1. There isn’t a limit to the number of fans you can have. This makes fan pages especially valuable for Facebook users who reach, or are approaching, the 5,000 friend limit.
2. It’s free. You don’t have to pay monthly fees to Facebook to keep your page up.
3. It gives you a way to talk to and get feedback from your target audience, because like a user profile, you can update your fans with statuses that will appear in the news feed.
4. You can promote events, offer coupons or sell items on classifieds.
5. It’s an SEO boost in Google. Facebook is currently the second most popular site on the web. #1 site on the web is, you guessed it, Google!
6. You can easily promote it with Facebook ads or apps to customize your fans experience.
7. The Facebook Pages Insights analytics tool gives you useful information about your fans and their interactions.
8. You can build a community for your clients and prospects.
9. It’s another funnel to your website.
10. You can add unlimited photos and videos.

Benzing Web Design Marketing

Your gonna love it or your gonna hate it…Facebook’s new look, first shown at a Facebook developers conference in September, rolled out worldwide on December 15th 2011.

The feature offers users a visual personal history that is similar to a digital scrapbook or vanity license plate. Some have even compared its look to Myspace.

Users looking to check out the service immediately can click “Check it out” link below. Otherwise, an announcement will eventually appear at the top of your profile, according to Facebook.

Facebook is the world’s most prominent social network and hopes its latest digital makeover which aggregates and organizes your profile chronologically will help you “rediscover” the things you shared, collected, and liked for the most important moments.

“It’s the heart of your Facebook experience, completely rethought from the ground up,” Zuckerberg said when he first introduced the feature during this year’s f8 conference. “Timeline is the story of your life.”

For those worried about what exactly from their past might be popping up with the new profile, Facebook is giving users up to seven days to review their new Timeline before it becomes public.

Benzing Web Design Marketing

Google’s URL Shortener has been used by Google services like FeedBurner, Google News, Blogger to share links on Twitter. Google didn’t provide a web interface for the service, but third-party sites managed to fill the void.

Now you can go to goo.gl, paste any web address and get a short URL. Google also shows stats for any short URL generated using the service: append “.info” to the address and you’ll see the number of clicks, a list of traffic sources and some aggregate information about visitors.

So where do you start? well if you don’t have a google account signup now and then get an API Key.

If you sign in to a Google account, Google will save a list of recently generated URLs. Another advantage is that Google will always generate unique URLs when you are logged in, so that the stats are more useful.

Now that you have your google account and API Key we need to create some PHP code that will grab our short url and display it. First, I’ll walk you through on how it’s done, then I’ll give the full script at the end. Let’s start off with what we need, and that is, the URL that you want to shorten.

$url = 'http://benzingtech.com/fort-myers-web-design/';

If you want to associate the shortened urls to your Google account, just put it your email address and password. You can also add in a Google API key if you have one. Remember, these values are optional.

$email    = ''; // OPTIONAL: GMail or Google Apps email address
$password = ''; // OPTIONAL: Your Password for above account
$api_key  = ''; // Required

Next thing we do is use Google’s ClientLogin API to get an Auth key for us to authenticate our requests later. Notice the POST parameters that we include in the request, as required by the API. See the ClientLogin documentation to view other details. For this example I used the Sudocode xhttp class to fetch my results.

if($email and $password) {
   $data = array();
   $data['post'] = array(
      'accountType' => 'HOSTED_OR_GOOGLE',
      'Email'       => $email,
      'Passwd'      => $password,
      'service'     => 'urlshortener',
      'source'      => 'benzingtech-example-v1' // Application's name, e.g. companyName-applicationName-versionID
      );
 
   $response = xhttp::fetch('https://www.google.com/accounts/ClientLogin', $data);

One IMPORTANT note is the service parameter, “urlshortener”, which is undocumented.

If the request was successful, it will return three lines of text; one for each key: SID, LSID and Auth.

SID=DQAAAGgA...7Zg8CTN
LSID=DQAAAGsA...lk8BBbG
Auth=DQAAAGgA...dk3fA5N

The lines are way much longer than the example above. If not successful, refer to the documention for the error codes you might get when trying to login. We just need the Auth key for our script and we use PHP’s function preg_match to extract it.

preg_match('/Auth=(.+)/', $response['body'], $matches);
$auth = $matches[1];

Here is why I said earlier that I don’t advise using the code as-is, the Auth key can be cached for a long time, as long as you use it regularly. Be sure to cache your Auth Key between sequential requests to minimize URL fetches thus making your app faster and use less processes.

Now that we got our Auth key, and URL to shorten finally, we ask goo.gl to shorten our long URL. We pass off the Auth key in the Authorization header.

if(isset($auth)) $data['headers']['Authorization'] = "GoogleLogin auth=$auth";
if($api_key) $data['get']['key'] = $api_key;

We set the correct Content-Type (application/json), as expected by the API. My xhttp class takes care of converting the array to a JSON string.

$data['headers']['Content-Type'] = "application/json";
$data['post'] = array(
   'longUrl' => $url,
   );
$response = xhttp::fetch("https://www.googleapis.com/urlshortener/v1/url", $data);

Congrats you are Done. We could retrieve the short url by decoding the response and getting the id field like so:

$var = json_decode($response['body'], true);
$shortURL = $var['id'];
echo $shortURL;

Note: that a new URL is generated for each request even if you shorten the same long URL if you do not use the API Key

<?php
 
$url = 'http://benzingtech.com/fort-myers-web-design/';
 
$email    = ''; // OPTIONAL: GMail or Google Apps email address
$password = ''; // OPTIONAL: Your Password for above account
$api_key  = ''; // Required
 
require 'class.xhttp.php';
 
if($email and $password) {
   $data = array();
   $data['post'] = array(
      'accountType' => 'HOSTED_OR_GOOGLE',
      'Email'       => $email,
      'Passwd'      => $password,
      'service'     => 'urlshortener',
      'source'      => 'benzingtech-example-v1' // Application's name, e.g. companyName-applicationName-versionID
      );
 
   $response = xhttp::fetch('https://www.google.com/accounts/ClientLogin', $data);
 
   // Check if login failed
   if(!$response['successful']) {
      echo "Login Failed\n";
      print_r($response);
      die();
   }
 
   preg_match('/Auth=(.+)/', $response['body'], $matches);
   $auth = $matches[1];
}
 
$data = array();
if(isset($auth)) $data['headers']['Authorization'] = "GoogleLogin auth=$auth";
if($api_key) $data['get']['key'] = $api_key;
 
$data['headers']['Content-Type'] = "application/json";
$data['post'] = array(
   'longUrl' => $url,
   );
 
$response = xhttp::fetch("https://www.googleapis.com/urlshortener/v1/url", $data);
 
if($response['successful']) {
   $var = json_decode($response['body'], true);
   $shortURL = $var['id'];
   echo $shortURL;
 
} else {
   print_r($response);
}
 
?>

Benzing Web Design Marketing

There has been some hype lately with Facebook news saying you are only 4 connects away from anyone. The 90s movie and play “Six Degrees of Separation” indicated that we are only separated by six people (of course this was based on a 1929 study by a Hungarian author). But on Facebook, according to a new report, we are only separated from anyone else in the world by 4.74 connections which I guess rounded up can be considered 5 but 4 makes me feel more important.

This comes as great news for Business owners who are looking to get the edge on their online marketing efforts. Even consumers can enjoy knowing they are 4 degrees from Kevin Bacon heck I know I am for sure.

So how do you get new customers using Facebook? stay social for one. but here are some other great tips:

• If you have a business profile, where your “friends” are your customers, friend their friends, then friend the friend of friends, etc. You won’t get a yes from everyone but you may make some new friends who will eventually turn into customers.
• Once you have a good amount of friends, don’t spam their inbox constantly with sales messages. They friended you so more than likely they are interested in your product or service and if they are not, they will eventually unfriend you just as easy.
• Post quality content and information on your wall and it will show up in your friends newsfeed. You may want to send a private message occasionally on upcoming specials or incentives. Post information at timely intervals so it doesn’t appear as if you are spamming their wall.
• If you have “fan pages” offer an incentive to fans that bring you new fans. Often a simple suggestion to your fans to “tell your friends” will bring work or by offering discounts to friends of friends. Even offering a free gift to those who get so many people to fan your page.

Social Media Marketing techniques slightly differ from the traditional but by using the KISS principle and staying social will help increase your sales.

Benzing Web Design Marketing

We all know that more Likes will benefit your Facebook business page but how do you turn those likes into sales? At the end of the day, the effectiveness of your marketing team is likely evaluated by metrics like traffic and leads. If your Facebook page has 500 fans but is generating no traffic or leads for your website, you really don’t have much to brag about.

Facebook fans offer a great opportunity for lead generation if you know how to leverage them. As they say, it’s not size that matters it’s how you use it. To get you on your way to use Facebook effectively for lead generation, here are six guaranteed tactics for turning likes into leads.

• 1. Implement a Like Gate – Like gates are popping up all over Facebook these days, and it’s not difficult to understand why. So what is a like gate you ask? They’re a great way to convert new likes into leads. Use your like gate to initially turn new page visitors into fans. Once they like you, present them with valuable content offers that they can obtain directly from a form on your page.
• 2. Share Links to Landing Pages on Your Wall – Amongst the updates and content you share with your fans on your wall, be sure to include a hearty mix of landing page links for lead generating, premium content like ebooks, webinars, and other educational downloads. In addition, make sure any blog posts you share include call-to-actions within the post.
• 3. Offer Exclusive Content to Facebook Fans – According to research from ExactTarget, 58% of Facebook users expect exclusive content from business pages. Take advantage of this insight by offering downloadable content that is exclusive only to your Facebook fans. Set up a website landing page for this content, and share the link exclusively on your Facebook page. Require that page visitors must “Like” you in order to view your offer to make it even more exclusive. You’ll be generating leads and leveraging the power of exclusivity at the same time.
• 4. Use ALL your Page Real Estate to Promote Offers – There are quite a few places on your Facebook page you’re likely overlooking to promote your offers. What about highlighting your latest offer in your page’s profile picture like the image to the right. Have you added links to offers in your page’s ‘Info’ tab? Don’t miss out on these high visibility areas!
• 5. Create Custom Page Tabs to Promote Offers – Customization of Facebook pages is tough…but not impossible. Creating custom page tabs are a great way to expand the possibilities of your Facebook page. Consider creating a tab just to highlight your offers. You can use it to syndicate some of your best-performing offers, or maybe just promote your latest offer or promotion on a rotating basis.
• 6. Create Product/Service Awareness – While it’s always a bad idea to be overly self-promotional in your social media efforts, you also want to make sure that your fans are aware of your products/services. Sure, they might keep coming back to you again and again because you offer engaging conversation and valuable content, but if they don’t even know what you sell, you’re not doing your job. Make sure your page clearly communicates what your business sells, and use your lead gen offers to support that with content that aligns with your product/service offerings. This will help spark a connection between your content and your product.

Benzing Web Design Marketing

I would like to start off by saying how ridiculously cool WordPress is and how I use it every time to develop websites. One of the best features in WordPress is the ability to create custom post types and using these custom post types to create creative features within WordPress website. This blog post will show you how to create a portfolio custom post type and learn how to use custom post types efficiently in your next web project. So let’s get started…

What are custom post types?

Don’t be confused by the term “post” in the name. It is actually an extremely generic term and should not be considered the same thing as a blog post. If you prefer, you can replace it with “content” instead.

Custom post types don’t have any strict rules that define what they are. They can represent any type of content you want. For example, WordPress ships with several default post types.

• Blog Posts
• Pages
• Attachments
• Revisions
• Nav Menus (WordPress 3.0)

You should think of them as a way to create, edit, and store information in the same way as blog posts but with much more creative control.

One thing I would warn against is trying to separate your blog posts in this way. You have categories, tags, and custom taxonomies at your disposal if you’re just looking for a way to label them.

Creating custom post types

WordPress 2.9 introduced the register_post_type() function. It didn’t do a lot at the time, but WordPress 3.0 will make this a powerful tool.

To get the basic functionality of a custom post type working, we hardly have any code to input. Before you start, you at least need a few things: a name, two labels, and whether your post type will be public (you’ll likely want this).

You can either create a plugin file or use your theme’s functions.php file to add the code. I will assume at this point of the tutorial that you know how to work with at least one of those two things.

Let’s set up our Portfolio post type.

add_action('init', 'portfolio_register'); 
function portfolio_register() {
  register_post_type( 'my_portfolio',
    array(
	 'labels' => array(
	 'name' => _x('My Portfolio', 'post type general name'), 
         'singular_name' => _x('Portfolio Item', 'post type singular name'),
    ),
    'public' => true,
  ));
}

You’ll notice that there is not a lot going on there. We added two parameters: a post type name and an array of arguments. All of the possible arguments are detailed in the next section.

If all you’ll ever want to do is something as basic as having a title field and content textarea, you can skip over the next portion of this tutorial. But if you want to create a really customized solution then read below where I will break down the parameters within the register_post_type()

labels

The labels argument is an array of strings that represents your post type in the admin. Each string is a bit of text shown for particular function in the admin. By default, non-hierarchical post types will have text with “post” in them and hierarchical post types will have text with “page” in them.

It is particularly important that you make these strings translatable if you’re creating a plugin for public use.

This list is a set of general examples of when each string is used. However, each may be used in multiple places in the admin.

• name: The plural form of the name of your post type.
• singular_name: The singular form of the name of your post type.
• add_new: The menu item for adding a new post.
• add_new_item: The header shown when creating a new post.
• edit: The menu item for editing posts.
• edit_item: The header shown when editing a post.
• new_item: Shown in the favorites menu in the admin header.
• view: Used as text in a link to view the post.
• view_item: Shown alongside the permalink on the edit post screen.
• search_items: Button text for the search box on the edit posts screen.
• not_found: Text to display when no posts are found through search in the admin.
• not_found_in_trash: Text to display when no posts are in the trash.
• parent: Used as a label for a parent post on the edit posts screen. Only useful for hierarchical post types.

'labels' => array(
	'name' => __( 'Portfolio' ),
	'singular_name' => __( 'Portfolio' ),
	'add_new' => __( 'Add New' ),
	'add_new_item' => __( 'Add New Portfolio Item' ),
	'edit' => __( 'Edit' ),
	'edit_item' => __( 'Edit Portfolio Item' ),
	'new_item' => __( 'New Portfolio Item' ),
	'view' => __( 'View Portfolio' ),
	'view_item' => __( 'View Portfolio Item' ),
	'search_items' => __( 'Search Portfolio Items' ),
	'not_found' => __( 'No Portfolio Items found' ),
	'not_found_in_trash' => __( 'No Portfolio Items found in Trash' ),
	'parent' => __( 'Parent Portfolio' ),
),

public

The public argument is a kind of catchall argument for several other arguments and defaults to false. Depending on whether it’s set to true or false, it’ll automatically decide what other arguments should be unless they’re specifically defined. If you’re looking for finer control over the public arguments, there are three specific arguments you may set:

• show_ui: Whether to show the administration screens.
• publicly_queryable: Whether queries for this post type can be performed from the front end.
• exclude_from_search: Whether the posts should appear in search results.

'public' => true,
'show_ui' => true,
'publicly_queryable' => true,
'exclude_from_search' => false,

menu_position

By default, a new post type is added after the Comments menu item in the admin. But, you have to ability to move it to a position more suitable for you. Default WordPress menu items are set apart by integrals of 5. For example, using 20 will add your menu item after Pages.

'menu_position' => 20,

menu_icon

New post types will default to the Posts menu icon, but if you want to mix it up a bit or give your post type some separation from other elements, you can define a custom icon. You only have to input a a custom URL to an image file.

'menu_icon' => get_stylesheet_directory_uri() . '/images/article16.png',

hierarchical

The hierarchical argument allows you to choose whether you want your post type to be hierarchical. It defaults to false. If you set it to true, your posts will behave like pages in WordPress.

'hierarchical' => true,

query_var

The query_var argument allows you to control the query variable used to get posts of this type. For example, you could use it with the query_posts() function or WP_Query class. This will default to the name of your taxonomy.

'query_var' => true,

capability_type / capabilities

The capability_type argument is another catchall argument for several more specific arguments and defaults to post. It allows you to define a custom set of capabilities, which are permissions to edit, create, and read your custom post type.

If you just want to keep the same permissions you have with blog posts, leave this at the default. Otherwise, you can either set capability_type to something custom or define each specific capability in the capabilities array.

• edit_post: Whether someone can create and edit a specific post of this post type.
• edit_posts: Capability that allows editing posts of this post type.
• edit_others_posts: Capability that allows editing of others posts.
• publish_posts: Capability to grant publishing of these types of posts.
• read_post: Capability that controls reading of a specific post of this post type.
• read_private_posts: Capability to allow reading of private posts.
• delete_post: Capability that grants the privilege of deleting posts.

For most people that need control over these things, it’s easier to just change capability_type to something like portfolio. WordPress will automatically switch the other caps to follow this pattern. For example, the edit_post capability would become edit_portfolio. Of course, capability control means nothing without being able to choose who has the capabilities. So here is an example of some custom capabilities for our portfolio:

/* Global control over capabilities. */
'capability_type' => 'portfolio',
 
/* Specific control over capabilities. */
'capabilities' => array(
	'edit_post' => 'edit_portfolio',
	'edit_posts' => 'edit_portfolios',
	'edit_others_posts' => 'edit_others_portfolios',
	'publish_posts' => 'publish_portfolios',
	'read_post' => 'read_portfolio',
	'read_private_posts' => 'read_private_portfolios',
	'delete_post' => 'delete_portfolio',
),

supports

The supports argument allows you to define what meta boxes and other fields will appear on the screen when editing or creating a new post. This defaults to title and editor. There are several available options:

• title: Text input field to create a post title.
• editor: Content input box for writing.
• comments: Ability to turn comments on/off.
• trackbacks: Ability to turn trackbacks and pingbacks on/off.
• revisions: Allows revisions to be made of your post.
• author: Displays a select box for changing the post author.
• excerpt: A textarea for writing a custom excerpt.
• thumbnail: The thumbnail (featured image in 3.0) uploading box.
• custom-fields: Custom fields input area.
• page-attributes: The attributes box shown for pages. This is important for hierarchical post types, so you can select the parent post.

'supports' => array( 'title', 'editor', 'excerpt', 'custom-fields', 'thumbnail' ),

rewrite

The rewrite argument allows you to define the permalink structure of your posts when viewing the single post. For example, you may want to have a structure like yoursite.com/portfolio/post-name. WordPress will set up a default structure based on your taxonomy name. The rewrite argument can be set to true, false, or an array of values. It takes two arguments:

• slug: The slug you’d like to prefix your posts with.
• with_front: Whether your post type should use the front base from your permalink settings (for example, if you prefixed your structure with /blog or /archives).

'rewrite' => array( 'slug' => 'portfolio', 'with_front' => false ),

taxonomies

If you have some preexisting taxonomies, you can allow posts of this type to also use those taxonomies. You just have to set an array of taxonomy names that you’d like for it to use. WordPress will handle all the administration features for you. There is more to taxonomies but that will be another blog post in the future.

'taxonomies' => array( 'post_tag', 'category '),

can_export

You can use the can_export argument to decide whether posts of your post type can be exportable via the WordPress export tool. By default, this is set to true.

'can_export' => true,

register_meta_box_cb

This feature will likely only be useful to developers. You can create a custom callback function that is called when the meta boxes for the post form are set up.

'register_meta_box_cb' => 'your_callback_function_name',

Putting It All Together

Now that you know about all the parameters and their meanings lets put some code together to create the portfolio and the fields required to add the images and build the portfolio items:

<?php
add_action('init', 'portfolio_register');
function portfolio_register() {
 
	$labels = array(
		'name' => _x('My Portfolio', 'post type general name'),
		'singular_name' => _x('Portfolio Item', 'post type singular name'),
		'add_new' => _x('Add New', 'portfolio item'),
		'add_new_item' => __('Add New Portfolio Item'),
		'edit_item' => __('Edit Portfolio Item'),
		'new_item' => __('New Portfolio Item'),
		'view_item' => __('View Portfolio Item'),
		'search_items' => __('Search Portfolio'),
		'not_found' =>  __('Nothing found'),
		'not_found_in_trash' => __('Nothing found in Trash')
	);
 
	$args = array(
		'labels' => $labels,
		'public' => true,
		'publicly_queryable' => true,
		'show_ui' => true,
		'query_var' => true,
		'menu_icon' => get_stylesheet_directory_uri() . '/images/article16.png',
		'rewrite' => true,
		'capability_type' => 'post',
		'hierarchical' => false,
		'menu_position' => null,
		'supports' => array('title','editor','thumbnail')
	  ); 
 
	register_post_type( 'myportfolio' , $args );
    flush_rewrite_rules();
}
register_taxonomy("myservices", array("myportfolio"), array("hierarchical" => true, "label" => "Services", "singular_label" => "Service", "rewrite" => true));
 
add_action("admin_init", "admin_init");
function admin_init(){
  add_meta_box("web_url-meta", "Website URL", "web_url", "myportfolio", "normal", "low");
}
function web_url(){
  global $post;
  $meta = get_post_meta($post->ID, 'web_url', true);
  ?>
  <p><input style="width:350px;" name="web_url" value="<?php echo $meta; ?>" /></p>
  <?php
}
 
add_action('save_post', 'save_details');
function save_details($post_id){
  global $post;
  if(isset($_POST['post_type']) && ($_POST['post_type'] == "myportfolio")) {
   $data = $_POST['web_url'];
   update_post_meta($post_id, 'web_url', $data);
  }
}
 
 
add_action("manage_posts_custom_column",  "myportfolio_custom_columns");
add_filter("manage_edit-myportfolio_columns", "myportfolio_edit_columns");
function myportfolio_edit_columns($columns){
  $columns = array(
    "cb" => "<input type=\"checkbox\" />",
    "title" => "Project Title",
    "description" => "Description",
    "web_url" => "Web URL",
    "myservices" => "Services",
  );
 
  return $columns;
}
function myportfolio_custom_columns($column){
  global $post;
 
  switch ($column) {
    case "description":
      the_excerpt();
      break;
    case "web_url":
      $custom = get_post_custom();
      echo $custom["web_url"][0];
      break;
    case "myservices":
      echo get_the_term_list($post->ID, 'myservices', '', ', ','');
      break;
  }
}
?>

Benzing Web Design Marketing

The Concept

Social media marketing is a method of promoting your brand, be it yourself, a product, a service, or a company, by strategically making your presence known across various social media networks such as Digg, StumbleUpon, Facebook, Reddit, etc. This may seem overly simple but “getting yourself known” is the kicker because each category of social media has a different detailed method for effective promotion.

The key concept to social marketing is that it is not designed to immediately provide business but instead it provides the visibility your brand needs to ultimately convert fans into buyers. I often get clients saying “I don’t think being on Facebook will get my products sold”. The truth is they are often correct. Having a presence on Facebook that provides great content or interesting widgets to raise the awareness of your brand so that users remember your service provides you with a soap box to share the benefits of your brand. In short, it is important not to forget this essential concept – social media marketing drives brand awareness which later translates into sales.

Social Media Categories and Strategies

This is an introduction to the various top social media portals segregated into their appropriate categories and paired with a recommended strategy can be rather effective. Please keep in mind the following is only a partial listing of some social media sites. If you want a more comprehensive list check out this list of social media sites.

Here is an organized list of Social Media Marketing categories I have identified:

1. Social Networking Sites
2. Business Networking Sites
3. Social Bookmarking Sites
4. Content Voting Sites
5. News Sharing Sites
6. Collaborative Directories
7. Video Sharing Sites
8. Photo Sharing Sites
9. Niche Networking Sites
10. Forums/Discussion Boards

Creating Your Plan

Now that you have an idea of the various social media categories and their potential marketing application(s) it is important to identify what you want to get out of them before you market to them. Be sure to ask yourself the following questions:

What is your ultimate goal?
Consider the objectives that come to mind. Here are some examples of common answers and what they might mean to your planning efforts:

“I want people to know my name and acknowledge my expert status.”
In this situation you may want to drive traffic to your main website about page or bio where you feature your services, testimonials or even your resume. Using social media you can build your online reputation by participating in sites that appear to have a strong following of potential customers; provide answers to their questions, find associated content that you know will help them and bookmark it. All-in-all you want to make friends and create a personal profile.

“I want my company name to be found within all of the major social media sites when my industry-related keywords are typed in.”
There are a variety of ways to achieve this but I expect the most effective is to create quality content that no one can help but link to. That is far harder than it sounds but the fact is that company names don’t rise to the cream of the Internet crop without blowing people away with helpful and thoughtful content. Once you create the content use a blog to disseminate it quickly while placing a snippet (say the first 3 paragraphs) into your social media profiles in such sites as Facebook, Bloglines, Blogger or Newsvine along with a link to your main article where readers can continue reading. By only providing a teaser for your article and pointing readers to your website for the full article you will be emphasizing the original content on your main site as the original article and you will heighten its visibility.

“I need to get the word out on my product/service.”
Press releases are not mentioned within this article but I would definitely not want to mention them. Use PRLog.org, OpenPR.com or 1888PressRelease.com to submit a carefully crafted press release to the web. Next go to each of your established profiles and tell your friends about your submission and perhaps even offer them a free product or trial of your service. Whatever you do the ultimate goal is to make it unavoidable for them to help you get it known.

How much time are you willing to commit to social media marketing?
This is a crucial question because it will determine just how big you want to make your social media plan. If you are doing this yourself then force yourself to set a few hours aside every day or every two days to keep your profiles up to date. If that is too much work then consider hiring someone to help you keep the content fresh OR just target the top social media websites in your strategy to market too. Whatever you decide to do start out small and then increase your social marketing workload only when you know you have the time and patience to do the additional work correctly. Remember it’s only as effective as the amount of time you spend on it.

Get Out There and Participate!
I find myself blown away by the shear number of social media websites that appear to be prospering and are regularly adding new creative methods to share and receive great information. Which is why it’s so important to keep in touch regularly, update often, and keep the content related to your niche. Not participating or updating regularly will just result in less traffic and exposure. The more exposure you have the better the opportunity to convert those leads into sales.

Measure Your Performance
Another thing I find that most people do is not track their performance. Social media marketing effectiveness is still a trial and error and you need to measure the performance to get the best results without knowing which content drives you the most clicks, comments or retweets. There are several tools that you can use to measure your performance. But let’s get some of the terminology out of the way first:

Sentiment
Are the comments positive or negative? Most current tools attempt to assign sentiment to a post automatically. While this is helpful for brands with tons of mentions, it’s only about 70% accurate in most cases[1], so manual verification and spot-checking is encouraged across the board before making any decisions based on influence data.

Volume
This is simply the amount of “buzz” that exists. Many monitoring tools give the ability to chart volume for specific keywords over time. This gives you a great way to measure the impact of your marketing efforts and social media campaigns, especially when combined with sentiment. A lot can be learned about your brand and your customers by investigating spikes in social media volumes.

Workflow
Workflow is the process of assigning, tracking and responding to social media, typically in a team environment. An effective workflow can prevent double responses and missed opportunities.

Now that we have an understanding of the purpose and the terminology surrounding social media monitoring, let’s take a look at some tools that can help you monitor your presence.

1. Google Alerts- An oldie but a goodie! Google Alerts allows you to set up keyword searches for the name of your company or competitors, for example, and receive updates in your email inbox or through an RSS feed.When combined with iGoogle, you can create a pretty nice consolidated page that contains the latest findings for your selected keywords. When it comes to monitoring social media, this is the least you should be doing; it’s free and an absolute snap to set up.
2. Icerocket- Used by many, Icerocket helps you keep watch over Twitter, blogs, web, news, images and more. Features include a topic cloud and basic listing of mentions. This social media monitoring tool also offers the ability to bookmark your search results for later reference.Although helpful, some users might find the interface and the style of the search results pages a little archaic compared to the other options.
3. Addict-o-Matic – This tool is a consolidated page with search matches across blogs, Twitter, Digg, Flickr and more. Featuring an appealing interface and one-page dashboard, Addict-o-matic is one of the best free tools available for summarizing all your “buzz” in one place.
4. Boardtracker – Boardtracker focuses on grabbing “buzz” from message boards and forums. Features include a topic cloud and influencer list. There are ads mixed in with your search results which may turn off some users. A premium version is offered. If your target customers are more active on message boards than other channels, this could be the right tool for you.
5. Social Mention – This social media monitoring tool features an interesting combination of easy-to-read metrics including reach, sentiment, passion, and strength (volume/day). Social Mention tracks blogs, blog comments, Twitter, mainstream news, images, video, and audio. Searches can be saved as an RSS feed so you can easily stay up-to-date.
6. ScoutLabs- Scoutlabs has a great clean interface and overall excellent features for volume trending, sentiment-tracking, learning about key quotes (based on sentiment), and managing workflow for response management. Unlimited results helps protect you from increased monthly cost due to unexpected spikes in volume.It’s a great option for agencies and freelancers because you can give clients access to a dashboard with your logo on it, branding the service as your own. Note that it can be a challenge to output some graphs and reports which may be an issue if you want to produce reports for your clients.

There are several more websites and tools out there to measure your success but these are some of the more popular choices.

Conclusion

So following the information above will help you gain more through social media marketing. Keep in mind there is still no guarantee you will get the results your looking for and you should always consult with an expert. So lets recap on some of the things you need to consider before running with your social media strategy:

1. Are you ready to invest adequate time in Social Media Marketing?
2. Will you do it yourself or need to involve a firm/others?
3. Will you and/or your employees need additional training to maximize effectiveness?
4. Do you know how to form a proper brand strategy online?
5. Where should you direct your main efforts, how much and when?
6. What tools will you use to measure social media marketing success?

Benzing Web Design Marketing

We are always using RPC services to notify search engines and blogs that new content has been created. But these services seem to be unreliable and go in and out of service. Below we compiled the list of active RPC servers that we use daily:

http://rpc.pingomatic.com

http://rpc.twingly.com

http://api.feedster.com/ping

http://api.moreover.com/RPC2

http://api.moreover.com/ping

http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2

http://www.blogshares.com/rpc.php

http://www.blogsnow.com/ping

http://www.blogstreet.com/xrbin/xmlrpc.cgi

http://blogsearch.google.co.za/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.com.au/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.com.br/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.com.do/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.com.vn/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.hr/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.ie/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.nl/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.pl/ping/RPC2

http://ping.kutsulog.net/

http://bulkfeeds.net/rpc

http://www.newsisfree.com/xmlrpctest.php

http://ping.blo.gs/

http://ping.feedburner.com

http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php

http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php

http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger/

http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping

http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2

http://blo.gs/ping.php

http://www.pingerati.net

http://www.pingmyblog.com

http://geourl.org/ping

http://ipings.com

http://www.weblogalot.com/ping

Benzing Web Design Marketing

Again the developers of WordPress release another incredible update to their already incredible platform. WordPress 3.2 “Gershwin” was released yesterday July 4th 2011 with a bunch of exciting user interface changes, performance enhancements, tons of minor bug fixes and a new theme “Twenty Eleven”. As with their last release they have again named the release in honor of another incredible composer. Gershwin’s compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known. Among his best known works are the orchestral compositions Rhapsody in Blue (1924) and An American in Paris (1928), as well as the opera, Porgy and Bess (1935). Learn more about George Gershwin on his wiki page here.

So here are the changes as listed on their official website:

• Refreshed Administative UI - Admin redesign
• New Default Theme “Twenty Eleven” - Uses the latest Theme Features
• Full Screen Editor - Distraction free writing experience
• Extended Admin Bar - More useful links to control the site

• Requirements Changes -
  • PHP 5.2.4 or greater (old requirement – since WordPress 2.5 was PHP 4.3 or greater)
  • MySQL 5.0.15 or greater (old requirement – since WordPress 2.9 was MySQL 4.1.2 or greater)

• Enhanced Browser Compatibility -
  • Drop Internet Explorer 6 support
  • Start End-of-life (EOL) cycle for Internet Explorer 7
  • Browse Happy notify users of out-of-date browser

• WordPress is Faster and Lighter -
  • Faster page loads — We’ve gone through the most commonly loaded pages in WP and done improvements to their load time
  • Faster Upgrades — The update system now support incremental upgrades so after 3.2 you’ll find upgrading faster than ever
  • Optimizations to WP_Filesystem — Updates over FTP are now much quicker and less error prone
  • Stream downloads to the filesystem — Improves update times and lowers the memory footprint
  • Performance improvements for wptexturize()
  • Remove PHP4 compatibility including timezone support
  • More efficient term intersection queries
  • Some optimizations in the HTML sanitizer (kses)
  • Speed optimizations for is_serialized_string()
  • Cache the Dashboard RSS Widgets HTML output to reduce unnecessary Ajax requests as well as the memory footprint
  • And many other improvements and tweaks

User Features

General

• Admin Bar: Add a Themes submenu under Appearance, for consistency
• Admin Bar: Add View Site/Dashboard links, ‘View X’ links in the admin, ‘View’ action link for terms, new custom taxonomy string: view_item, defaulting to ‘View Tag’ and View Category’
• Admin Bar: Support Edit link for Attachments
• Switch from “Panel/SubPanel” to “Screen” in inline documentation and Codex links
• Add collapse link to admin menu
• Help Tab text updates
• Favorites menu no longer exists
• New Freedoms (rights) and Credits links at bottom of admin screens
• Use monospaced font for HTML editor
• Validate the HTML in the admin area
• Make copying the PressThis bookmarklet code easier in WebKit browsers
• Move copyright notices to license.txt
• Refresh login form styles to match admin style

Dashboard

• Change View All Buttons into plain links
• Show full set of status links in recent comments box
• Drop “Change Theme” button
• Update core UI changes; “Update Automatically” changed to “Update Now”, first core update is now a primary button
• Core support for partial updates

Posts

• Change Menu Name from ‘Posts’ to ‘All Posts’
• Show the sticky posts checkbox (“Stick this post to the front page”) Only when author has ‘edit_others_posts‘ capability
• Updated styles for the Visual editor buttons
• Full screen editor experience called Distraction Free Writing – accessed via the Toggle Fullscreen mode tool in the Visual editor and fullscreen button in the HTML editor (Trac Ticket 17198)
• New sprite for the TinyMCE buttons
• Fix pagination when searching or filtering posts

Media

• Add ‘Add New’ button to edit media
• Update the blip.tv oEmbeds

Links

• Change Menu Name from ‘Links’ to ‘All Links’
• Add ‘Add New’ button to edit links

Pages

• Change Menu Name from ‘Pages’ to ‘All Pages’

Comments

• New comment bubble styling

Appearance

• New Default theme – TwentyEleven – based on Duster Theme (Trac Ticket 17198).
• Allow selecting previously uploader headers and randomly serving previously uploaded or default headers
• Denote images that are headers or backgrounds in the media ui
• Show hierarchy for pages and taxonomies in nav menus admin
• Introduce new is_multi_author() template tag to make it easier for themes to have different behaviour when a site has more than one author
• Be less specific about theme repo licenses (as they can vary in specifics). They are all compatible with the license WordPress uses

Plugins

• Allow plugins to disable screen options with filter
• Be less specific about plugin repo licenses (as they can vary in specifics). They are all compatible with the license WordPress uses

Tools

• Change Menu Name from ‘Tools’ to ‘Available Tools’
• Press This bookmarklet redesign
• UI refresh for Press This
• Export commentmeta

Users

• Change Menu Name from ‘Users’ to ‘All Users’
• Add ‘Add New’ button to edit users

Benzing Web Design Marketing

Today the WordPress team announced the release of version 3.1 which notes many improvements and enhancements from previous versions. Version 3.1 was also in honor of the jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt who pioneered a new form of music called virtuoso jazz. He was also a composer and a Romani gypsy. WordPress continues to impress me with the upkeep and many plugins associated with the web blogging software.

For all of you who don’t know what WordPress is, it’s an open source Content Management System (CMS), often used as a blog publishing application, powered by PHP and MySQL. It has many features including a plug-in architecture and a template system. WordPress is used by over 13% of the 1,000,000 biggest websites. It was first released on May 27, 2003, by Matt Mullenweg as a fork of b2/cafelog. As of February 2011, version 3.0 had been downloaded over 32.5 million times.

So let’s breakdown some of the major new features we should expect in version 3.1:

1. Exporter/Importer Overhaul – many under the hood changes including adding author information, better handling for taxonomies and terms, and proper support for navigation menus. I really look forward to this update as I have had a bear of a time exporting and importing wordpress sites from test to live status.
2. Custom Content Type Improvements – The theme system now supports archives for post types, in the form of the archive-type template. In the same way that posts are shown on their own archive with archive.php, custom post types will use archive-{posttype}.php if it’s available. So for the above example, you could create a archive-acme_product.php file and the product posts would be shown using that template. To learn more about post types in the article Post Types.
3. Streamlined Writing Interface – New users of WordPress will find the write screen much less cluttered than before, as more of the options are hidden by default. You can click on Screen Options in the top right to bring them back.
4. Admin Bar – Admins rejoice! We now have an admin bar with various links to useful admin screens. By default, the admin bar is displayed when a user is logged in and visiting the site and is not displayed in admin screens for single blog installs. For multisite installs, the admin bar is displayed both when visiting the site and in the admin screens.
5. Internal Linking – A well needed feature. Internal linking is now integrated. Click a button for an internal link and it allows you to search for a post or browse a list of existing content and select it for inclusion.
6. Advanced Queries – Now you can query your custom fields easier. This means developers can query multiple taxonomies and custom fields.
7. Post Formats – Now there is a new way for meta information to be used by themes to customize presentation of a post. A Post Format is a piece of meta information that can be used by a theme to customize its presentation of a post. The Post Formats feature provides a standardized list of formats that are available to all themes that support the feature. Themes are not required to support every format on the list. New formats cannot be introduced by themes nor even plugins. The standardization of this list provides both compatibility between numerous themes and an avenue for external blogging tools to access to this feature in a consistent fashion. Read more in the article Post Formats.
8. Refreshed Blue Admin Color Scheme -The admin interface has a fresh new look to its blue color scheme. The new look focuses on the content not the look and feel.

Now with these new features WordPress is better than ever and I am excited to start upgrading my existing clients to the new version. The main benefit of WordPress in my opinion is the simplicity and ease of use. Anyone with some simple training can get up and running with a full blogging platform in minutes.

At Benzing Technologies we focus on WordPress development and design. If you have any questions regarding this article or would like a quote for a WordPress website please contact us.

Benzing Web Design Marketing

It’s cool times on the web today as new technologies emerge. Fonts have always been a hinder to websites as compatibility isn’t world wide. Not everyone has your favorite Wingdings font so for the longest time, web developers were stuck using so called “web safe” fonts. These are fonts that are most common on everyone’s computer from Microsoft Windows to Apple to even Linux. By sticking to the core fonts you can rest assure everyone will see your website the same way. But now we introduce font systems like Cufon, Typekit, FLIR, and sIFR and we see a whole new way to customize the visual experience without the worry of them having or not having that font.

Let’s break down the benefits of each of these font systems and give a few pros and cons. It is important to understand, there is no “best” solution for everyone, but hopefully this article can help you explore the possibilities.

Good Times or Bad Times?

For anyone who doesnt know already, web browsers rely on the fonts installed on your PC in order to render them on the screen. Even “web safe” fonts are not strictly the same from computer to computer. Times New Roman on a Windows 7 machine isn’t going to be the same typeface as Times Roman on an Apple.

Depending on other factors (some people love installing lots of fonts), even the same font name on two installations of Windows might not be identical, especially if the default system fonts have been over-written with commercially purchased alternatives – so the differences in default tracking, kerning and other nuances may serve to create an inconsistent result – especially if you are using type at display sizes, and need finer control.

Please note that all of the methods we are looking at off excellent accessibility for text readers – even the Flash based sIFR. Also you must ensure that you own the license for the font you wish to use before going forward as  not all font systems allow unlicensed fonts plus its illegal and could get you a hefty fine.

Now let’s dive into the ways you can pimp your website.

sIFR – Scalable Inman Flash Replacement

Mike Davidson created sIFR as an open source JavaScript and Adobe Flash dynamic substitution system. It is based upon the original HTML text-to-flash replacement pioneered by Shaun Inman. Now several years old, it filled a gap for many, and continues to be used by many.

You can read more about sIFR at the developer’s website http://www.mikeindustries.com/blog/sifr

Advantages

• You can effectively embed just about any font you own (not just Truetype) by creating your own flash “font library”.
• Final output looks as beautiful as any Flash generated typography.
• All files can be retained locally on your server – no links to external service providers are needed to render your fonts.

Disadvantages

• Harder to configure due to the requirement to build the Flash font library.
• sIFR needs JavaScript and the Flash plugin to work. If either is disabled or missing, the reader’s browser will fall back to traditional CSS based styling.
• sIFR is not ideal for body copy due to the processing requirements. Although this is not such an issue with today’s machines, it’s far from ideal for slower machines.
• Being flash based, sIFR may be vulnerable to add blockers, and other browser plugins that block Flash content. Oh, and of course, Flash won’t work on current iPods, iPhones, or iPads.

FLIR – Facelift Image Replacement

FaceLift Image Replacement is similar in concept to sIFR, insofar that javascript is used to replace html text on the fly. Instead of replacing text with Flash, it is replaced with 32bit bitmap PNG images, generated on the fly via a server side PHP script. The results vary, especially with more elaborate fonts, depending on which PHP module is being used to generate the output (usually GD, but ImageMagick can give better results).

You can find out more at the FLIR website – http://facelift.mawhorter.net/

Advantages

• Does not require Flash to work
• Any Truetype/Opentype compatible font can be used.
• All files can be retained locally on your server – no links to external service providers are needed to render your fonts
• Easier to set up than sIFR
• Configurable via plugins and config php file

Disadvantages

• Relies on PHP to render the output – character spacing sometimes requires tweaking.
• Places extra processing and caching load on the server – which can create large numbers of files.
• The final output, being a bitmap, is not readable as text, and therefore reduces accesibility unless javascript is disabled by the user.

Cufón

Cufón, once again, uses javascript to replace the html fonts, but in a far more elegant way. The initial step in using Cufón is to generate a proprietary font library, which is effectively an SVG font embedded in a javascript file.

Generating this file is a relatively painless process, requiring the upload of your desired  font from your computer to the Cufón website and choosing some options before it gets “Cufónised” and downloaded back to your computer as a compressed javascript file. This file is then placed on your webserver.

The rendering engine for Cufón involves 3 components. A core API, and two rendering engines, one for Internet Explorer (which almost directly reads the VML data from the javascript font library), and another for browsers that support the HTML5 <canvas> element. Both renderers are very efficient and fast, and simple to install.

Cufon can be found via the project website – http://cufon.shoqolate.com/generate/

Advantages

• Client driven – no extra burden on the server other than to download the initial Cufón framework.
• Able to vary the quality/speed ratio of the font library file’s produced.
• As fast as your browser can render.
• Reasonably screen readable (although see below) by sight impaired.
• Any Truetype/Opentype font can be used.
• All files can be retained locally on your server – no links to external service providers are needed to render your fonts.

Disadvantages

• The basic installation only allows fonts to be assigned to basic html tags, and relies on external selector engines, such as jQuery, MooTools, Prototype or Dojo to assign fonts to other selectors – not a biggie, and is well documented.
• Generates a lot of extra DOM objects (specifically <span>) on the fly, which has caused issues with various screen readers, making accessibility a little more problematic. Again, not a show stopper, but not perfect.

Typekit

Typekit leverages the @font-face CSS rules that despite having been bounced around for almost 10 years, have only recently been supported in a consistent way by the big browser developers. @font-face is a major step forwards in many ways because instead of trying to patch a gaping hole in the capability of web browsers, it has aimed to actually fix it by building the functionality that we have all been screaming out for.

Working with Typekit is about as painless as it gets – Which is why yours truly has opted to use it on this website. Once you have signed up with Typekit, (they even have a free account option with a respectable set of fonts available), you create a “Kit” – a Kit defines the domain name, and fonts to be used. Once the Kit has been published on the Typekit system, all that remains is to add a couple of lines of javascript to your site, and you’re away. Typekit can even automatically replace CSS selectors with your new fonts for you – or, you can use them in the normal font-family CSS rules as you would with any typeface.

The FOUT issue (Flash Of Unstyled Text) is one of the only real problems with using Typekit. This is due to the time taken for javascript to load up the new font data, and replace the fallback fonts on the rendered page. It’s a little unfair to level this argument solely at Typekit, because every other method also takes some time to do the switch (anyone with experence of sIFR will know this).

Typekit are very aware of this, and recently produced some extra documentation at http://gist.github.com/401726 on “Typekit Font Events”, to help developers control what happens at load time (most opting to simply not show anything until the system is ready – like the other web font substitution systems) – but it is impossible (currently) to avoid this issue.

However, this is probably outweighed by the superb accessibility this system offers, as no extra un-necessary inline <span> elements are introduced to achieve the results, keeping your markup semantically correct.

Advantages

• Does not alter your HTML markup – maintaining excellent accessibilty, and copy/paste ability.
• Very simple to implement – and I mean SIMPLE!
• Futureproof – as Typekit improves, so will the javascript they put on your page – minimising future maintenance worries.
• A growing library of legally available fonts, so less hassle for designers.
• At $50 a year for unlimited domains and fonts, and 500,000 page serves a month, it’s unlikely to break the bank. I was going to put this as a disadvantage, but it’s only fifty bucks.

Disadvantages

• Relies on font data stored externally (albeit on super-fast, geographically dispersed sources).
• Hiding the base content until the javascript switch has taken place needs to be coded in on top the default install.
• It’s $50 bucks a year.

My Conclusion

So with these different font systems the best I found with the most compatibility and accessibility would be the Typekit font system. Most importantly, it does not need Flash, or extra server time to create “quasi-text” with bitmaps. Typekit’s use of @font-face is the most forward thinking solution, and I’m sure as time goes by it will develop into an even more elegant form of web font delivery. The only drawback is the fact that it uses javascript to load the fonts thus increasing your page load time.

The standard is going in the right direction, but fonts still need to be loaded before everything else so that the DOM has access to them as soon as it initialises – and this is going to require some further co-operative thinking between W3C, and the browser developers, and I’m sure it will come in time.

Benzing Web Design Marketing

Having the right content and being the most relevant is your goal and by enriching your content with the keywords in your niche will be more beneficial. So whenever you get your blogging on, keep in mind what people would search to find you.

The more the blog titles contain the searchable keywords that summarize the post’s content, the better to get your blog some views. But how do You and I know they’re often being searched and viewed? Easy… free keyword suggestion tools such as Overture and WordTracker. Google Analytics also provides keywords that are being searched to find your website. Make sure you never neglect your URL’s (permalinks) keyword potential. Make them pleasing to the eye of the search engine spiders, too. Here is an example:

Permalink URL -

http://example.com/blog-seo-tips-3-enrich-your-titles-and-urls-with-keywords/

Non-Permalink URL -

http://example.com/?p=N

Benzing Web Design Marketing

A “sticky” post is one that always appears at the top regardless of the date/time posted. The “sticky” feature is available in some blog systems by default (e.g. Blogger.com) and in others through the use of a plugins or built in functions (e.g. the sticky posts checkbox for WordPress).

Why would you ever want to make a post sticky? Because it’s an easy way to improve the keyword prominence on a category page or tag page. If you’re not familiar with the concept of keyword prominence, it’s simply this: the higher up on the page your targeted keyword is, the better you’ll rank. So, having keyword-rich copy that consistently appears at the top of a category page or a tag page will give you good keyword prominence and help you maintain a stable keyword theme for the page even when old posts fall off the page and new posts appear.

You can achieve this with a blog post containing your desired keyword-rich intro copy, categorizing/tagging it so that it appears on the desired page and making the post “Sticky” so that it stays on the top of the tag page. Back-date the post so it doesn’t appear on the top of your home page, just on the appropriate category or tag page. With the Adhesive plugin, you should select the “Show Sticky Posts Only on Category Pages” option in the configuration settings to ensure that they never appear on the home page.

If you aren’t able to make posts sticky for whatever reason, a way to still get the desired effect would be to put your keyword heavy copy directly into your template/theme and make sure it is at the top of your content.

Benzing Web Design Marketing

Welcome to our new idea, but not so new to the blogging community. The Benzing Technologies Blog SEO Series where we will post SEO Tips, Tricks, and Hacks for your blog. I have spent countless hours researching the best possible methods of gaining more search engine exposure just by optimizing, integrating and modifying certain parts of the blog. So lets get started with Tip #1.

Heading tags (H1 through to H6) are given more weight by search engines than regular body copy. So they should be used wisely to reinforce the page’s overall keyword theme. The posting date should never be within an H1 tag, because you’re NOT trying to rank well in the engines for a date. Instead, wrap an H1 tag around your category name or tag name on your category page or tag page, respectively. Then make the titles of your blog posts H2 tags, so that on a category or tag page, the category/tag words can be the only H1 on the page and thus can convey greater emphasis than the post titles.

You could even take this idea a step further and make the post title display within an H1 tag if it’s a Sticky post, and within an H2 if a normal post.

Examples of Heading Tags Click Here

Benzing Web Design Marketing

What are the best default fonts for the web? There often comes a time when our client does not like the font on their website and would like us to find alternatives. But before just using any font, we have to make sure it’s one of the default fonts most people have on their computer or we risk it not being shown and having a default font load instead. Luckily there are several default fonts included on Mac and Windows computers to choose from.

But which one do I choose? and I don’t just want to use Arial everytime. So with a little research we can create a cheat sheet of default fonts and their comparitives.

Benzing Web Design Marketing

It’s definitely been a while since I posted my last blog post and the reason is because of eCommerce. Online Shopping Carts have been running wild in my mind and a few recent clients have been keeping me busy designing and developing them.

In this post I’ll go over the different eCommerce platforms I have used and will give my opinions on ease of use and management. These are simply my persoal choices for clients when they come to me wanting to sell something online. So let’s jump right in.

1. VirtueMart - I found VirtueMart to be very simple to use and maintain, plus it’s FREE. Importing and exporting products can be a problem since that’s an additional plugin which I find tiedous and that isnt very user friendly. As far as setup goes I found it easy to configure and add taxes, shipping details, payment processors. Good templates can be hard to find and alot of the better ones are for sale. There are tons of addons, plugins, etc. The only downfall is you need “Joomla” which isn’t as easy to manage, for all of you non-joomla users, Joomla is a content management system to control your website. But if you have a Joomla website already getting VirtueMart installed and working isn’t a daunting experience.

Themes: Download Themes | Download: Click Here

2. Prestashop - Prestashop is an Open Source all in one eCommerce solution from the get go. Providing a very basic Content Management System built in, Newsletters, and Ajax functionality to add Products and Categories. The import and export abilities function pretty well (in the newer versions) and I was able to get categories and products added to the cart immeditely. Prestashop The only downfall to this software solution is the lack of free modules and themes, I also feel the admin interface still reminds me of osCommerce which I hate.

Themes: Download Themes | Download: Click Here

5. Magento - You can’t mention eCommerce without supporting Magento. Magento is a full Open Source eCommerce solution. It is very well coded and recommeded for advanced users only. This is in my top five because of the quality they put into the programming and design of the shopping cart software. The downfall to it is the complexity in configuration and adjustment. It’s totally different than any of the other shopping carts I’ve worked with. Adding products and categories isnt too hard but when you want to change themes or move blocks around it can be quite tricky. Magento features builtin SEO, Content Management, Mobile Browsing, International Support and more.

Themes: Download Themes | Download: Click Here

4. Zen-Cart - Zen-Cart is an Open Source shopping cart system that has been around for a while now since 2003. Zen-Cart offers similar features to Prestashop however it is even more basic and the interface reminds me of osCommerce. Besides that their import/export feature is a good one and I was able to get a basic store up in minutes with minimal effort. They list a huge database of websites using Zen-Cart for every category, so it’s easy to find a site similar to what your looking to create.

Themes: Download Themes | Download: Click Here

5. Drupal e-Commerce - For those of you who are not familiar with Drupal it is a Open Source Content Management System similar to Joomla in features but with a totally different interface. This is the shopping cart system I have the least experience in but it still goes down as my top 5 because of it’s versility and resources that are provided for it. Drupal has a huge community following them with a huge database of plugins and themes to follow suit. Drupal eCommerce is similar to other CMS eCommerce plugins it integates easily. I was able to setup a basic cart with categories and products in around 30-45 minutes. It’s simple to configure and easy to manage I did not test the import and export functions.

Themes: Download Themes | Download: Click Here

Benzing Web Design Marketing

With the recent release candidate of WordPress 3.0, the latest version in the most popular blogging platform online, the blogging team readies the new version with some seriously cool features. WordPress started in 2003 with a single bit of code to enhance the typography of everyday writing and with fewer users than you can count on your fingers and toes. Since then it has grown to be the largest self-hosted blogging tool in the world, used on millions of sites and seen by tens of millions of people every day.

WordPress 3.0 RC is their latest version of blogging software that has already changed the typography world. So…what’s an RC? An RC comes after beta and before the final launch. It means we think we’ve got everything done: all features finished, all bugs squashed, and all potential issues addressed. But, then, with over 20 million people using WordPress with a wide variety of configurations and hosting setups, it’s entirely possible that they’ve missed something.

So what’s new? well…

1. WordPress Merged with WordPress-MU
For all of you who don’t know what WordPress MU is. It’s a multi-user edition of WordPress. But wait…doesn’t WordPress already come with multi-user support? sort of. It does allow for multiple users but not multiple installations with multiple users which is what WordPress MU does very well. In the upcoming 3.0 release, WordPress MU will be merged into the WordPress Core. So, from now on, you will be able to run more than one site/blog from a single installation of WordPress.

2. Choose your own Username/Password
This is a feature that I have always wanted from WordPress. From version 3.0, whenever you install WordPress, you will be able to choose your own username and password. You will no longer have to accept “admin” for the username and a randomly generated password.

3. Custom Post Types
Until now, you could only add posts or pages to your WordPress blog. This feature will give you power to create content of any type that you want. For example, you can have Portfolio listings, Products, Catalogs, Library etc. This feature is not going to replace categories or Tags. You will still be able to use categories. Custom Post Types will allow a different way of sorting/displaying your content.

4. Better Menu Management
Another well thought out improvement is better menu management. The new menu system will have a drag and drop functionality that will combine Pages, Categories, and Links. It will also allow the ability of re-ordering, along with sub-menus, and hiding specific Pages or Categories from the menu altogether.

5. Custom Background Image Support
In Version 3.0, you will be able to manage your background image for the themes. You will be allowed to upload a background image and change its settings (positioning, repeat, attachment). I know for sure this will save some time for the theme designers.

6. A New Default Theme called 2010
Well this is a blessing and I am glad to say good riddance to the existing WordPress default theme. WordPress 3.0 will be packed with a brand new default theme called 2010. This theme will include Custom header, Custom Background, Clean Design, Multiple Widget Areas, Cascading Menus and a lot more. Overall, it will be a good base to build on for custom themes.

7. Custom Author Templates
Now you can create specific templates for every author of your blog. For example, you will be able to create a author-benzing.php or author-123.php, which will be called via the WordPress Template Hierarchy in connection to the author with their nicknames benzing or ID 123. Now it will be easy for an author to mark his/her own post or entry with his/her signature.

If you are interested in testing the newest version head on over to www.WordPress.org and download the Release Candidate and see for yourself. You can also view all of the new features here at their codex website.

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Benzing Web Design Marketing

Starting July 1st, 2010 Verisign®, the registry for .COM and .NET domain extensions, will increase prices. The fees are charged to domain registrars such as GoDaddy and Tucows, which typically handle domain registration for customers.

ICANN has an agreement that VeriSign is allowed to raise their .COM fees by up to 7% per year. This added $27 million dollars per year to their bottom line. VeriSign took advantage of this in the first two years of its contract, raising .COM registration from $6.00 to $6.86. It was assumed that VeriSign would increase its prices every year to maximize profits, but it did not in 2009.

So now in 2010 they are taking action and rasing fees. The registration fee for .COM’s will increase from $6.86 to $7.34 and .NET’s from $4.23 to $4.65. The current wholesale price of .com domains is $7.04 including an 18 cent ICANN fee (some registrars pay a 20 cent ICANN fee). The new price will be $7.52 including the ICANN fee (or $7.54 for registrars on the 20 cent ICANN fee structure).

This increase will affect domainers with large portfolios, more than any other businesses or consumers. Verisign® stock is currently at 28.89 and has been on the incline since Jun 2009.

So make sure you buy your domains names before the price hike even though it isnt a huge increase expect to see more increases over the years to come. If you want to purchase domain names at an affordable rate Benzing Technologies is offering .COM’s for $7.49 and .NET’s for $6.14.

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Benzing Web Design Marketing

It’s been a while since I released a blog post and have been tinkering with ways to drive more traffic to our client websites through social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. Social websites are major tools in today’s online realm so knowing how you can utilize and track them becomes very important. This blog post will go over 5 ways you can drive traffic through social media.

So let’s start with some questions…Do you know how your social media activities are driving offline sales? How many customers came into your store or called for more information after viewing your social media profiles? Will the time they spend interacting on Facebook and Twitter affect your sales? more than likely Yes.

With that said what are ways we can improve our sales through social media? Let’s identify some:

1. Place Your Phone Number on All Social Media Accounts
Now I know what your thinking…I already have my phone on my social sites duh! well yes you do but not your Google Voice number. Not sure what a Google Voice number is? read more here. Currently Google Voice is invite only but you can find invites online or through eBay for $1. I have 1 invite left so first come first serve. Use Google Voice to track incoming calls from your social media profiles if your business has a more consultative sales process or you run a conversational blog or use social networks to generate leads. A natural extension is to place your Google phone number on all of your social media presences and on each blog page for the customers who find you via search. The best part about Google Voice is the ability to have a separate number that forwards to your main number. This also lets you track the number of inbound calls you receive from your Google Voice dashboard.

2. Promote Offline Events on Social Media
This is another no brainier and you are probably already doing this. But how you are doing it matters. Facebook has an especially robust function for creating events and promoting them. Facebook events allow you to post pictures and event location information, while also inviting your fan base to participate. You also can message all attendees to remind them about the event or give special instructions. Creating a Facebook event page then gives you a landing page that will direct visitors to your blog and Twitter followers too. Make sure you take advantage of all the aspects of the tools provided. Twitter also allows for events using hashtags or establishing Tweetups.

3. Offer Coupons Exclusive to Social Media Channels
This is an easy way to generate fans and followers. People love getting things for free or winning things. Not only will this drive more traffic online but also offline at your place of business. Make specific offers through each social media channel you use, like 10% off a purchase if you print a coupon from Facebook, or “buy one get one free” if you use a code sent out in a Tweet. Keep a spreadsheet of the different offers and the response rate, and you’ll begin to generate really useful data about the best way to optimize your marketing campaigns for each channel. Incentives are a great way to build the size of your social media communities. Also, giving fans and followers an incentive to follow you shows the importance you place on social media outreach.

4. Host a Tweet Up or Facebook Party
Creating fun meet ups for your online followers can be a great way to introduce the atmosphere of your business. Charity events and cocktail hours work especially well for drawing attendees to TweetUps. The best way to cement interactions online is to meet your contacts face to face, and there is no better way to do this than to host a party. While you probably won’t bring 1,000+ members to your event like Ford did in the largest TweetUp ever, TweetUps let you form more personal relationships with your local followers. Here’s a great in-depth resource on how to host a successful TweetUp.

5. Connect Social Media and Email Campaigns
This is hugely important and helps retain the interest in your products or service. Many businesses have established email lists they use to stay in touch with customers. Drive visitors on your social media accounts to sign up for your email list to receive more information about your business. Getting social media visitors on your email list can connect you with people you might not otherwise reach through social media. This also keeps things consistent.

So with these 5 tips you can start creating more exposure to your place of business. Now the best way to close the loop between social media and offline action is to promote your social media channels offline as well—adding another way for you to stay in touch with your customers in between purchases or research. I hope these suggestions help you start thinking about ways to convert your social media fans and followers into loyal customers. There are many other suggestions but you will have to wait for our next blog post to find out.

Benzing Web Design Marketing

This is a repost to AWeber’s Tom Kulzer’s (CEO) blog post. I found it very educational.

In 1936, long before the rise of the personal computer, Hormel Foods created SPAM. In 2002, the company will produce it’s six billionth can of the processed food product. But that mark was passed long ago in the world of Internet spam.

Who Cooked This!? (How did it all start?)

The modern meaning of the word “spam” has nothing to do with spiced ham. In the early 1990’s, a skit by British comedy group Monty Python led to the word’s common usage. “The SPAM Skit” follows a couple struggling to order dinner from a menu consisting entirely of Hormel’s canned ham.

Repetition is key to the skit’s hilarity. The actors cram the word “SPAM” into the 2.5 minute skit more than 104 times! This flood prompted Usenet readers to call unwanted newsgroup postings “spam.” The name stuck.

Spammers soon focused on e-mail, and the terminology moved with them. Today, the word has come out of technical obscurity. Now, “spam” is the common term for “Unsolicited Commercial E-Mail”, or “UCE.”

Why Does Bad Spam Happen to Good People?

Chances are, you’ve been spammed before. Somehow, your e-mail address has found it’s way into the hands of a spammer, and your inbox is suffering the consequences. How does this happen? There are several possibilities.

Backstabbing Businesses
Businesses often keep lists of their customers’ e-mail addresses. This is a completely legitimate practice and, usually, nothing bad comes of it. Sometimes though, the temptation to make a quick buck is too great, and these lists are sold or rented to outside advertisers. The result? A lot of unsolicited e-mail, and a serious breach of trust.

Random Address Generation

Computer programs called random address generators simply “guess” e-mail addresses. Over 100 million hotmail addresses exist – howhard could it be to guess some of them? Unfortunately for many unsuspecting netizens – not too hard. Many spammers also guess at

“standard” addresses, like “support@yourdomain.com”,

“info@yourdomain.com”, and “billing@yourdomain.com.”

Web Spiders

Today’s most insidious list-gathering tools are web spiders. All of the major search engines spider the web, saving information about each page. Spammers use tools that also spider the web, but save any e-mail address they come across. Your personal web page lists your e-mail address? Prepare for an onslaught!

Chat Room Harvesting

ISP’s offer vastly popular chat rooms where users are known only by their screen names. Of course, spammers know that your screen name is the first part of your e-mail address. Why waste time guessing e-mail addresses when a few hours of lurking in a chat room can net a list of actively-used addresses?

The Poor Man’s Bad Marketing Idea

It didn’t work for the phone companies, and it won’t work for e-mail marketers. But, some spammers still keep their own friends-and-family-style e-mail lists. Compiled from the addresses of other known spammers, and people or businesses that the owner has come across in the past, these lists are still illegitimate. Why? Only you can give someone permission to send you e-mail. A friend-of-a-friend’s permission won’t cut it.

Stop The Flood to Your Inbox

Already drowning in spam? Try using your e-mail client’s filters – many provide a way to block specific e-mail addresses. Each time you’re spammed, block the sender’s address. Spammers skip from address to address, and you may be on many lists, but this method will at least slow the flow.

Also, use more than one e-mail address, and keep one “clean.” Many netizens find that this technique turns the spam flood into a trickle. Use one address for only spam-safe activities like e-mailing your friends, or signing on with trustworthy businesses. Never use your clean address on the web! Get a free address to use on the web and in chat rooms.

If nothing else helps, consider changing screen names, or opening an entirely new e-mail account. When you do, you’ll start with a clean, spam-free slate. This time, protect your e-mail address!

Stay Off Spammed Lists in the Future

Want to surf the web without getting sucked into the spam-flood? Prevention is your best policy. Don’t use an easy-to-guess e-mail address. Keep your address clean by not using it for spam-centric activities. Don’t post it on any web pages, and don’t use it in chat rooms or newsgroups.

Before giving your clean e-mail address to a business, check the company out. Are sections of its user agreement dedicated to anti-spam rules? Does a privacy policy explain exactly what will be done with your address? The most considerate companies also post an anti-spam policy written in plain English, so you can be absolutely sure of what you’re getting into.

Think You’re Not a Spammer? Be Sure.

Many a first-time marketer has inadvertently spammed his audience. The first several hundred complaints and some nasty phone messages usually stop him in his tracks. But by then, the spammer may be faced with cleanup bills from his ISP, and a bad reputation that it’s not easy to overcome.

The best way to avoid this situation is to have a clear understanding of what spam is: If anyone who receives your mass e-mails did not specifically ask to hear from you, then you are spamming them.

Stick with your gut. Don’t buy a million addresses for $10, no matter how much the seller swears by them! If something sounds fishy, just say no. You’ll save yourself a lot in the end.

The Final Blow

The online world is turning the tide on spam. In the end, people will stop sending spam because it stops working. Do your part: never buy from a spammer. When your business seeks out technology companies with which to work, only choose those with a staunch anti-spam stance.

Spam has a long history in both the food and e-mail sectors. This year, Hormel Foods opened a real-world museum dedicated to SPAM. While the museum does feature the Monty Python SPAM Skit, there’s no word yet on an unsolicited commercial e-mail exhibit. But, if all upstanding netizens work together, Hormel’s ham in a can will far outlive the Internet plague that is UCE.

Benzing Web Design Marketing