad keyword placement is not updating your content. If the content is stale, the search engine will look at it as a site that is not being updated on a regular basis, hence the traffic will be few and far between. The content needs to be updated regularly so that both current and potential customers come to your site, viewing you as an authority figure on the product/s and/or services that you offer;
• Look for a writer that engages people coming to your site – One of the best ways to consistently drive traffic to your site is by having real-time interaction with readers. If your site opens itself to comments with readers, you can carry on real-time conversations with people, in the process, potentially winning a number of them over to what you have to offer. While a little more risky, you can also consider having a forum on your site so that readers can interact with one another. The one important item here is making sure that you monitor the forum on a regular basis so that the language is appropriate and there is no chance for libel matters to crop up;
• Look for someone that understands social media – As social media continues to grow, it is important that your Web site’s content is aptly promoted. If you have content and other forms of promotions on the site, they need to be talked about on the various social media venues like Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and more. Make sure in bringing on a writer that they devote a portion of their time to actively promoting your site and its offerings on social media channels. When you break it all down, social media is today’s version of networking, something a business can never do too much of;
• Look for a writer that is open to suggestions – Just because you may not have a writing pedigree per se doesn’t mean you cannot offer some suggestions on how you want the web content to look and feel. You want your site to have a look that is both professional and personable. If you hire a full or part-time writer that is hesitant to listen to your suggestions or accept change, then consider finding someone else. How your site looks and sounds says a lot about you as a company; don’t make the mistake of sending out the wrong message.

At the end of the day, your Web site can and will go a long way in determining just how successful your small business will be.

In order to write a successful chapter in your company’s plans, make sure you write the right message.

Talk about your customers, not just to your customers

Communication may be a two-way street but so is praise. If you would like your customers to go out there and talk about your business, you must also be willing to talk about them. This may be by way of business case studies or productivity interviews. Find out how your customers are using your products and services, and then talk about them on your website. Don’t be afraid of doing some PR for your customers because they will love it and talk all the more about your business to their circles of influence.

Reward your customers

In fact, why not go a step further than just talking about your customers and reward them as well. Incentives play an important role in showing your customers how much you value them and appreciate their business. But you must remember it’s not just about throwing out some ill-conceived rewards that had no significant thought put into them. Customers love well thought-out and tailor-made rewards that tell them you care enough to go the extra mile.

Make yourself accessible

Accessibility goes deeper than just having a contact page on your website. Customers must know you are ready and willing to address their issues when they arise. You can communicate this by including your cell phone number in your customer relation emails and telling them you are available at any time to speak with them. Alternatively, create a very well crafted series of auto-responders that cover any communication lapses in the event that you are not available. For example, schedule email auto-responders that go out every 3-8 hours reassuring any customer who has sent in an email that you will get back to them as soon as you can.

Customer generated content

Bring your customers on board and let them generate content for your site. One great example is to create a customer forum where customers can come and have discussions on your products and services as well as on related issues. Another way you can involve your customers and engage them is to create a company blog, and invite customers to submit articles for publishing on the blog. As your customers generate content for your website, this will engender a sense of belonging, which brings out the last idea for engaging your customers; build a community.

Build a community

Your business exists within a physical community, and so what creating an online community does is to augment or extend that physical community to an online platform. This can be easily achieved by incorporating all the preceding ideas into your web strategy and opening up your web space to your customers. As you build your community around your business, you will not only strengthen your brand name and brand visibility but you will also begin to see stronger customer referrals, which will originate new business even within a limited business landscape.

Author bio: Daniel Mbure is a writer, strategist and web entrepreneur. He contributes to a number of technology and education websites including DegreeJungle.com exploring the intersection of technology and entrepreneurship.

Federal agencies need small businesses to contract out for goods and services, and mid and large-tier organizations are looking to small business partners for strategic contract wins. The playing field has widened yet so has competition. How can small businesses become known entities in the new Federal contracting environment?

Government contractors can leverage their online communications – from website design, to online branding, to content marketing, to social media to search engine optimization to mobile-friendly technology – to promote their goods and services to government agency and prime contractor partners.

In this series, we will explore the increasingly important role web presence plays in winning government business.

First, Get Found – Search Engine Optimization

inQbation has advanced mastery skills of search engine optimization (SEO).   Google, “DC SEO experts,” and you will see inQbation.com on top.   The most important element of SEO is selecting and using the right keywords.  Often, we will observe that the language and terminology that organizations use may or may not be the same as those that its target audience uses.

If an organization wants their site to rank high on search engines and be found by its intended target audience, it is imperative that representatives of the target audience be interviewed in a non-leading way to identify their natural online search behavior.  We need to use the key words that our target audience might use, not the internal technical or clinical language that we might use, to find the type of content that we have on our site.

We have observed and identified the 5 most important elements of search engine optimization.  Most websites that apply these elements tend to rank very well across all search engines.  Those that do not apply these elements often struggle with their SEO.  These are the most import elements of SEO:

1.       Choose the right keywords – those that your target audience my use

2.       Inject unique keyword phrases (3-5 words) into page title tags

3.       Inject important keyword phrases into page headings

4.       Use important key words in link text and navigation links

5.       Weave important keywords into the URLs and directory path

Our SEO strategy includes a well-rounded, holistic approach that encompasses:

• Crawlability – because search engines need to crawl your site to index it
• Credibility – because search engines prefer to deliver credible results
• Content – because your site’s content must be relevant to a search query
• Code – because search engines read your source code and meta tags
• Conversation – because search engines monitor social media
• Competition – because it’s easier to rank for less competitive keyword phrases
• Conversion – because it’s about getting qualified clients, not just gross traffic
• Compliance – because valid HTML, CSS, and 508 code helps search engine.

Find out how your website scores, for free!

Email results@inQbation.com for a free assessment of your website  presence.  At no cost to you, we will use professional  tools to grade your findability, and give you your score and supporting metrics.

1″Savvy contractors to capitalize on 2012 spending trends.” http://www.legalnews.com/detroit/1177583/. Detroit Legal News. 17 January 2012. Web.

2 Matthew Weigelt. “Agencies that miss small-biz goals could face penalties.” http://fcw.com/articles/2012/01/25/small-business-goal-reduced-budget-penalty.aspx. 25 January 2012. Federal Computer Week. Web.

Indeed, many now view the snail mail as an inconvenience, delivering nothing more than junk mail. In a recent NPR interview, Steve Shiver, founder of Doxo (a company that helps consumers manage bills and documents online), stated “I had an epiphany one day when I went to my mail box and it was shoved full of junk mail and there’s only two or three important things I needed in all of this three of four pounds of paper. I generally want my government services focused on things that are really both efficient and valuable to me as a citizen. And what’s unfortunately happened incrementally over the years is a greater and greater proportion of physical mail is junk.”

What does this mean for businesses?

Considering that most of the “junk mail” delivered by the USPS is advertising for businesses, sales fliers, etc., many of which is time-sensitive, businesses will simply have to adapt to the changes that the Internet has wrought, or face the consequences. It isn’t practical to send these materials out through FedEx or UPS, yet these are obviously an integral part of building and promoting your business.

Already, many are predicting that the proposed changes to the USPS, which will be implemented as early as next April, will have a negative impact on small businesses and mail-oriented businesses such as Netflix. “It’s less of a disaster than it would have been ten years ago, but it’ll be a cash flow crunch for some companies,” Todd McCracken, president and chief executive of the National Small Business Association, told The Associated Press.  “It’ll be longer to get your invoice, and longer to get a check back.”

What can businesses do to stay competitive?

Simply put, businesses must learn everything they can about the Internet, and how to use it to their advantage. Here are five things that every business must do in order to adapt to these changes:

1. Learn everything you can about white hat SEO tactics. Many mistakenly believe that Search Engine Optimization is unethical, and should be avoided altogether. However, when done in an ethical manner, SEO can be incredibly effective.  Learn about keywords, relevant content, and so forth, and your website will flourish as a result.
2. Google has released many algorithmic updates, in order to weed out spammy sites and ensure better search results. The Panda Update, for example, gives Google the ability to read online content at a 10^th grade level, and was responsible for the demotion of several well-known websites in search rankings. Rather than being intimidated by these algorithm updates, learn as much as you can in order to use them to your benefit. Keep your content relevant and current at all times, and Google will reward you accordingly.
3. Experiment with online advertising, marketing and sales methods. Email marketing is the easiest way to target a specific demographic, without wasting money on paper and postage. Alternately, sites such as Facebook and Google offer different advertising options that can be used in lieu of mass mailings. Finally, there are several sites out there that offer coupons and deals to customers, making sales fliers a thing of the past.
4. Use social media to your advantage! As with all other Internet-related topics, sites like Facebook and Twitter were once thought to be only appropriate for keeping in touch with family friends, but now they can be used to promote your business. Retweet business-related items, or start a Facebook page for your business and encourage your customers to check-in in order to spread the word to their friends. With a little extra effort, you can increase your online presence exponentially, and your business will thrive as a result.
5. Start a blog, and write about all aspects of your company. You will not only gain customers as people discover your site, but you will also meet other business owners and learn what they are doing to remain competitive in the ever-changing market. Networking will always be beneficial, whether it is done online or in person, so why not take every possible opportunity to do just that?

Many view the changes with the USPS as a bad thing, but they are proof of what happens to a business that is unwilling or unable to change and adapt to technological advances. Rather than taking the risk of fading away into oblivion, stay up to date with everything and be a step ahead whenever possible. In doing this, you will be assured that your business will continue to grow.

For many companies, their online marketing efforts need a shot in the arm as they head into the New Year, but the question for many is how to go about it. How can they improve their online marketing techniques without spending lots of money and time and effort? Can it be done or is it just whistling in the wind?

If you have found your company’s online marketing goals struggling over this last year, or if you’re in the process of starting a business and want to know how to get off on the right foot with online marketing, there are ways to go about it.

Among them are:

• Review your content – This is the first and most important step. What have you been giving your customers and potential customers over the last year? Has it been quality marketing content or just stuff to fill space and seem up to date? Have your marketing efforts been consistent or on an as-needed basis? What are you doing or not doing as compared to the competition? Finally, would you go to your company’s Web site and find the information informative if you did not work there? These are important facets to consider during your review, a review that should include an outsider or two who will give unbiased feedback;
• Review your keyword targets – Whether you are an expert with keywords and links or not, they play a large role in helping drive search engines to your site. If your keywords are not attractive enough, your site will be the lesser for it. Compile a list of keywords for your present content and those that will relate to upcoming content, allowing you to better sell your company product/s and/or services. If you come across any keywords for which you don’t have a large deal of content for to date, add those subjects to your content calendar so you can incorporate them into your initiatives;
• Review your site visitors – It is important if you are not already doing so to review who is coming to your site, when they are coming, where they are visiting from and most importantly, why they are landing there. Too many companies do not invest the necessary time into deciphering their Web site analytics, leaving them with a whole bunch of numbers and no rhyme or reason for them. Delve into the analytics on why your site traffic is what it is and make the most of them. Understand why some pages and topics are getting hit upon more than others. Find out why some portions of your site are not obtaining much interest so that you can go about addressing that issue;
• Review your techniques for feedback – Assuming you have somewhere on your site where customers and other parties can provide feedback, take the time to review those responses. Why are some people addressing you with concerns and/or complaints? How are you responding to such issues? Are you responding in the first place or just ignoring the matter? If you are responding, are you doing it in a timely fashion? Feedback from customers is critical in today’s Internet age, so don’t brush it off as something that can be done at a later time;
• Review your content strategy – To some not aware, they may think that content simply means writing a few paragraphs here and there and sticking it on your company’s Web site. Trust me that could not be farther from the truth. Your company’s online content strategy should include myriad of items including a blog, audio and video offerings, podcasts, social media and more. Social media is a key one given how engrossed much of the world is today with sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ and others. Your social media efforts allow you to engage the public in conversation that hopefully leads them to or back to your site. The key here is to stay engaged in social media on a regular basis so that you remain relevant and up to speed on what is going on;
• Review the competition – Take the time to see what your competitors have been doing with online marketing. Did they appear to increase, decrease or keep their efforts relatively similar in 2011 compared to prior years? Give a look to see what techniques they are using to entice visitors to come to their site and view content, specifically, are they doing something or things that you are not? While you don’t want to copy the competition, you do want to know what they are up to.

While improving your online marketing efforts will not be done overnight, they can be done over time.

With the New Year just weeks away, now is the time to review your 2011 online marketing production, see where it succeeded and failed, and determine how 2012 can bring you a better return on your investment (ROI).