We probably have a lot of wrong information in our heads about how American Indians actually lived from the movies and TV. One thing that stands out of you watch a “western” is usually when an Indian shows up in a scene, he or she communicates to the other characters in a form of sign language and there is always an “Indian guide” or trapper who understands what was said and lets us in on it.

Now the westerns were not always good about representing the diverse and sophisticated cultures of the various tribes that are native to this land. So you have to wonder if this signing that we see in those shows is something the writer threw in there just to make the movie interesting.

Interestingly enough, the use of sign language in certain situations by Native Americans has its roots in historic truth. If you have gotten to know any Native Americans and learned about their history, you know that each tribe that coexisted in North America had a very unique language and culture. And while there were a lot of different Native American tribes, the country is so huge that their languages were very different from one another so often Indians from different tribes could not converse if they came in contact.

Another fact we know about the majority of Native American tribes is that they didn’t very often stay in the same place year after year like we do now. They moved around to follow good hunting or to get away from bad weather, disease or other dangers to the tribe. And this nomadic behavior often brought different tribes in contact with each other. Contrary to what “the westerns” would have us believe, however, many times different tribes tried to work together and were not hostile as they tried to share important information that could be a big help to another tribe trying to get by in a sometimes hostile environment.

So in order to do some basic communications to get around the language barriers, a Native American sign language was developed so each tribe could speak to the other tribes when there was need for cooperation or negotiation. So when tribal leadership met to discuss territory issues or to learn from one another, this Native American sign language was about more than just saying hello. Being able to help one other was a vital way that all of the Native American tribes survived and prospered.

People who study history and language have determined that this Native American sign language was not just kept in reserve for when the tribes came across each other. It was refined and used quite a bit within tribal life to communicate important information when speaking was not possible such as when hunting for food or when spying on an enemy.

It’s fun and enlightening to look back at another people in another time and see how they used sign language to live better lives in harmony with other tribes where possible and to live peaceful and prosperous lives just as we do today.

And a great thing about learning more about how important communications methods were used by Native Americans is it makes you a more intelligent friend if you meet or already know someone from this culture. And any time we can understand other cultures more, it makes us better people too.

Posted: March 21st, 2008 under Communication.
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There is more business being done online than ever before. There are hundreds of thousands of new business web sites coming on every month. 70% of the US population (233 million people) are online. Over 1.2 billion people worldwide are online. The question is how do we find clients in an ocean of competitors?

Part of the answer to the above question is which number do you focus on, the number of people on line or the number of competitors? If you are focused on the number of people online, read on. If you are more focused on the number of competitors, read on.

Search engine marketing has been proven to have the lowest cost per acquisition of any other marketing medium. It is the only medium where people are actively searching for you. A successful campaign should include a web site designed around one question: “What are your clients looking for?” This is the starting point and may seem basic but it is surprising how many people have are just scratching the surface in their understanding of this.

Your clients are in need of solutions, answers or products. Do they know:

1.that you exist? 2.the unique value that you bring to the table? 3.the depth of knowledge and experience you can bring to bear in helping them solve their issues? 4.the passion that you have for meeting their needs?

SEO Management SEO (search engine optimization), is the art helping people find what they are looking for, on your site”. A well optimized website requires two elements the correct “on page” optimization so that the search engines can determine the relevancy of the information you are presenting. Yes, it is not as important as it use to be but it is still needed. Another essential piece of the puzzle is “off page optimization”. This is having web sites linking back to yours. You may think that you are important and provide a great service to mankind but if no one else does you will not get ranked well. Quality links to your web site and an on going linking strategy is absolutely vital for good rankings. SEO optimization is not a onetime deal it is an ongoing process.

PPC Management Pay-per-click is a fantastic way to drive traffic to your site from the major search engines. It can also suck your marketing budget dry in just a couple of days if not done properly. The goal of the search engines (and their strategies) is more clicks. The more people click on your ads the more money the search engines make. Their strategy is to get as many clicks as possible with in your budget and they are willing to do that all day long. Great for them bad for you.

The real goal should be more conversion with less clicks and lower cost. For lead generation sites this will mean lower cost per conversion. For e commerce sites this will result in a higher “return on ad spend”. It is easy to figure out: profit/ad spend=% and if that % is not over 101% you are losing money! The only way to do that is to track every thing from clicks to conversions; cost per click to cost per conversion; total revenue. PPC Management should be the process that is designed to make that happen.

Click Fraud Management Click Fraud is a fact of life in the online world. The search engines are getting better at detecting and crediting their online advertisers. The key is to find a Click Fraud program that can track an IP address even if the go to another search engine and click on your ads and give them a warning that they are being tracked. It is amazing how bad behavior stops if the they know they are being watched and tracked! Also, some click fraud caused by our clients who find it easier to keep clicking on our ad instead of book marking our page. This will give them a gentle reminder to do that.

Many Roads It is also important to examine as many roads to your site as possible. Find blogs where your clients hang out. Write articles and publish them on the web. There are hundreds of sites that will publish you articles for free. For a nominal fee some sites will push your article out to thousands of other sites looking for content, Isnare.com is a good example. This is great from three perspectives. One, you will get a tremendous amount of links back to your site. Secondly, this will lead to increase traffic and thirdly writing articles will help establish you as an expert in your field. There are newsletters, co-registration, affiliate marketing. The key is to research these and see what will work for you.

Hire or not to Hire outside help

“How do I know if I need help?”

You might need help if:

1.Your clients and customers are not able to find you on the search engines. 2.You do not know why your competitors are in the top ten search results and you are on page 10,001! 3.You can not keep up with the changing technologies and even the changes in the market. 3.You do not have the time to take away from what you do best, running your business!

If you do need help, do your home work.

1.Get references and call them. 2.Get specifics about how they have helped their clients. 3.Find out how many clients they have and how many your account manager will handle. 4.Get a specific action calendar. Know what they are going to do and when it will be complete. 5.Make sure they understand your products, services and goals. 6.Do not be afraid to get another company to “audit” their work.

Finally This is serious business and one can loose a lot of money and time very quickly if you do not do it correctly. The bottom line is, if your customers cannot find you, they will find someone else. If you do not have someone in house with a passion to help grow your business. Find someone who knows what is important to the search engines and will not get you banned.

Posted: March 21st, 2008 under Marketing.
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In the past, few sites had more than a single participant. But as internet technology has developed by leaps and bounds and interactive participation has become ever more popular, site data is more and more culled from multiple participants. What is more, even the development of web technology itself has benefited from the contributions of these online users. Here we will discuss the field of website content management, paying particular attention to those programs that have been created to aid webmasters. Given the enormous pool of collaborators they have to draw from, internet portals are more and more being run automatically via computer programs labeled content management suites.

Let us look at the case for web content management software. Since these tools bring much greater ease to automation, flexibility in storage, retrieval, versioning, and bringing up information that is publication ready, they make for a considerable easing of the burden on your web team.

Website content management systems come in many different open source forms. Nevertheless, this doesn’t mean that these systems are without any cost. These management systems with open source code are also called open source content management applications but this does not relate at all to the prices that are charged for these products.

You can use a free content management system if you find yourself low on resources and funds. These systems are difficult to customize for your website’s needs, though they are free and powerful. In comparison, try to finance a website content management team to customize the application for your needs.

Website content management suites provide templates that help perform this type of work. System strength and power should not be at the cost of the product being able to function as expected. One reason includes program bugs which cause effects to more than one area. For this reason layers within the program are to be protected with specific guidelines and are under further development to achieve this.

There is a large variety of programs to choose from. Right or wrong, price is most often the driving force in choosing a website content management suite. While taking the initial cost into consideration, also think about the future cost of that particular suite because regular upgrades will be periodically needed to keep up with the always improving systems. Determine the return on your investment before making a decision.

With the maturation of web technologies and increased emphasis on online collaboration, website content is now provided by many contributors. With ever increasing numbers of contributors, more and more internet portals are being managed by automated software programs called content management suites. Web content management software with open source code is termed as open source content management application. If you are low on resources, you can select a free content management system. Albeit, powerful and free, such systems are often difficult to customize to your websites specific needs. Accordingly, you may need to finance a website content management team which will tailor the application.

Posted: March 21st, 2008 under Web Hosting.
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