Category: News & Trends

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Vista Compatiblity

You know my Tech Director is pushing me to move into Vista. I have been longing myself to move to Office 2007, but unfortunately I will have to wait to do both.

I researched on the Web yesterday which of my workhorse applications will have problems with Vista and all of my key applications are not compatible at this point with Vista. All have the comment noted on the various websites “should run but there are documented problems”. Well that’s enough to keep me from moving to Vista at this point. I just can’t have downtime or application issues.

Another consideration is to use Vista, I will have to upgrade Flash Professional 8, Photoshop CS2, Adobe GoLive CS2, Acrobat 7 Professional, and the list goes one. Upgrades for each of these items is any where from $150 to over $200. Now I find out that Acrobat Professional doesn’t even work with Office 2007. Yikes, every contract and report I send to clients is a Word document turned into a PDF.

Good Grief Microsoft! Did you think this all through? Personally I want to move forward with my technology but not at the expense of crashing my business or having to use two computers to get my work done – one for Vista and one for all things that won’t work on Vista.

So for me, I am going to have to wait until the software manufacturers post on their website yes we are Vista compliant, or here is a patch to upgrade your software, or no you must upgrade to the next version and yes then it will work on Vista. Until that time, I am the XP Pro gal!

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Will a Blog Increase Your Sales

I have had this asked recently and I wanted to post a blog comment about blogging to increase sales.

Most of our clients are blogging for other reasons than to specifically increase sales on their website. Below are the main reasons that our clients are blogging:

  1. Create unique content for viewers
  2. Allow viewers to interact with the website through comments and responses
  3. Set apart their site from competitors by having a blog
  4. Blog for search engine placement -keyword dense posts, regular new content, create authority
  5. To become the voice of their industry

As I look at this list as a business person, won’t all of these things bring new business? You bet they will. Blogging for the above reasons creates credibility, authority, and improves search engine placement as part of an organic SEO program. But can I say that your sales will increase 5 or 10% if you blog. No, I do not have statistical data to prove that. But as a smart business person I know that get more people to your site, have them stay longer, impress them with your smarts and caring, and this does increase your business and gives you more opportunities to make sales.

So will a blog increase your sales. I believe that it is a good business strategy, but can I prove a sales increase factor? Not at this time, but hey that might be a good white paper in the future. Let me know your two cents on this by clicking comments below and let me know what you think.

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New Improved Google Analytics on Its Way

Click the post title to watch the summary video from Google of what the new Google Analytics provides. At first glance it seemed like it was being dumbed down for the average person and no longer a professional tool, but watch the video and then you’ll know that assessment is wrong.

It appears that Analytics has added some easier ways to access your information without having to endlessly drill down to find reports. Analytics has not necessarily been an intuitive tool. Now at least it will focus on being more visual on main control panels.

I think that it is a good change see if you agree!

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Blogs Bring a Website More Traffic

Okay don’t give me grief, the link in our post title is to a PowerPoint show that gives the real site statistics showing that a blog will bring a site between 20 to 35% more traffic and I mean unique visitors not hits. I know that PowerPoint is not browser friendly, but this is a great show that I created for a conference on blogging.

In the presentation are the real world statistics of a number of website that we tracked for a several month period. You’ll see screen shots of their Urchin stats proving the traffic increase. The show contains no viruses or malware. There is no refuting the traffic increases that you can see for yourself! Of note also is a comparison of two sites on the same topic with the same content one that blogged and one that didn’t. The traffic difference between the two is striking.

You can get the free PowerPoint viewer from Microsoft here if you do not have PowerPoint installed.

So if you even thought that blogging was just about yakking and a personal diary, I’m here to tell you that its about the increased traffic results!