Who thought this was a good idea?

Clear, blue, and white are the expected colors for packaging water. Maybe a green.
But yellow? Even with the JDF tie-in, yellow is just not the right color for water packaging!

Phoenix Joomla Web Design - Horror Stories

A week or so ago we were digging through some old files and came across a real Joomla Designer horror story.
We had to sign a non-compete with the agency that hired us to fix this site so we couldn't tell anyone about our involvement until now.  (As far as we can tell, the original designer and the agency are no longer in town)
The site was for Surgical Specialty Hospital of Arizona. 
The agency was nearing the launch deadline and said the site was "too sluggish."  We were horrified to discover that the home page took 45 seconds to load!  Most people abandon a page that takes more than 6 seconds, and that number has probably fallen even more now that we're all on broadband.
There were other problems, too: 

• The biggest challenge was the physician listings.  The lists were set up as simple documents that would have to be maintained by hand.  Since there were multiple lists, getting one out of sync was inevitable. 
• The hospital had a number of videos to include - but the Joomla designer didn't know how to get them to play.
• The agency had promised something "snazzy" to show off what doctors fell into what specialties. 
  

When we got there, the site was definitely in critical condition.  But we were able to clean up all the problems and get the site launched on schedule.
It was a similar story for Pilotshares, a company that provides shared ownership of high end aircraft to companies and pilots.
Their Joomla designer had set up an extremely convoluted site architecture.  There were dozens of duplicated pages.  And it was so mixed up, he couldn't get the built-in Joomla menu system to work - so he created a new one outside of Joomla. 
That eliminated any chance for the site owners to make any changes to the site - which is the purpose of using Joomla in the first place.
We got that site flying as well.
The point is: not everyone who claims they are a Joomla web design expert, really is.
After all that, should we claim that we are Joomla web design experts?  Well, we have built dozens of Joomla sites.  We have been working with Joomla since the day it was released (actually we worked with it's predecessor, Mambo, first).  We have become known as the go-to company for a number of agencies when they run up against tough Joomla problems. 
OK, we'll say it.  If you want a Joomla site done right, the first time, call us.  We're Phoenix Joomla Web Design Experts.
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Known for our humility and shyness, McColley Marketing Media is a Mesa web design company specializing in small business web site design, local internet marketing for small business and Phoenix Joomla web design.  We also help local companies as a small business email marketing consultant.  Call us at 480-704-4286.

The Rapture of the Deep - now at Tires3.com

The deeper a scuba diver goes into the water, the more they risk getting the "Rapture of the Deep."  They start feeling really good.  Elated. Euphoric. High. 
Its a potentially deadly feeling when they're 100 feet down.
It's also known as Nitrogen Narcosis.  The pressure of being that deep forces nitrogen into the blood stream and causes oxygen starvation.
Here at the surface, nitrogen isn't dangerous despite making up 80% of the air we breathe.  Oxygen molecules are smaller than nitrogen molecules so they just naturally pass through the lungs and into the blood where they do so much good.
The same thing is happening in your tires - but it's not so good.
Oxygen in compressed air is actually oozing through the pores in the rubber of your tires.  That's why your tires tend to lose pressure.
Filling your tires with nitrogen instead of normal air will keep them pressurized longer, and that can save you a bundle of money.
Web Design Fun: A Nitrogen Calculator
This month, the Tires Tires Tires website is promoting using Nitrogen in your tires.  McColley Marketing Media got to look at all the studies on using nitrogen in your tires and build a calculator to show the benefits. 
Go give it a try at www.tires3.com.  Enter in the price you paid for your last tires, how many miles you drive a year, the price you're paying for gas, and your vehicle's miles per gallon.
Using the numbers from a half dozen studies, the calculator shows you how much you'll save on gas by keeping your tires properly inflated and how much you'll save by reducing the wear on your tires caused by underinflation.
And since Tires Tires Tires is giving away FREE nitrogen fills, it's a pretty simple decision to make - especially while gas prices are out of this world.
BONUS!
Keloland TV,  the local news powerhouse, just featured Tires Tires Tires Nitrogen Campaign!
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Need a special way to explain your company's benefits to customers?  McColley Marketing Media can help.  We've been creating compelling advertising content since before the internet was born.  McColley Marketing Media is a Mesa web design company specializing in small business web site design, local internet marketing for small business and Phoenix Joomla web design.  We also help local companies as a small business email marketing consultant.  Call us at 480-704-4286.

Local Internet Marketing for Small Business - watch out for the "experts"

Maybe I’m old school, but this seems wrong to me. 

I've been seeing more and more of these "experts" popping up and getting hired by local businesses who don't know better.

You’re a business owner and you need to market your business. You’ve got a local store and you want to get some new business.

So you hire a local “internet marketing expert.”

But this “expert” doesn’t work on driving business to your store – instead he opens a new store and brings in a crowd who buy your things at his new store.

You’re selling more stuff.  So you should be happy, right?

There is a group of "experts" who are doing this right now.

They og to small businesses - some don't even have websites - and promise them new business.  Instead of opening a new store, they put up a special one page website on their own servers. 

Here’s where things get “kinda funny.”

By opening that new "store," this “local internet marketing expert” has taken control of your business.  He’s no longer marketing your business, he’s selling your product. And there's an important difference.   If you stop paying his bill, he simply shuts down the store and your sales fall over the cliff.

In my old school advertising days, advertising built your business.  Sure, if you stopped buying the ads in the newspaper or on the radio or TV, your sales would drop.  But your business had benefited because of the awareness of your store that those ads built.

Your advertising was building your business.

In my mind, this is exactly what local internet marketing should do.  It should drive traffic to your website and your business, not his.  

But he promised instant results!

It’s easy to win a race when there are no other competitors

Open another tab on your browser, go to Google and search for this text “more competition, tightened purse strings, and a media world turned upside down”.  Look who’s number one. Works in Yahoo and Bing, too.  There is no competition for that phrase and I can guarantee that there is nobody looking for it on the search engines. It's a race with no competitors - and no prize, either.

Gray and Black Hats and Spam.

Black Hat and Gray Hat are search engine optimization industry terms for methods that work (for now) but are against the rules.  Getting caught can mean having your site removed from the search engines.  That’s a devastating event – just ask the British version of JCPenneys.com who got caught not too long ago.

You know what spam is – it’s filling up the internet just like it does your email.

I’ve looked at how some of these “experts” are getting results and I’ve found “spam” on foreign language forums and blogs and inane comments on blogs that aren’t policing their comments.  I even found a commercial message for a local business on a website devoted to parents with kids who have cancer!  Does this "build your business" or just sell stuff?

This is exactly what Google and Bing don’t want.  And they keep working to stop it, updating their algorithm a couple of times a year.  Just like delisting, eliminating the value of spam could devastate your business if this is how its getting ranked..

Finding valuable keywords and getting ranked for them doesn’t happen overnight.

You need to make sure the “expert” you hire isn’t going to do more harm than good.  Got a question, call us.

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Lynn McColley wears a white hat for all of his local internet marketing work.  If you would like to discuss building your business for the long term, give him a call at McColley Marketing Media.  Small Business Web Site Design – Local Internet Marketing for Small Business and D-I-Y Email Marketing.  Call 480-704-4286.

Arizona Investment Property Website and Direct Mail

I’d like to introduce the Arizona Investment Properties website by Road Runner Real Estate Enterprises.

Carmen and Guillermo Perez Vargas have a great idea: Worry-Free Arizona Investment Property.  The real estate implosion hit Phoenix very hard and houses that sold for $250,000 are now selling for $70k.

So here’s their program in a nutshell.

• Carmen and Guillermo are identifying great houses for investors.  Their target price is around $70k – that’s your investment.
• 
  
• You buy the house and the title is yours.
• 
  
• Guillermo immediately signs a 5 year lease with you.  He pays you 8% of the purchase price each year, in monthly installments.  During the 5 years, he handles keeping the place rented, paying taxes, upkeep, everything.  You get a monthly payment of about $470 for 5 years.
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• At the end of 5 years, you sell the property and split the profit.  Guillermo expects your total return on investment will be about 110% - that’s after splitting the profit.
  

Not bad!

Guillermo came to us with a mostly finished website.  But what he really wanted was a sales letter he could mail to potential investors.

For the letter, McColley Marketing Media:

• Wrote a killer 2-page letter (the home page of the site is based on the letter)
• Found a list of high income Canadians in the Vancouver area. 
  
• Printed 1000 copies and hand addressed all the mail for higher opening rates.
  

We remodeled the website, making it wider and fresher looking.  We created more great content including an easy to update format for the properties pages based on a spreadsheet Guillermo was using to figure all the details on each property. 

We also hid some of the details from visitors so we could ask for their email address in exchange.

Our tongue is nearly back to normal after licking all those envelopes and sticking all those stamps.  The second batch of 500 letters is just hitting Vancouver today and tomorrow.  So far, the indicators are great: the average visitor is spending 18 minutes and looking at 13 pages – that’s incredible! 

We’re also getting about a 3% response rate on the mailer – very good for such a big ticket product (average direct mail response is about 1%).

If you would like to pump up your marketing so you can buy a couple of homes through Carmen and Guillermo, call McColley Marketing Media.  We do small business web site design, email marketing blasts, and Local Internet Marketing for SmallBusiness.   Call Lynn at 480-258-4135.