 Vermont
Web Design and
Internet Marketing
From:
Jeremy Ryan
Burlington,
Vermont
Friday 4:22 pm
Hello and welcome to our website! We recently made some
changes to the web site. First, we added a company blog,
which is below this message. The blog is meant to provide
educational information on web
design and internet
marketing as well as a way for us to share our current
developments with you. We encourage your feedback and
participation by clicking the comments link after each
blog entry.
If you are new to our web site and wish to learn more
about us, click here. To view
more information about our services please click the links
to the left which list our services. Click
here to send us a comment or question.
Respectfully,
Jeremy Ryan
Advantage Creations
Our company blog...
Posts 11 to 20 of 43
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Digsby Review (IM's, email and social networking in one App!) |
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For the last couple days I've been trying a different instant messager called
Digsby. So far, I'm quite impressed. For years now I've been using Trillian to
consolidate all my different IM accounts into one messager such as Yahoo IM,
AIM, ICQ, etc. and Trillian has worked quite well for this.
However, Digsby goes a step further and includes
most emails (which Trillian does too), but also popular social networking tools
such as Facebook, Myspace, Twitter and LinkedIn.
You can even manage your email and social networking accounts within Digsby.
Digsby also saves a copy of all your chats if you like right on your computer
for easy archiving.
Oh, and you can embed the Digsby Widget on your web site to allow visitors to
chat directly with you from your site. You can also customize the widget to fit
the look of your web site as you can see to the right.
If you have a bunch of IM, social networking, and email accounts, you should
give Digsby a try. Download Digsby.
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Posted
by: Jeremy Ryan
Date/Time:
2/10/2009 9:05:40 PM
Comments: 0 |
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Vermont Web Hosting Update |
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We have now completed the transfer of all websites hosted with us to a brand new Dual Quad Core Xeon 5420 64 bit server. All websites and email should now experience better, faster performance, just in time for the holiday season!
If you have any questions regarding the migration or wish to sign up for website hosting with us, please contact us.
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Posted
by: Jeremy Ryan
Date/Time:
11/15/2008 3:26:25 PM
Comments: 0 |
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PortableChangingRoom.com Progress Update |
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It’s been almost a year since I started portablechangingroom.com. Last year, I made several posts following the progress of the site’s performance as I developed and marketed the site.
I developed the site utilizing Cart32 shopping cart, which has worked really well for our other retail websites as it has a lot of great features and is easy to work with.
Once the site was completed, we began marketing it through pay-per-click campaigns through Google and Yahoo. Once we determined the best keywords we then began optimizing the site for the top keywords so that the site would show up in search engine’s organic listings.
Upon, last check I am very pleased with the progress the site has made in only a year’s time. Below are some of our current Google rankings as of this date…
#1 for portable changing room
#1 for portable changing rooms
#1 for pop up room in a bag
#1 for portable change room
#2 for portable pop-up change room
#2 for portable dressing room
#2 for pop up dressing room
#3 for pop up changing room
#3 for portable rooms
Most of these keywords are now providing us good steady traffic and more importantly sales, that don’t require any ongoing costs.
If you would like help with your internet marketing, please contact us regarding our internet marketing services such as pay-per-click and Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
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Posted
by: Jeremy Ryan
Date/Time:
5/10/2008 11:09:52 AM
Comments: 0 |
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New Web Hosting Plans |
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We have now added a couple different options for our hosting. Before now, you had the following options:
- One Plan Hosting (Yearly): $99/year
- One Plan Hosting with Cart32 (Yearly): $120/year
Due to recent requests, we have decided to add the following monthly options for both types of hosting.
- One Plan Hosting (Monthly): $10/month
- One Plan Hosting with Cart32 (Monthly): $15/month
Click here for more information on our hosting plans.
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Posted
by: Jeremy Ryan
Date/Time:
10/3/2007 7:48:06 PM
Comments: 0 |
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YouTube Marketing |
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 YouTube is an online video sharing website where users can upload their videos for all to see. We recently uploaded a couple videos for a client and that almost instantly they started getting viewers.
When we uploaded the videos we made sure that the anyone viewing the video would know that they could go to our client's website to get more information.
We also were able to embed a YouTube player with each video on the clients website so that people viewing the client's website wouldn't even need to leave the site to view the videos. The videos are streamed instead of downloaded so the viewer must either go to the client's website or YouTube's website to view the videos, which can be seen as a positive as it offers some protection from copyright infringement and it encourages more visits to the website.
The best part is that YouTube offers all of this for free as the YouTube website is ad-supported, meaning that when viewers go to the website, they will see text and some video ads along side the web pages.
It's definately worth a try and there are all kinds of possibilities, such as personal messages, product demos, interviews, customer/client referrals.
Please contact me if you would like us to help you get video on your website.
PS: Click here to see our client's videos embeded on their website.
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Posted
by: Jeremy Ryan
Date/Time:
5/20/2007 4:51:52 PM
Comments: 0 |
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Welcome to Our New Clients! |
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 Some of our newest clients include...
We have many hosting, web design and internet marketing solutions for every budget and every need.
For example, Baby Yap Yap needed reliable Cart32 Hosting for their ecommerce business, which we offer for the very affordable price of $120 (no setup fees).
Henninge and UnderandOver Weavers needed a no-hassle hosting package, which we offer for $99/year (no setup fees).
Organic Bodybuilding needed website hosting, custom scripts, an ebook created and encrypted and a internet marketing plan developed and implemented, which is ongoing.
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Posted
by: Jeremy Ryan
Date/Time:
5/18/2007 7:45:52 PM
Comments: 0 |
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Update on Google Checkout and Froogle |
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 The introduction of Google Checkout certainly helped the bottom lines for many retailers including our own retail websites with their zero fee merchant processing. The latest news is that Google is extending their no fee policy throughout 2007 and they have started giving a $10 instant rebate on all first purchases for new Google Checkout users.
You can see how we are promoting this by going to JLRyan.com. We have the promotion posted at the top of every page. How it works is a customer selects the product(s) they want, goes to checkout and then the Google Checkout button/option appears along side the regular shopping cart buttons. If the user is new to Google Checkout, they simply signup and then get the $10 off that order. This promotion, I believe has driven a lot of orders to be paid through Google Checkout. It's been a win-win situation for us and customers as the customer gets $10 and we save the merchant processing fees of 2.49 percent plus .20 transaction fees on each order.
Regarding Froogle, Google has decided that they will discontinue accepting the Froogle feeds. They will now only accept Google Base feeds which are a little different in format, but still feed product listings to Froogle I believe. Listings will also be listed on Google Base as well. We are currently reworking our feeds to work with the new system. Google is allowing until the end of February before they will now longer accept old Froogle feeds. I imagine that there will be a lot of merchants that will let the feeds expire and so this should give a boost in traffic to merchants who react quickly to the change.
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Posted
by: Jeremy Ryan
Date/Time:
1/27/2007 8:55:43 PM
Comments: 0 |
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Ready for Cyber Monday? |
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Cyber Monday is the Monday following Black Friday, which is the day after Thanksgiving. It's become the annual kickoff for the online holiday shopping season. It's said to be one of the busiest shopping days of the year for online retailers. Many online retailers offer promotions to mark the occasion, which in affect causes the heavy buying to begin.
Although Cyber Monday officially marks holiday shopping season, e-commerce websites report that the busiest shopping days are actually between December 5-15th, which is two weeks after "Cyber Monday"
So, you still have time to get your holiday promotions and marketing strategies figured out.
Two Ways to Boost Sales Fast This Holiday...
The following are a couple things you to do very quickly to get your products and promotions in front of holiday shoppers.
- Email marketing - Sending notices of what you have to offer and any specials to your in house email list. You may email a special discount coupon to all past customers to encourage them to shop with you. We have offered a 10% off coupon code which can be used with the Cart32 shopping cart that we use.
- Pay-per-click advertising - Using Google Adwords, MSN Adcenter and Yahoo Search Marketing, you can get ads for your products and offers next to search results on every search engine in minutes for so much a click. I usually aim for .20/click or less terms, but I'm willing to pay double, or more in some instances, during the holidays as the chances of a visitor buying are much higher. If you currently use pay-per-click advertising, then make sure your bids are up higher than usual to catch more easy sales and if you don't... try it!
These two marketing strategies can be implemented very quickly... in time to boost holiday sales.
Please email me if you would like us to help you with your email marketing or pay-per-click campaigns.
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Posted
by: Jeremy Ryan
Date/Time:
11/21/2006 5:17:19 PM
Comments: 0 |
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Cart32 Hosting - $120/Year |
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As I said in the previous post, we have upgraded the Cart32 shopping cart to Cart32 v6.3. One of the major new features we are using right away is the Google Checkout addon. The addon allows Google Checkout to work within the Cart32 shopping cart along with accepting Paypal, credit cards (through your own merchant account) and of course checks/money orders.
I had posted previously that a drawback to using Google Checkout is that it didn't integrate well with websites or shopping carts. While it still is not easy to integrate into websites, Cart32 has taken the time to create an addon that helps you easily integrate Google Checkout into the Cart32 shopping cart.
To get merchants to accept Google Checkout, Google is now waiving all fees for processing transactions for the holidays, which is great! After the holidays, Google will be reverting back to the old fee structure, but still allowing you to process $10 of Google Checkout sales for free for every $1 you spend on Google AdWords, which is still a great deal.
We now offer two tiers of web hosting. Website hosting with Cart32 support and without. Cart32 hosting is only $120/year and hosting without Cart32 is still only $99/year. The Google Checkout addon is an extra $24.95 (one-time fee).
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Posted
by: Jeremy Ryan
Date/Time:
11/15/2006 8:02:42 PM
Comments: 0 |
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