Colorado Web Solutions

Great Article on Blogging with Sales in Mind

Posted on August 24th, 2010 by Matt Sampson - Colorado Web Solutions

Hi Everyone –

I read an article this morning that I wanted to share with you from Social Media Examiner (http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com). The author, Nathan, did an excellent job providing concrete examples of how your blog can be used better as a sales tool, without coming across like a sales tool. I’ll include a little of the article below and provide a link to the full text.

If you do not have a blog for your Yahoo Store yet, we can set one up for you for very little money.

Enjoy!

No matter how great your company is at playing the social media game, let’s not kid ourselves… The ultimate goal for many businesses is profit, not engagements, retweets or Facebook likes.

The real question is how many people are buying what you’re selling?

Unfortunately, getting your blog readers to buy what you’re selling, especially if you run an online business, can be difficult. This article will reveal a proven technique to turn your blog into a sales engine.

If your social media campaigns are not netting you any cash, then you’ll be out of the game in a hurry.

Twitter, Facebook and YouTube are great marketing channels, but the blog is king. If you aren’t setting your blog up to convert when new Twitter or Facebook users come your way, then your entire content marketing plan will be in jeopardy.

So what do you do to overcome this? You not only have to find a way to build in social proof, provide a value proposition, craft an offer and convince readers that your product is worthwhile, but you also have to do it in a way that isn’t pushy, doesn’t confuse people and works for you around the clock.

Sounds impossible, right? Wrong.

This article will introduce the concept of using your blog as a lateral sales page.

Read the rest of this article here:

http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/how-to-use-your-blog-to-drive-social-sales/

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Update your Yahoo! Store’s Copyright Date Automatically

Posted on January 6th, 2010 by Matt Sampson - Colorado Web Solutions

It’s that time of year again, the calendars switch to 2010 and we struggle for a few days to remember to write 10 instead of 09 on our checks and other dated materials. Don’t forget an important change you need to make to your Yahoo Store as well… it’s time to update the copyright date in your stores footer.

For most store owners this can easily be accomplished by going to your VARIABLES and looking for the “Copyright” field toward the bottom of the list of default variables. If you have a custom designed store you may have to look in a different location depending on your developer. For example, our customers can typically look in a field called “cws-footer” to change their footer. CWS clients, however, will not need to update their copyright dates because we code our sites to update automatically.

If you would like to update your Copyright date for the final time, here’s a sample of the code you can use.

© Copyright <script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript">
<!--
// current date - from http://rainbow.arch.scriptmania.com/scripts
// Array of day names
var dayNames = new Array("Sunday","Monday","Tuesday","Wednesday","Thursday","Friday","Saturday");

var monthNames = new Array("January","February","March","April","May","June","July",
                           "August","September","October","November","December");

var dt = new Date();
var y  = dt.getYear();

// Y2K compliant
if (y < 1000) y +=1900;

document.write(y);
// -->
                  </script> Your Company Name

I hope this little tip was helpful for you. While you’re at it, make sure all of your Holiday Promotions are cleaned out and you’ve got everything back to normal again after the holidays. Our entire team at Colorado Web Solutions wishes you all a very successful 2010.

Have a great week everyone.

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Happy Thanksgiving Yahoo Store Owners

Posted on November 26th, 2009 by Matt Sampson - Colorado Web Solutions

To all of our clients, readers and friends, we wish you a relaxing Thanksgiving Day and hope that starting tomorrow morning you will be too busy to read. Happy Thanksgiving everyone. Good luck this weekend and for the entire month of December. We’re all rooting for you.

Off to eat some turkey.

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Introducing the Yahoo! Store Promotion Manager

Posted on September 17th, 2009 by Matt Sampson - Colorado Web Solutions

Have you ever wished that your Yahoo! Store’s coupon manager was a little more robust? I would assume that if you have a Yahoo! Store that does any sort of promotional marketing your answer is YES!

Well, we have the perfect service for you now!

I am very happy to announce that Colorado Web Solutions has partnered with a brand new service called the “Promo Manager“. The Promo Manager is one of the  most advanced technologies we’ve seen for Yahoo! Stores in quite a while. Take everything you know about Yahoo! Stores limited coupon and promotions functionality and throw it out the window. This is a whole new ball game. Yahoo! Merchant Solutions recently upgraded their coupons, but this is leaps and bounds above the built in technology.

Imagine being able to quickly and effortlessly offer a campaign that offers “Happy Hour Specials”. Let’s say you want to offer your customers a 10% discount on everything they purchase between 10 am and 2 pm on Tuesdays. You can do that! How about offering free shipping on certain days? You can do that too! Want to reward local customers? How about setting up a promotion where all orders shipping to your home state get a free hat with their order? You can also do that!

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Trim the Fat in your Yahoo! Store’s Ad Budget with Analytics

Posted on September 9th, 2009 by Matt Sampson - Colorado Web Solutions

I could go on and on about the utmost importance of using analytics in your Yahoo! Store. And I’m not talking about Google Analytics, I’m talking about  real analytics, the Yahoo! Web Analytics that come free with Yahoo! Stores (minus the basic package). Yahoo! Web Analytics is extremely powerful and, in my opinion, much more useful than Google Analytics. [read more about that here]

Today I’m going to highlight one simple case study regarding Analytics.

Before I get too deep into this, I want to remind Yahoo! Store owners again to ACTIVATE YOUR ANALYTICS! If you have not yet activated your analytics, you’re not collecting data, so please do that ASAP, even if you don’t know what to look for in your reports. Start collecting Data now. [Learn More Here]

Once you have activated your account you will be collecting data which is critically important. To take advantage of what I’m going to write about below, you will need to take your analytics account one step further and start tracking your specific marketing campaigns (Google Adwords, Yahoo Search, etc) If you are not familiar with how to do this, please contact Colorado Web Solutions and we can get your account set up to track campaigns and provide you with all the necessary instructions for only $100.

Ok, now it’s time for the details.

Last week we were doing some work with a client and the goal of the meeting was to try to reduce the expense of Google Adwords without sacrificing sales. It was a common goal that we hear time and time again.

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Colorado Web Solutions Launches 3 New WordPress Sites

Posted on September 8th, 2009 by Matt Sampson - Colorado Web Solutions

It’s been a busy few weeks at Colorado Web Solutions as we launched three brand new WordPress blog sites. We have long felt that blogs (especially wordpress blogs) are extremely effective for SEO and ultimately sales, especially for Yahoo! Stores. These three sites are not tied specifically to a Yahoo! Store, but rather to a collection of stores.

Many people think of Blogs as a way to post news and updates, which they are, but they can be so much more than that as well. These three sites demonstrate that you can built an entire site on the WordPress platform. These sites are not limited to only news and updates!

If you’d like to see some examples of how Colorado Web Solutions is taking the WordPress Platform to a new level, please take a moment to visit the newest sites:

• SkiHelmets.org
• eSnowshoes.com
• AllMountainSports.com

All three of these sites are built exclusively on WordPress using robust templates and custom coding.

If you would like to create a WordPress Blog for your Yahoo! Store that is more advanced and robust than most, please contact Colorado Web Solutions and we would be happy to assist.

Enjoy the previews.

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Yahoo! Store Design Discount Options Announced

Posted on August 13th, 2009 by Matt Sampson - Colorado Web Solutions

I wanted to take a moment and let you know about an exciting new offer we launched today for Yahoo! Store Design. For a limited time, Colorado Web Solutions is offering Yahoo! Store owners a choice as to what kind of discount they would like to receive when they sign up for one of our Standard Yahoo! Store Design Packages. Starting today, there will be two great options:

1) Save $500 Immediately off your bill, or
2) Receive $700 in credit to use on extra enhancements for your store!

The choice is yours! Some Yahoo! Store owners are looking to save as much as they can and other Yahoo! Store owners want to get the most for their money and enhance their Yahoo! Stores. Now both groups can get exactly what they want!

We’ve posted all of the details about the program on our site in our newly launched Discounts & Promotions Page, so if you are interested in participating in this limited time promotion, please head over to http://www.coloradowebsolutions.com/promotions-index.html to get all the information.

If you are searching for a Yahoo Store Developer or a Yahoo Store Designer, Colorado Web Solutions is your perfect match and now you can save even more when you sign up.

Thank you everyone and have a great week.

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Colorado Web Solutions is now 100% Wind Powered

Posted on May 1st, 2009 by Matt Sampson - Colorado Web Solutions

I am very proud to announce that as of today (May 1, 2009), the Colorado Web Solutions Main Office is powered 100% by renewable resources. At 12:01 this morning, we left the coal powered electricity grid and have moved completely to wind powered turbines.

As a Colorado native, I was lucky to grow up in a this natural playground we call Colorado. Environmental responsibility has always been a part of my life whether while camping, skiing, golfing and even working. We’ve been recycling around the office for years, but this next step is a major jump to an even less destructive environmental footprint. I am very proud to know that my company is running on renewable wind energy.

Colorado Web Solutions is extremely focused on the environment and our role in preserving the natural beauty and resources of our planet.

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The 90 Minute SEO Experiment – Yahoo Store Traction

Posted on April 22nd, 2009 by Matt Sampson - Colorado Web Solutions

Ninety Minutes. That’s all it took. My hat goes off to Google for winning the race between them and Yahoo!. It only took us 90 minutes to get indexed in google…

Background: In case you missed the last post, I essentially found a search term “Yahoo Store Traction” that had no organic listing results. I then posted a short blog post using that term (yahoo store traction) in the post. I published the post and waited. Now you are caught up, but if you’d like to read the first post, it can be read here.

The Results: It took Google.com 90 minutes to index a post we made in our blog. That’s incredible. We took a term (yahoo store traction) that returned zero results at 9:45 in the morning and by making one post about it in our blog, it was indexed and live in the google results by 11:15 that same day. I’ve attached screen shots below of the before and after from the same day. By the time you read this there will be even more results I assume since I’ve mentioned Yahoo Store Traction a few times already.
See the results for yourself.

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Free SEO Service for Yahoo! Stores for a Limited Time

Posted on March 23rd, 2009 by Matt Sampson - Colorado Web Solutions

Spring is in the air! The days are starting to warm up here in Colorado (slowly..) and I’m ready to celebrate the arrival of spring and the slow retreat of winter! What better way to celebrate than offering Free Services!? :)

I’m very happy to announce that for an extremely limited time, we have decided to waive the set up fees ($50) and provide your first month Free (another $15) when you give 15SEO.com a try with your Yahoo! Store. That’s a $65 savings for you and a free month to try out our SEO reporting and services for your Yahoo! Store.

If you would like to try out this Free No Risk Trial Offer, please head over to http://www.15seo.com right now and sign up. Like I said, this is an extremely limited promotion, so don’t delay.

What is 15SEO.com?

15SEO.com was built for one simple purpose. We provide SEO Submissions, Tips and Advice, Set Up and Reporting for Yahoo! Stores. Rates start at only $15 a month and each month you will receive detailed SEO reports (examples here) as well as regular submissions to the major search engines like Google, Yahoo, Ask.com, etc. Additionally, we will ensure that your Yahoo! Store has a Google site map installed and running, and that it has been posted with Google and verified. We will also make sure your catalog feeds are turned on and active for the shopping comparison engines including Google Base (also known as Google Product Submit or Froogle).

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