anoadmin - Old City Web Services

Students from FSDB Visit & Learn with Old City Web Services

March 12, 2012 by anoadmin Leave a Comment

Being a small town marketing firm is about more than just offering services and assistance to our local business community. We also believe in giving back to the St. Augustine community whenever and wherever possible. Recently, our interactions with our community have been focused on educating students in the area about real world career opportunities in the marketing and design industries.

Last year, we had the opportunity to partner with Pedro Menendez High School to help their digital design students learn more about the real world careers available to them in the design industry. The students designed a campaign to promote their school and invited us to join them in the classroom for a constructive evaluation of their work. We were very impressed with their designs! We also shared some copy writing advice with Menendez Yearbook students who were working on creating captions and body copy for the school's annual book.

After such a wonderful experience with Menendez, we were thrilled when the Florida School for the Deaf & Blind here in St. Augustine asked if some of their students could visit our offices to learn more about marketing. The group of budding young designers, computer experts and marketing strategists joined us in the office on March 9th to learn more about what we do for our clients and how they can start their career path in the industry.

OCWS owner Cecile Nusbaum told the students about her experience and how important it is to keep your mind open to new ideas and opportunities. Marketing coordinator Shannon O'Neil showed the students examples of the branding work OCWS has done for clients like Jack Ward Fire, Little Looster, and the Chicago Bears. Bobby Jones, OCWS Art Director, gave the students an idea of the kind of programs, computers and other technology tools we use to create our work.

After a short presentation, the students were eager to ask questions about internships, teamwork and the reach of Old City Web Services. We provided some additional answers before taking the students on a tour of our offices.

It was a wonderful morning for us, we enjoyed it just as much as the students did. Since the meeting we have kept in touch with the students and their teachers with the hope of furthering our connection in the future.

What do you want your website to do for you?

March 7, 2012 by anoadmin Leave a Comment

If you're using your website to your advantage, it should function on its own like an extra employee for your business. It should convert clients and make sales by sharing information with your customer base, maintaining a professional appearance and providing excellent customer service.

All of that begins with giving your website a purpose.

Instead of having a couple of pages on the web that tell people the name of your business, how long it's been around and what the phone number is, your website should drive people to take action.

Here are four of the main functions a website usually serves (and some websites can fulfill more than one of these functions):

1. Information: If you're a service provider, your website should drive people to learn more about the services you offer by providing them with text and photos that describe what it is that you can do for them. The text should be informative without being boring or verbose. Use bulleted lists, short paragraphs and headlines to keep people from getting turned off by big blocks of text that they won't read.

2. Contact: To make a sale or answer questions, sometimes you want customers to contact you directly. Your website should give them multiple options for doing this including a phone number, email address, contact form and a map to your location. All of these methods of contact should be easy to find so that someone can reach you right away.

3. Sales: If you've got an eCommerce shop or sell tickets, ask for donations or want customers to make any other kind of payment, your website should drive clients to make purchases. In this case it is critical that your website is professional and secure so that your clients can trust that making an online payment is safe.

How can we help?

If your website is not driving people to do one of the above functions, we can come to the rescue!

We can assist you in getting information to your clients through our content writing services, set up contact forms and Google Maps links to make it easier for customers to contact you and we have a secure eCommerce system that allows you to sell your products safely online through a payment gateway.

Call us for more information, pricing or with any questions you have about creating a purpose for your website. Why do more work when your website can do the work for you?

Social Media: What’s New?

February 29, 2012 by anoadmin Leave a Comment

The world of social media is constantly evolving and its important for your business to stay on top of emerging social networks that can help you promote your products and services.

While it seems like there are new social media sites popping up every day, two new websites in particular seem to have captivated the masses as of late: Google + and Pinterest.

What on earth is Google +?

Google + (pronounced Google Plus) is a new social network created by the search engine giant Google. It is similar in many ways to Facebook — users can create profiles, connect to friends, share photos, etc. — but has a few additional features such as video chat and the ability to sort your friends into groups with whom you can share specific links, photos, status updates, etc.

Not even a year old, Google + has gained a lot of media attention and as of the end of 2011 was averaging around 50 million visitors a month. They recently added Business Pages and we highly recommend creating one (Go to http://google.com/+/business to sign up). It’s very similar to a Facebook page, except the Google search tools allow you to find other users with similar interests much easier than Facebook.

You should also add a Google + link to your website (we can do this for you, just give us a call!) so your clients can connect with you on the site. Once you’re signed up, you’ll see lots of “+1” icons on Google search results. You can click them to “+1” a link that you like (it’s just like clicking the “Like” button in Facebook).

As with all the social media sites, the best way to figure them out is just to jump out and start exploring! Make sure you look up the OldCity.com Google + page and follow us!

What the heck is a Pinterest?

Have you ever had a bulletin board where you posted your favorite magazine clippings, photos and other items? Pinterest (pinterest.com) is like a digital version of that bulletin board networked together with the bulletin boards of all your friends and family. You can see what’s on their boards, copy things you like to your boards, and organize them into different categories (food, crafts, sports, humor, etc.).

For a business, Pinterest is an excellent way to promote your products, pictures and website features to other people. But the key to success on Pinterest is having items with visual interest. You can pin items from all over the internet, but it’s the image that shows up on a person’s board. Clicking on the image takes you to the website where it came from, but the image is what grabs users’ attention.

So if you’re posting a recipe, for example, it’s the picture of the food that people will see and click on to get the recipe itself. Therefore you should use an excellent shot of your dish that will entice people to click through for more information.

To join Pinterest you have to request an invitation, which is usually sent out within a few days so that you can access the site and start pinning away! Follow other users to see what they pin to their bulletin boards and encourage them to follow you back!

The Demographics of Google + and Pinterest

Our final note on these two new social networks is this: Know your target market. If you don’t have the time to jump on every popular social network (and really, who does?) pick your network based on which ones your customer base is using the most.

Google + is most popular with males, ages 18 to 35 while Pinterest is most popular with females of the same age group. If your client base is mostly younger males, getting on Google + would be a higher priority than Pinterest and vice versa if your customers are mostly female.

By the same token, if your clients are mostly age 60 and up, social networks might not be the best place to spend your marketing time. Instead, we can help you with print brochures and other advertisements that might work better for your clients.

Twitter 101: The Basics

February 22, 2012 by anoadmin Leave a Comment

We’ve spent a lot of time this month discussing the importance of social media. This week we’re narrowing our focus to talk about one of the web’s most popular social media sites, Twitter. We’ve put together an easy five-step plan to get your business up and running on Twitter.

1. Sign Up

Your first step is the easiest–go to twitter.com and sign up for an account!
Use an email address you check often and select a password that is DIFFERENT from your email password.

2. Choose your Twitter handle

Keep it simple and use your business name where possible.
If it’s too long or already taken, get as close as you can to the business name while avoiding dashes and underscores that can confuse people.

3. Follow people

Following someone isn’t as creepy as it sounds. It just means that those people’s posted updates will appear in your news feed.
You can add family and friends, but also follow other businesses and potential clients in the area.
If someone follows you, it’s customary to follow them back as a courtesy (provided that they’re not a spammer, and you can be sure those do exist on Twitter. No worries though, if you follow someone and get sick of their tweets, you can always unfollow them at any time!).

4. Start tweeting

Tweeting is simple and easy–don’t over-think it. All you have to do is write a sentence, how hard is that?
The key to tweeting is balance–alternate between business related posts about specials, events and other activities going on at your business and some more informal posts. For example, you can comment on the weather, a local event you recently attended, a TV show you like, anything that your customers might connect with.

5. Let people know you’re on Twitter!

Don’t overlook this step! Once you’ve signed up for Twitter, you need to get with us so we can put a Twitter icon and link on your website to let people know that you’ve got a Twitter account so they can follow you.

OCWS: News & Updates [February 2012]

February 15, 2012 by anoadmin Leave a Comment

We are off to a great start in 2012 and have a few exciting announcements and celebrations to hand out this month.

New websites for local authors!

Old City Web Services recently had the great fortune to launch new websites for two of St. Augustine’s great local authors.

In conjunction with the publication of her book “Lodgings of St. Augustine” St. Augustine’s Elsie Carr launched her new website with Old City Web Services in December 2011. The new site offers a sneak peek at her comprehensive guidebook to St. Augustine’s accommodations as well as a chance to read Elsie’s novel, “The Legend of Abigail Rose.” Visitors can take a look at the Featured Lodging of the Month, purchase a paperback copy or purchase eBook versions of the guidebook or novel.

Visit Website: www.lodgingsofstaugustine.com

Karen Harvey, author of nine non-fiction books detailing parts of St. Augustine’s incredible history, also launched a newly re-purposed site from Old City Web Services this month. We helped Karen gain some additional function out of her website by adding a content management system. Now she can easily update her site with reviews and excerpts and information about her tenth book, due out soon!

Visit website: www.ancientcityechoes.com

New advertising available!

We’re just over a month into the new OldCity.com and things are going great! Our overall site statistics continue to show growth in our daily visits and our Where to Stay, What to Do and Calendar pages have joined the Home page of OldCity.com atop the Google rankings. This week we’re debuting our new hit reports for advertising clients that include not only the total number of clicks and unique clicks per ad, but also the total number of views and unique views for each page. These new statistics will help our advertisers see exactly how much exposure their ad is receiving.

Limited space is available for our new advertising options: the special expanded listing and super expanded listing. Reserve your spot now for the busiest times of year and we’ll help you create the ad for free! You can even beef up your super expanded listing with a video. What other site in St. Augustine offers you so many advertising options at competitive rates?

Call or email us if you have questions about advertising on OldCity.com, adding a content management system to your website, or any other web, design or marketing needs!

5 Steps to Facebook Success

February 8, 2012 by anoadmin Leave a Comment

We can’t dedicate a month to discussing social media without talking about the biggest social media site on the web, Facebook. Believe it our not, your business can really benefit from having an active Facebook page. How do you do that? Follow these four simple steps and you’ll find success.

1. Create a Profile.

Facebook currently features two types of profiles–Personal Profiles and Pages. Personal profiles are tailored to individuals while Facebook’s Pages (sometimes known as Fan Pages) are more business oriented. Fan Pages allow you to categorize your business, add your location, links to your website and other information that will help customers find you on Facebook. If you haven’t already created a page on Facebook, it’s easy to do–just follow the step-by-step instructions on the website. And the best part is, it’s free!

2. Make Connections.

Once you’ve added your profile and filled out all the necessary information, you need to start making connections with your customers. The goal of Facebook is to get customers and potential customers to “Like” your page, which will add your updates to the news feed they see each time they log-in to the site. You can encourage your current customers to “like” your page with a link on your website or an email campaign. To attract new customers, make your page visible by commenting or interacting with other pages that have a similar customer base.

3. Post Updates & Information.

You should post a status update or photo on your Facebook page at least once a week, but preferably once a day. It’s all about staying current and getting your page into the news feed that each user sees when he or she logs into Facebook. You want to catch the attention of potentially returning customers or get them to share your information with all of their friends, who may become new customers for you.

4. Monitor your insights.

On the left side of the page you should see a link that says “Insights.” Click on it and you’ll find updated statistics about the activity on your Facebook page. This information is critical to measuring your reach on Facebook. You can see which posts have been most popular, how many people are talking about your page on Facebook and so much more!

5. Advertise!

This is an optional step, but if you feel like your page isn’t getting enough attention on its own, you can advertise it through Facebook. Using Facebook’s incredibly detailed demographics you can specifically target your market with a variety of different types of advertising to boost the reach of your page.

Don’t have time to sign up for Facebook? We can create a page for you and add a link to your website! Give us a call and we can have it set up for you today!

Social Media: What is it and how can it help your business?

February 1, 2012 by anoadmin Leave a Comment

By now you’ve surely heard of social media, but you might not know exactly what it is and what it can do for your business. Used in the right way, social media can drive traffic to your website and physical location, making it a critical key to prospering in today’s economy.

What is social media?

Social media includes all web-based and mobile technologies that are used to turn communication into interactive dialogue on a large scale . This includes Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, Google +, Four Square, Pinterest and many other sites. Each of these sites allow individuals and businesses to communicate with one another, find friends with common interests and share information gathered on the web.

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How can social media help your business?

There are two primary benefits to businesses from social media:

1. Valuable customer feedback.

Getting feedback from your customers (both positive and negative) can help you improve your business and tailor your products/services to meet the needs of your customers. Use social media to engage your customers about what they enjoy most about your products/services, what they would like to see more of, etc.

2. Easy follow-up format.

Following up with clients after a purchase or inquiry is key to getting return business. By using social media sites you can keep your business fresh in the minds of your customers and offer incentives for returning visitors like discounts and daily specials.

Which social media sites are best for business?

Social media sites are constantly adding new features that can change the impact they have on businesses. Facebook seems to be the most popular tool for businesses to interact with the general public, but LinkedIn is the best for business-to-business networking. Twitter is still widely used for quick messages and sharing links, while Four Square rules when it comes to getting people to your physical location. Pinterest and Google + are quickly growing in size and popularity (we’re going to talk more about both of those later in the month in case you’re not familiar with them).

Do you have links to your social media accounts on your website?

If you’re active on social media sites, you need to let your customers know about it! Add links to your website so people can follow, friend or “like” you. Old City Web Services can do this for you, just ask! We’re happy to help.

Mobile websites & Apps: What’s the difference?

January 22, 2012 by anoadmin Leave a Comment

This month we’ve been talking about our new service offering custom mobile application design. But how does that differ from a mobile website? What are the advantages and disadvantages for your business? We’re going to answer some of those questions for you.

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What is a mobile website?

A mobile website is a smaller scaled version of a regular website designed specifically to accommodate the smaller screens of mobile devices. Mobile websites can be accessed through an Internet browser and users can search through the pages just like they would a regular website, but there are a few features such as Flash animation and other interactive tools that are incompatible with some mobile devices.

The advantages of a mobile website over a mobile application are that it can be updated more frequently, is less expensive and reaches a wider audience.

What is a mobile application?

A mobile application is software that is actually downloaded onto your mobile device (iPad, iPhone, Android, Blackberry, etc.). Apps provide special features that might not be available on a mobile website such as picture galleries, contact forms, social media integration, calendars, one-touch calling, etc. They can also give you the ability to send “push notifications” (essentially a text message with a discount code or other promotion) to everyone who has downloaded the app to his or her device.

The advantages of a mobile application over a mobile website are that it can help you target your customers through specific messages, provide additional functionality and it can provide an additional revenue stream if you charge for the app.

Which one is best for your business?

That depends on what kind of business you have, who your customers are and what your budget is.

Your Business: Restaurants, accommodations, doctors/dentists and salons are examples of businesses that could really benefit from a mobile app. Clients can make reservations/schedule appointments, view photos and menus, etc. You can also use the push notifications to send time-sensitive incentives, like a 10% off coupon for patrons who come in within the next 24 hours or reminders like “Have you visited your dentist in the last 6 months? Make an appointment now!”
Your Customers: Mobile devices are becoming more popular among all age groups, but they are still highly concentrated in people aged 25 to 35. If most of your customers are around this age, a mobile app could be beneficial to your business.
Your Budget: Mobile websites are less expensive than mobile apps, but apps give you the ability to make additional money if your customers are willing to pay for the app. You can decide to make your app free or charge for it, but keep in mind that you might make more money by letting people download the app for free and therefore reaching a broader base of clients with your discount incentives.

Conclusion: Make sure your business is mobile.

Whether you decide that a mobile app or mobile website fits better with your business, the key is just to make sure that you’re moving in a mobile direction.

If you’d like more information about mobile apps or mobile websites, give us a call at 904-867-4112 or send us an email at letusmarketyou@oldcity.com and we’ll be glad to go over the details and help you figure out which service is right for your business .

Understanding mobile devices.

January 18, 2012 by anoadmin Leave a Comment

We’ve been throwing that term around a lot lately–mobile device–but what exactly does that mean? What is a mobile device and why is it important for your business to understand what they are and how people use them? We can answer all of those questions for you.

What is a mobile device?

A mobile device is a small handheld computer that can come in many forms. From iPads, Kindles and other touchscreen tablets to cellphones like the iPhone, Android and Blackberry, if you have a handheld device that connects to the internet, you have what the technology world refers to as a mobile device.

Why are mobile devices important?

With the creation of the iPad and the handheld tablet as well as the advances in smart phone technology, mobile devices are becoming incredibly popular tools for searching the internet. More and more, people are searching the internet on these devices instead of traditional desktop or laptop computers.

How do mobile devices affect your business?

Understanding how people use mobile devices to search the internet and what they are looking for can help your business get more traffic (both to your website and to your physical location).

More often than not, mobile device users want to find information quickly and easily. They are looking for your store hours, your phone number, your location or your menu/products/services depending on your business type. In short, they are making a decision about where to go to eat, shop or get help with something. They need to know if you’re available and how they can find you.

With this in mind, you should make sure that your website is mobile friendly or, where necessary, offer a mobile app to your customers to make it easier for them to find what they need when they need it. If a mobile user visits your website and finds it difficult to find what they want, they will quickly move on to something else.

Capture their attention, give them what they’re looking for and you’ll have converted them from a visitor to a customer.

Next week: Mobile websites vs. Apps

Next we’re going to tackle the difference between mobile websites and apps so that you can decide which one would be the better investment for your company.

If you have more questions about mobile devices or any of our other services, don’t hesitate to give us a call at 904-867-4112 or shoot an email to letusmarketyou@oldcity.com.

OldCity.com: A New Era

January 11, 2012 by anoadmin Leave a Comment

As of January 10th, 2012, Old City Web Services has launched the new era of St. Augustine’s most popular web portal. The new OldCity.com is now completed and has been launched in place of the old website. The remodel is complete!

So what does that mean for residents and tourists who visit the site?

We’re still the best source of St. Augustine information on the web!

All of the resources and tools that make OldCity.com Northeast Florida’s most popular web portal are still available on the new site. We’ve reorganized things a little bit just to make the site a tad more user friendly. Now you can easily search through one of our three main categories: Where to Stay, What to Do or The Community. In each section you’ll find details that will help you plan your next vacation to St. Augustine (if you’re visiting us from out of town) or find important community news and updates (if you’re a local). Either way, OldCity.com is here to help you get the most out of St. Augustine!

Directories have been transferred to the new site as well.

One of our most popular tools, our informational directories, have also been moved to the new site including our lists of hotels & motels, restaurants and places of worship in the St. Augustine area. You can find quick links to them below to update your bookmarks:

You’re now able to add events to the OldCity.com calendar.

Our interactive “Submit an Event” tool now allows businesses and community organizations to easily submit upcoming events to our free community calendar. Once our staff looks them over and approves them, they will be added to the website for visitors to see. This is an excellent way to promote local events to thousands of visitors to OldCity.com.

So what does that mean for our advertisers?

Your existing advertising is live on the new website.

All of the advertising that was on the old website has been transferred to the new website, but we’ve made all the banners and expanded listings even bigger to get more attention for your ads. We also have new advertising opportunities available (including video ads), call if you’re interested in more information.

New statistics will be available for advertising.

Your February hit reports will be a big change from what you’ve received in the past–in a very good way. Not only will you see the number of clicks on each of your advertisements, you will also see the number of times the page your ad appears on was viewed. Customers with Listings will also be able to see the number of clicks and views their basic listings received on the site.

Some pages were redirected to increase advertising views.

We studied our statistics for OldCity.com meticulously in the process of developing this new website and noticed that many of the sub-pagesweren’t getting a lot of traffic. As a result, some sub-pages under a few of our categories have been redirected to the main category page in order to keep traffic more concentrated on the main category pages.

For example, the sub-pages for each business type under Area Businesses have been removed but all the listings that were on those pages are now categorized on the main Area Businesses page for easier use.

Our search engine rankings will be closely monitored.

Our SEO Specialist has gone through the website with a fine-tooth comb to make sure that our keywords and descriptions are transferred over to the new site. We have covered all of our bases and will closely monitor the stats after launch.

We hope you enjoy the new site and would love to hear your feedback through ourFacebook or Twitter pages. It’s been a long journey to reach this point in the process and we’re so excited to bring a new site with new features to all of our supportive fans, visitors and advertisers.

– OldCity.com