Bright Ideas for Business

Build It and They Will Come?

So you have your new visually appealing website designed.  You're thinking "Wow...this new site is really going to bring me more business," so you post it to the web and start waiting for calls to come in.  Weeks go by and your phone is silent!  You think, "what’s going on? Why aren't we getting any business?"   Here’s the problem: building a web presence is more much more than just having a pretty website online.  You must implement a strategy that is based on knowledge of how search engines place websites.  

It's been said that search engines are very much like your old science teacher in school.  If you don't do the work according to the proper formula, you won't get a passing grade.  It may seem like getting your site to the "sweet spot" of any search term is impossible, but in reality it's basically a check list of things that need to be done in the proper way.  Let’s use this analogy for understanding the process better.  You go buy a new car and you drive it until one day you develop a problem.  Unless you’re a mechanic, you don't think to yourself, "I'm going to work on the engine and fix it."  You understand that it’s a complex situation that requires the right tools, skills and experience to do the job properly.  Even mechanics do diagnostics to cars these days before working on them because it pin points the problem and tells the mechanic exactly what is wrong.  

Search engine placement requires tools designed to do diagnostics and pin point the problems or issues that your site most likely has.  Like the auto mechanic example, you still need to be a mechanic to do the work properly or in this case an SEO consulting expert.  This is because the information that is provided by the diagnostics process is in terms that most non-professionals won't understand.  Once you have identified and resolved the problems, you will soon you find yourself in the coveted top-search ranking spots!  

There is one other thing to consider when putting your SEO plan into action: someone is always trying to get your spot!  SEO experts continually keep up with the rules and best practices of search engine optimization.  The search engines like Google and Yahoo are constantly changing their rule and methods.  The HTML standards are always changing and getting new updates.  It's quite a lot of information to keep up with when you are trying to get to the top.  The top is not a destination; it's a continuous battle.

The only way to stay on top once you get there is to keep a monthly SEO maintenance program in place.  This is done by the SEO professional.  They must continually keep up with the rules and regulations of search engines and watch over your spot on a regular bases, and know what to do if your site falls off of its target spot.  Speak to the website design and SEO consulting pros at IEV MEDIA when you’re ready to get serious about your Internet marketing image. 

 

Veterans Day

On behaf of all of us here at IEV, we would like to thank all of our Veterans for their fight to keep us safe.

Thank you and enjoy your day!

What The Wall Street Crisis Means To You

The recent Wall Street Financial Market Crisis impacts every person and every company in the USA and globally.  We have not seen the end of this crisis and events of recent weeks are a precursor for things ahead.  We must all take the time to understand this crisis and rally where we can to help soften its impact.  The alternative will be much worse if we all do nothing.  Andy Hornby, Chief Executive of Halifax Bank of Scotland (HBOS) tells the BBC's Business Editor Robert Peston why he thinks the credit crunch could continue for another 18 months.

Save more

The financial market crisis translates to a squeeze in discretionary spending at the individual and family level.  This makes it harder for consumers to purchase basics like food and gas, but as it relates to the downward spiral of the financial markets, it also means that the individual consumer has less money to save.   

A bank's ability to lend is based, in large part, on the deposits it has.  The less people save, the less banks have on deposit and therefore the less banks will be able to lend.  The consumer saving and the credit crunch are absolutely linked to each other.  This circular trend lends itself to a simple truth, if consumers could take it upon themselves to change the trend and save more, then we could have a grassroots effort to reverse the course of the crisis. 

Banks like HSBC Bank are offering very high rates on their savings accounts to encourage individuals to save more.  The underlying challenge to individuals is increase their saving.  You can open one of these high-yield savings accounts online in just a few minutes.  I encourage all of you to put $100, $1,000 or even $10,000 into savings today.

U.S. Government sponsored public service programs like Feed The Pig have the mission to educate consumers to the benefits of saving their money.  The program website also includes several helpful tips for cutting spending with the implication that the reduced spending should then translate into more saving. 

Support U.S. Treasury

While Paulson presses Congress to approve the U.S. Treasury's Massive Bailout Plan, we must remember that the United States cannot afford to NOT do something.  Our Government is duty-bound to protect its citizens.  While in a crisis, it is every citizen's patriotic duty to support the U.S. Government.  While this is not a crisis of war, it is still a crisis that impacts every American.  One way every single citizen can support the U.S. Government is to purchase U.S. Treasury Securities.  Every citizen can purchase U.S. Treasury Securities online in just a few simple steps.  At the same time we are all being patriotic, we are also making a great investment.  Read how Gary Shilling of Forbes details how U.S. Treasuries have out-performed the S&P 500 for over 25 years. 

Take Action

I've detailed 2 ways that every citizen can help turn this financial crisis around.  Decide for yourself if you will help or stand on the sidelines watching the world change without your vote.  Step-up and start saving in a high-yield savings account and purchase U.S. Treasury Securities.

Prepare for IKE

All Houstonians and surrounding areas please prepare for this hurricane Ike. We wish you all the best and be safe.  God Bless us all.

Avoid the Traps That Can Cause A Company to Self-Destruct

In his 2007 book, The Self-Destructive Habits of Good Companies ... And How to Break Them, Dr. Jagdish N. Sheth, a Marketing Professor at the Goizueta Business School at Emory University, explores the reasons successful companies most often fail. He characterizes those traits as "habits," and with some foresight, that negative behavior can be modified to keep an organization off the path of self-destruction.

"In my view, the negative is more hidden and deeply embedded. Unless you consciously look for those issues, you won't find them," Sheth explains. "It's about searching from within and it's why I wrote the book. We all tend to look at the positive, but Eastern philosophy motivates people to look within to find the reasons for inertia or failure. Actively seeking out those problem areas—examining those negatives—is the best way to diagnose and then solve problems. It's a more proactive than reactive way to maintain and grow your company."

The Seven Self-Destructive Habits

Sheth has clearly defined a set of self-destructive traits, and offers some definition around why they can be so problematic:

• Volume obsession ("rising costs, falling margins")—Sheth refers to this as "cross-subsidizing" parts of your business, i.e., cross-subsidizing one market with another or one product with another. "When you have a volume obsession and execute on it, you attract competition in your higher-margin markets or products," he says. "For example, being a low-cost provider means you're sacrificing margins for volume. It didn't work for the airlines and it typically doesn't work in most businesses. You can't make money by boosting sales alone—a top line focus—you need to also deliver margins and profits."
• Denial ("accepting orthodoxy")—To avoid this, you need to look for and eradicate the "orthodoxy" in your company. Often, especially in founder-driven and family companies, we see aspects of "this is the way we've always done it." But the world is changing around you and your need to change with it. You need to listen to external and internal voices. Once you believe you're truly unique, you stop listening and learning.
• Arrogance ("pride before the fall")—"Often, you succeed by accident or even despite leadership," observes Sheth. "Even with great business plans, all businesses succeed in part due to luck. If you make the mistake of attributing your achievements to yourself, you won't be open to restructuring strategy and vision as the markets around you change."
• Complacency ("success breeds failure")—If you're not looking forward, you stand to get ambushed by external factors—the drivers over which you have no control that can affect your business. Those drivers include regulation, capital markets, competition, globalization, technology and customers. They can work both for and against you. In terms of regulation, the stroke of a pen—the signing a new law or a court decision (e.g., look at what deregulation did to the telecommunication and energy industries)—can forever change your business. Capital markets can work to send your industry and your company out of favor with investors. Customers, on the other hand, tend to be comfortable with providers and resistant to change, which is a positive, until a competitor does something better than you. Constantly monitoring the external factors that impact your business can help you cope with them, as opposed to the reverse.
• Competency dependence ("the curse of incumbency")—"What you are best at—what gave you a foothold in the marketplace—can become irrelevant," notes Sheth. "Look at how film was replaced by digital cameras. You need to constantly change your competencies and make them transformative to keep up with your market and industry. Don't be too loyal to an existing technology or capability."
• Competitive Myopia ("a near-sighted view of the competition")—When you first opened your doors, everyone was your competition. As you move forward and carve out a niche, you begin to focus on fewer competitors, which can lead to your being surprised by a competitor you may not be thinking of down the road. In the 1970s, for example, we laughed at Japanese cars, but now they're the norm and they outsell many American models. While we focused on Japanese technology innovations, new competitors came from Korea and eventually they will come from China, India and Russia. You need to keep your competitive assessment as broad as possible so that you know where potential threats are coming from.
• Territorial impulse ("culture conflicts, turf wars")—As a company grows, it tends to split off into "silos," based on different functions and disciplines. You see the development of different mindsets—a HR mindset, a finance mindset, an engineering mindset, etc. As a result, cultural differences arise within the company, which makes it difficult to develop trust, not to mention cross-functional teams. Without consistent communication, an allegiance to turf—and not the company's overall goals—can become an issue.

Bottom line, says Sheth, is that paying attention to and eradicating these traits in your own company will keep you on the right path. "As a leader, you should also be a leader of questioning prevailing wisdom, culture and practices, even if you created them," he opines. "You need to avoid complacency to execute on long-term vision. Constantly question and allow others to do the same. The half-life of knowledge is getting shorter—whatever you learn today will be of less value sooner rather than later. You need to always be willing to learn and watch the external environment to determine how it will affect your company."

ICANN's Biggest Expansion of Top Level Domains (TLD)

This is a massive leap forward for the group that oversees the development of the internet. The board of the Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers–ICANN–unanimously approved some proposals that could open up domains past the standard .com, .org, .info, etc. This could open a lot of new websites in the future that are tailored to industry-specific websites, maybe like www.coffee.shop or www.wallstreet.nyc, for example. They might seem a little strange now, but we think they will catch on very quickly! Read the ICANN announcement here.

How does this impact you?

With Search Engine Optimization (SEO), one of the key elements is how relevant the search is to the content on the site. A big part of the relevance metric is the domain name and URL. If someone is looking to buy shoes, then a domain name of buy.shoes.shop would be more relevant than www.shoes.com. These new TLDs will allow your company to expand its ability to attract new viewers to your website. Contact www.ievmedia.com for information on how to put this new information to work for you today.

New SEO Packages Available

SEO from www.IEVMedia.com

According to a recent study of search engine user behavior, 62% of search engine users click on a first page result. You want your Web site to rank in the top 10, but it takes time and know-how. At IEV we find it not only important to design a website that is worth viewing but also to have a web site that is easily found on the internet; when there is so much clutter.

1.Web Site Analysis -Validation of your site's home page HTML code and text-Adjustments to page code and/or text to be more easily spidered by search engines -Review of your site's links to identify any broken links or images -A check of your site's server status for problems or errors

2. Keyword Analysis -Generate traffic for your site-Produce targeted visitors to your site from search engines-Meet your approval

3. Content Analysis- After we research and write search engine optimized content for your site, we will create some custom pages for your site and optimize the content before placing it into the HTML pages. The text is formatted to target the algorithms of multiple search engines.

4. Search Engine Submission and Reporting- We submit your most recent website on a monthly basis so you don't have to do it manually. With everything on your plate as a small business owner, that's one less thing to think about!

5. SEO Management and Maintainence

Our SEO experts work one-on-one with you to analyze your Web site and better understand your business.

Memorial Day Hope

With so many hurt, wounded and lost this Memorial Day, here at IEV we'd like to thank every soldier, parent , and friend that has hurt from the pain of losing someone in this war or in wars past. To our veterans we Thank You for your courage and humanity for standing up for what you believe in. May everyone have a beautiful remembrance of all our great fallen soldiers.

Christmas Wishes and Plans for a Prosperous New Year!

We at IEV want to wish you an yours the very best as we all prepare for an explosive 2008.  In anticipation of the new year, we wanted to share a real treat for the season:
Christmas Greetings Blog posting by Cathy Mosca at www.tompeters.com on December 24, 2007.

The post relates 11 business principles that are also found to be true to baking cookies.

Absolutely Guaranteed Funding

With the news of the recent fund raised by IEV Capital circulating, I thought I would help answer the biggest FAQ of them all: "How can IEV Capital fund my company?"

The IEV Capital Monetization Program is designed to turn future revenue streams into cash today.  This concept applies to almost every type of business that services other businesses.  The crux of this type of funding is the guarantee.  It might seem unusual and you might think that "they don't do it that way in my industry", but in reality for the right price or concession, you can get the right guarantee.  Let me explain what the guarantee is...

The guarantee must include these elements:

• Irrevocable (cannot be canceled for any reason)
• Assignable (can be transferred to another entity)
• Sum Certain (exact dollar amount)
• Date Certain (paid on defined schedule)
• No Offset (the amount cannot be reduced for any reason)

Example: Corporate Payment Guarantee
This irrevocable payment guarantee for $100.00 is to be paid to ABC LLC in $10.00 increments per year on December 31st for ten (10) years beginning December 31st, 2007 and ending December 31st, 2016.  This total amount is not subject to any offset or holdback.  This guarantee is assignable upon written notice to the guarantor.

That language above can be worded differently so long as the meaning & interpretation does not change.  Also, it is common for those sentences to appear in the appropriate sections throughout the document.  The bottom line is that if the client does NOTHING, then the guarantor still PAYS.

 
What if the guarantor won't do it?  Well, the client can offer a lower cost, a lien option or a performance bond.  In the case of the lien or performance bond, the guarantor still PAYS according to the guarantee, but then recoups their expense via the lien or bond.  In any case, the guarantor must be willing to provide this "unconditional promise to pay" to the client.  It is up to the client to make the guarantor comfortable with issuing this guarantee.  I call it salesmanship.