Solutions

BUZZnotes . . .

MAY 2010

Caroline Andrew & Associates,LLC is growing and changing! Importantly, CAA has changed its telephone number and added a dedicated fax line. While I am committed to eliminating paper use, some items really are easier for clients to send as faxes. Therefore, I now have a 24-hour fax line. You can reach CAA at:
• 312.577.6972
• Caroline, ext. 711
• Sales & General voice mail, press 1
• Fax line, press 2

Recently, while responding to an RFP, I needed to submit client loyalty/return business statistics. I am proud to say that my return business rate is currently at 86%. When not including firms that have merged or closed, my return business is 92%! Thank you so much for your business. As part of that return business, the new CAA Referral Program is resulting in discounts for several of our clients and in professional marketing projects for those companies that they have referred. Thank you for all of your referrals so far during 2010!

Finally, two important reminders for summer:

1. .com and .net domain name rates are scheduled to rise across the board on July 1. This rate increase comes directly from the Verisign Registry, which ultimately handles the registrations for all domain names. .com names will go up at least 7% and .net names will increase 10%. These increases will be passed on by your domain name merchants. Please be sure to renew all of your domain names before July 1! We will be in touch shortly with those clients whose domain names we handle to verify your desire to renew early and your desired renewal term.
2. Now is the time to place orders for 4th of July Parade promotions. From magnets and notepads to pens and frisbees, we can help you design and produce a durable, useful give-away.

Have a Safe & Happy Summer!

Caroline

JAN 2010

We're starting our new calendar year with several exciting new offerings for our clients in 2010! First up:

CAA NEW REFERRAL PROGRAM: Send us referrals! For each new client we sign in 2010, we will give our referring source 15% off of their next project! And, as an extra incentive, we'll give the new client 5% off their first project.

We are also continuing to partner with area photographers and video production companies to offer high-quality photography and video production services at a reasonable price. From one and two-camera shots, half and full-day filming to scripting, voice over, and teleprompting, we can help you add video to your websites, add interest to your sales presentations, or even film for television and websites.

In addition to our eMarketing Association membership, Caroline Andrew & Associates, LLC was approved as a member of the Better Business Bureau earlier this month.

Finally, CAA wants to congratulate Anne Slaughter Andrew of our client New Energy Nexus, LLC. Ms. Slaughter Andrew was recently instated as the Ambassador to Costa Rica. An entrepreneur and a highly respected environmental attorney, Ms. Slaughter Andrew and her spouse, Joe Andrew, have been highly involved over the past two decades in the Democratic National Committee, at both the Indiana state level and at the national campaign level.

As I view pictures of the destruction and devastation in Haiti, I want to extend to everyone my wishes for a very safe and healthy year. For those wishing to donate to the Haitian relief, I have set up a link to the Red Cross on our home page.

Caroline

BUZZtip May 2010:

Summer + Chicago = Promo Madness

Look outside! Summer is finally coming to Chicago! And with it comes the Chicago's sponsorship and give-away season. The ultimate company promotion is Taste of Chicago, but you don't have to be Frontera Grill to capitalize on Summer in Chicago. Look around and you will see classic Chicago slow pitch softball, community kids' baseball teams, major city neighborhood bashes, 5Ks, 10Ks and parades of all kinds. This is a metropolitan area teeming with sponsorship and promotional opportunities of all kinds for all types of companies.

The trick, of course, is finding the right promotional or sponsorship opportunity for your company. You need to analyze your company's demographics: Where are your customers? Suburb specific, regional Chicagoland or Chicagoland-wide? Are you a service firm, food provider or consumer goods company? When you answer these questions, you may find that you are best sponsoring a team in your area or branching out to the next suburb. Health, travel, education, sporting goods and entertainment companies are great matches for athletic events, from softball teams to 5Ks and other races. Any local consumer company can take advantage of its suburb, neighborhood or block party bashes as well as local team sponsorships and parades. Is your firm in the Loop? Look to sponsor teams in neighborhoods or suburbs that constitute a large percentage of your clientele.

Need some planning help? Caroline Andrew & Associates is here to help. Give us a call at 312.577.6972!

BUZZtip Jan 2010:

Search Engine Rankings: Where Is My Site?

Google and Yahoo! search engine rankings are important to all website owners. We have re-developed many websites that were indexed with Google but not ranking well with keyword searches. Obviously, in a competitive market such as Chicago, page-one ranking can be difficult in an industry packed with competition compared to companies that operate in a near local monopoly. But no matter which category your company falls in, you can indeed optimize your rankings.

First, Google rankings are based on an algorithm featuring four compenents: Content, Page-Title Tags, Keyword-Related Links and, to a lesser degree, In-Bound Links.

Google considers relevant page content to be a large factor in determining each page's rank. Articles, insights, alt-tagged photos and other relevant information all help boost your page rank.

Page titles (appearing at the very top of your browser screen) are placed in your HTML TITLE tags in your pages' HEAD sections. Each page should be uniquely named and relevant to your page's content.

If the links pointing to your pages use relevant keyword text, these links will help your page to be ranked higher. For example, a link with the text "Business Cards" that points at the page on a site selling business cards will help create a higher ranking for that page when a visitor is searching for business card designs than if the link simply said "click here". Also important is the name of each of your pages. "business_card_design.html" will rank higher than merely design.html.

Finally, in-bound links still factor into Google's algorithm, although reportedly not as much as before. Be sure that any organization or association with which you have a membership includes a link to your website.

So, what can hold back your site's ranking? The number one deterrent to an optimized site is a Flash splash screen used as the home page. Yes, they are cool. Yes, they can be impressive. And yes, if the only text offered is "enter here," the search engine ranking will be adversely affected. Text content that can be indexed is absolutely critical to your home page and your site's ranking.

Web 2.0 and its related programming (JavaScript, AJAX, etc.) has the ability to inhibit your site's ranking if the search engines cannot detect other pages on your site. The best cure for this is to always include traditional links on your pages.

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