After much debate here at Cavendo we decided this would be the easiest way to organize a simple list of local Twitter users. We finally settled on a simple post here on our blog and everyone can leave a comment with their information.

If you live, work, or play in these areas we want to know who you are:

• Manassas/Manassas Park
• Bristow/Gainesville/Haymarket
• Woodbridge/Dale City/Triangle
• Prince William County (if we missed you above) and surrounding areas

This is a simple public list for everyone’s benefit.

How could this help? Network with local Twitter users. Organize local tweet-ups. Meet cool people.

It’s simple. Just list your name, your Twitter username, and a short bio about yourself. I’ll get it started:

I’m Jonathan Arehart, President & CEO of Cavendo. I’m on twitter as @jarehart. I produce things on the Internet.

Keep Reading

I was inspired by a post Seth Godin made this morning about being boring. And taking from his theme, your web site probably sucks, too.

Your web site sucks because it’s boring. It doesn’t do anything. It’s nothing more than an online version of your boring brochure.

Would you really expect someone to convert into a sale on your boring web site? Think about it. Imagine you’re a prospect. Now look at your web site. Why would you buy anything from your company?

The problem is, there are no easy solutions. You can’t just flip a switch and be un-boring. It takes a massive amount of effort and dedication to produce an exciting, conversion-crazy web presence.

But, the first step is to realize that your web site probably sucks. What are you going to do about it?

The toughest thing small businesses run into when building a presence on the web is getting traffic. The web site is up there, but no one’s going to it.

One surefire way to get immediate action on a web site is PPC advertising. The downfall, obviously, is that the cost per action associated with that advertising can be overwhelming. Another problem is that most small businesses just don’t get PPC.

The best investment of time comes from building organic traffic. Organic traffic is visits generated from the regular listings within a search engine. You pay nothing for it and it gives you a huge boost in credibility. That’s one thing PPC can’t buy — credibility.

The first step in building organic traffic is to add valuable, keyword-rich content to your web site. This can be in the form of blog posts, articles, tips, guides, tutorials, and so forth. The second step is to keep growing that content. The third step is to evaluate and analyze whether or not you’re making any headway in search engines.

Start today and keep doing it. It takes many small actions to generate big results.

Web sites have been around for over 15 years. And in those 15 years, not much has changed. A web site still presents a general set of features that are pretty standardized across all web sites. You visit the homepage to get a quick snapshot of an organization, maybe read some text on a service or offering, read more into the organization’s background, and maybe fill out a form or buy a product.

With the rapid evolution of technology during the so-called Information Age, one would expect web sites to have advanced significantly.

That isn’t the case. So what can you do about it?

Keep Reading

Critical to any successful marketing campaign is a way to measure results. You must know whether your actions are paying off or if they’re headed down the wrong path. Without this knowledge, you’re flying blind.

Fortunately, there are a handful of ways to measure the impact a Facebook presence is having on your organization.

1) Page Statistics

If you setup a page for your company or product, then you open yourself up to a wealth of data. Dubbed "insights," Facebook enables you to view critical visitor statistics of your page. You can see everything from the number of new fans to unique visitors to a breakdown of demographic information.

From a marketing standpoint, this information is extremely valuable. Not only can you track the effectiveness of your page, you can also get detailed information on what type of people those visitors are.

Keep Reading

In my previous post last week, I talked about using Facebook as a research tool for small businesses. Now I’m going to shift the discussion to implementation.

Facebook is a great way to find a wealth of information, but you want to take action on it. Fortunately, Facebook provides the means and tools needed to build a profile for your organization. Below I offer three ways you can start.

Keep Reading

If you thought it was hard trying to convince people to get on LinkedIn, then Facebook must be an impossibility. Well, that may be partially true.

The fact is many businesses are jumping on the Facebook bandwagon. I’m not talking about huge Fortune 500 companies — I’m talking about small businesses.

The problem is, however, that most of these businesses have no idea what to do with Facebook. I would venture to guess that they’re only on it for the ride. Everyone else is doing it, right?

So, this brings me to ask the question: In terms of business, what is Facebook good for? What uses and applications does it have for small business? How can it benefit small business?

Keep Reading

Small businesses have a particularly difficult time in determining exactly how their web site should be built. Central to this issue is how to make the site user-friendly. Most small businesses concentrate their web design efforts on just getting something up there. Unfortunately, this often leads to a confusing web presence that users have a hard time understanding and navigating.

Just "getting something up there" is the wrong approach. You have to think like the visitors who will be using your site and design for their needs.

So, how can you make your web site stronger by keeping user-friendliness and usability in mind?

Keep Reading

As I promised in my last post, I deliver to you a blog success. The extent of this post really goes beyond blogging. It encompasses any sort of content you publish online whether it’s an article, a web page, an e-book and so on.

That’s because this post is about getting traffic. And fast.

That’s one of the primary goals of why we publish content. We want people. Eyeballs to read, digest and interpret our content.

However, for most of us, getting hordes of people into the door is no easy task. Usually, it takes months of maintaining a steady flow of useful content, working connections and responding to reader comments. It’s hard work but it pays off.

But seriously, I want traffic now. I want people reading this post right now.

Keep Reading

People are not too keen on admitting failure. We want to see things succeed and prosper, and we want to know that it was our contributions that led to that success. Nevertheless, failure is an essential exercise. To not fail is to not have accomplished anything.

With that said, I will admit that this blog failed.

I hope that got your attention, so let me clarify. The blog as a whole did not fail, but a critical element did. It’s not necessarily bad that it failed as I learned some important lessons that I’m going to share.

So, what failed? In January, I introduced a new weekly series aimed at homepage improvement. In the initial post, I laid out a plan for the series and announced that it would occur every week.

That didn’t happen.

Keep Reading