Design To The Finish Line

LinkedIn is the world’s largest business-oriented social networking site with over 80 million members. LinkedIn is really a huge database of uber-professionals who like to exchange knowledge, ideas, and opportunities with a broader network of uber-professionals. Networking on LinkedIn works well because of the fact that it offers the opportunity to connect with experienced professionals from around the world representing 130 industries.

In the following video, Sean Nelson of SONARconnects gives 5 solid ways you should be using LinkedIn to grow your business -

Sean offers 5 ways to thrive on LinkedIn -

1. You have to have a purpose for being on LinkedIn and define it.
2. Make sure to create an optimized profile.
3. Expand your LinkedIn reach through groups.
4. Build credibility by answering questions.
5. Communicate your message.

If you are not getting the results from your social media efforts to grow your business, or you are not sure if LinkedIn is right for your business, we can help. Call us at 707-578-1390 today and we can help you determine how effective social media can be for your business.

Our continued success to you,

About Forward Motion Studios -
Forward Motion Studios™ is a Santa Rosa Web Design company that builds, hosts and supports custom websites for businesses. This includes simple, brochure-like web pages to highly complex, software and database-driven eCommerce websites with B2B shopping carts. You can catch their Tweets at twitter/forwardmotion and connect with them on Facebook at facebook.com/forwardmotionstudios.

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This video features John – a designer at Google and Matt – a co-founder of Feedburner discussing the importance of user experience online.  Sometimes clients forget about how important their client experience is to their website design.

They cover the following tips that any business owner can use when working with a designer on their website -

1.  Make your website work quickly
Focus on latency. Users should get immediate feedback if they do something. Mozilla optimized their download page by 2.2 seconds and saw their download conversions improved by 15.4%. Speed is important to Google. www.webpagetest.org offers free web page testing. It’s OK that part of the aesthetic does not load quickly, as long as the content loads quickly. Visitors don’t care about how hard it is for your website to work, they just care that it works fast.

2.  Make your users fast too
Provide shortcuts – small things add up over time and make the experience frustrating for your users. Focus on the first field in any sign up form. Saves 1/2 a second, saves a click.

3.  Be Yourself
Make sure engaging with you on your website is fun for the visitors. Don’t have to be all corporate about it.

4.  Engage in conversations with your visitors
They see you as being on their side and are more likely to forgive you if something goes wrong. Listen to what people are saying about your product/company/brand. Monitor blogs, Facebook, Twitter, etc. to see what people are saying about you. When you respond, do it with honesty and humility.

5.  Surprise your visitors
Use “schwag” wisely. It’s a great way to build your brand. Provide your own support: It’s a good way to see what’s going wrong and to fix it immediately.

6.  Be willing to give up control
Listen to what your visitors want and share free advice, white papers, learning tools.

7.  Be polite
Be friendly to visitors, try to understand how your website might annoy visitors.

8.  Be reliable
This brings the talk full circle. Speed and reliability are both critical. Stakes are higher for certain websites (banking) and an unreliable site can affect your brand.
Commit as a team to making your service as reliable as possible.

If you are not getting the results from your website, or you are not sure your website is providing the right experience for your visitors, we can help. Call us at 707-578-1390 today and we can help you determine how effective your website is to your visitors, and your business.

Our continued success to you,

About Forward Motion Studios -
Forward Motion Studios™ is a Santa Rosa Web Design company that builds, hosts and supports custom websites for businesses. This includes simple, brochure-like web pages to highly complex, software and database-driven eCommerce websites with B2B shopping carts. You can catch their Tweets at twitter/forwardmotion and connect with them on Facebook at facebook.com/forwardmotionstudios.

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• 10 Ways To Drive Traffic To Your Website
• How To Recognize Crappy Web Content
• How To Write Website Content: Know Your Target Market

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In this video, Virgin CEO Richard Branson talks with Seth Godin about the importance of a good PR person to make sure people know about your business. OPENForum.com is an American Express community designed to help you grow your business.

Branson is passionate about the customer experience which drives marketing. He’s been known to randomly call certain customers to inquire about their experience on his airline. He believes businesses should have a “Fearlessness of engaging with people,” and “We like to listen to our customers, because it’s an opportunity to be creative.”

Your marketing engagement is one of the most important marketing tools for your business and creates a powerful first impression.

If you are not getting the results from your online marketing, or you are not sure your website is delivering the right message to your prospects, we can help. Call us at 707-578-1390 today and we can help you with your online marketing efforts and help you determine how effective your online marketing is to your overall business message.

Our continued success to you,

About Forward Motion Studios -
Forward Motion Studios™ is a Santa Rosa Web Design company that builds, hosts and supports custom websites for businesses. This includes simple, brochure-like web pages to highly complex, software and database-driven eCommerce websites with B2B shopping carts. You can catch their Tweets at twitter/forwardmotion and connect with them on Facebook at facebook.com/forwardmotionstudios.