As we march forward into 2010, businesses need to recognize that a lot has changed from the early days of the web.  What was once under the strict purview of elusive technophiles, has morphed into the purview of marketing, and is now shifting again into the hands of the every-person.

It’s an exciting time to be on the web.  Finding your voice and expressing that to your customers is more important than ever.  Do you know how to put your best foot forward?

Alora speaks with Jonas Lamis of Tech Ranch about web marketing strategies for startups and personal branding.

Unfortunately, the answer to this question is not as straight forward as most people want. The good news, however, is that — long before an entrepreneur starts looking at expensive outsourcing solutions — there are a TON of things he or she can do for themselves.

Our SEO Plus Workshop is about just that. The class consists of one part lecture and information, one part interactive collaboration and brainstorming, and one part personal plan building. Designed specifically for entrepreneurs, this workshop includes tons of valuable information to get every entrepreneur on the right track — on their own! Our training is designed to accomplish three critical things:

1. Help you understand what you need to know to manage your websites online presence yourself.
2. Build a plan, based on your specific business needs, on how best to move forward given your resources.
3. Understand how to find the appropriate SEO resources at the right time, and not be sold something you don’t need at a price you can’t afford.

The way we do this is by educating entrepreneurs on the most vital elements of online marketing solutions (including SEO) for themselves. And since we are not an SEO firm seeking a monthly SEO contract, we have no conflict of interest about sharing information with you. One way that we do that is by giving workshop attendees an additional half hour of face-to-face consulting time, plus on-going access to our student-only online services.

The class is being held on the evening of Monday, November 9th at Tech Ranch from 7:00-10:00 p.m. You can register for it at Eventbrite. And if you have any questions, please contact us and we’ll be happy to answer them.

At the time the new association launched, there were a small handful of businesses involved: BatchBook, FreshBooks, MailChimp, Outright and Shoeboxed. The companies involved were starting the affiliation and announcing that, though a series of API-based integrations, they were offering a new capability to their customers: integration between their services. Since each solution provides a single slice of back-office functionality for small businesses, by integrating with each other, they are able to support a much more robust lifecycle of back-office activity.

The requirements for joining were simple but essential:

First, a public, demonstrated commitment to customer service.

Second, a technology solution that includes an API.

What I love about this is that, though most business people may not know what an API is, they know what it does: it makes their lives easier. It makes a huge difference in a socially-interconnected eco-system. The fact that these applications are all capable of communicating with each other, sharing vital data, eliminating duplicate entry and providing a much broader view of small business activity, by re-using the same data across multiple areas of their business.

What I love even more, though, is seeing how many additional businesses have joined the original handful since launch earlier this year. If you look at the list today, twenty-seven (27) additional companies are on the list. Not all of them have integrations (not all of them need it), but they are all companies serving the small B2B market. It is one of the first resources I send small business owners to, because it’s a great place for them to see what is available at price points they can afford.

My only lament, of course, is that unless or until we all become part of The Matrix, consultants can’t have APIs, so we can’t join.

I still vividly remember client phone calls in which executives on the other end of the phone could barely contain their disdain, because — in their view — the web was a fad that would eventually fade away, and there was no reason for them to invest anything in it at all. Obviously, even the most die-hard ludites have eventually capitulated to the realities of an online world and succumbed to the importance of the web for the survival and growth of their business.

One of the most critical lessons we have learned over the years, though, is how to get better about separating out the technical parts of a solution, so that it no longer takes hand-coding HTML in order to update content. The advent of the straight-forward, open source CMS is one of the greatest things that could have ever happened to small business.

Of course, with power comes the power to make mistakes — and in a world where your customer’s first impression of you is often your website, that means that developing an appropriate and aesthetically pleasing website is vital to your online success, even if your core business is not web-based.

Indigo Heron is excited to announce the launch of a new set of products and services tailored to meet this need. In addition to our consulting services, designed to provide this capability for our clients, we are now also developing the training needed to help clients understand the basics, and learn to self-serve as much as they would like to tackle on their own. Training will be available in class settings, on-site private sessions for your team, or online.

Training services will focus on:

• Getting a straight-forward CMS implemented
• Configuring the most relevant widgets and add-ons appropriate for your site
• Organizing your content to support good Information Architecture practices
• Understanding SEO’s most vital Do’s and Don’t's
• Writing strong SEO-friendly site copy
• The basics of online marketing and advertising
• Social media tools, how to use them and when
• eCommerce best practices, technologies and solutions
• Website hosting needs, considerations and options

As always, Indigo Heron is available to provide any of these services (and more) to companies in need, but we also realize that for the best possible on-going care and management of your website, a basic understanding of how things work and why cannot be skipped or assumed.

If you are interested in joining an upcoming training session, or in having us come on-site to your business to provide training for you, your team, or your group, please contact us.