Internet and Web Services

Other Websites and Content Management Systems (CMS)

If you’re looking for a website system—one that offers open-source and/or third-party “plug-ins” to add additional functionality quickly—we can setup and configure systems such as DotNetNuke (DNN), Joomla, WordPress, and others for you. We can also find a web hosting company that supports such systems.

Domain Name Search, Registration and Hosting Setup

We can help you find the most marketable and memorable domain name for your business. We can also register the domain in your name, setup any web hosting or FTP accounts you need and teach you how to manage your site.

The hosting company that we use here at CriticalBiz is a company we’ve been using for over 10 years. They’re fantastic and affordable!

Website Content Development/Management

Content is still king on the web. And we write content to be both informative and search engine friendly—the more relevant content you have, the better your site will rank in the search engines. We’re sticklers when it comes to spelling and grammar too, so you can be sure that any content we write for your website or blog will be professional.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising/Management

If you’re after website traffic, PPC advertising is a great way to go—especially if your target is in a niche market.

If you aren’t familiar with PPC advertising, the ads are those that typically appear alongside search results on popular search engines such as Google, MSN and Yahoo. With PPC advertising, you have precise control over how much you spend, where your money is spent and how much traffic you want to receive.

We can help by auditing your existing PPC campaigns and offering suggestions on how you might improve them, managing all aspects of your existing campaigns, or by setting up and managing new PPC campaigns from scratch. Successful PPC advertising requires a bit of competitive keyword and phrase research which we sometimes use third-party tools to perform.

Banner Ad Design and Placement

With over 20 years of online marketing experience, as well as design expertise, we can create just about any size banner ad you need. We can also handle the research it requires to find the best websites to target your market, negotiations with the publisher, the placement of your ads, and the tracking of your return on investment (ROI).

Email Marketing and List Acquisition

Whether your goal is new customer acquisition or current customer retention through email communications, we have the email marketing experience you need.

With full understanding of how email marketing works—from ensuring federal CAN SPAM compliance to how different email clients render the email itself—you can rest assured that your campaigns will be executed professionally. We can also set you up with a DIY email system, or rent highly-targeted lists through one or more of our trusted third-party list brokers.

Landing Pages with Data Collection and Reporting

When you do any kind of web advertising—be it banner ads, PPC or email marketing—your messages should always point respondents to a dedicated landing page. Always. With dedicated landing pages, you can ensure that you are (a.) expanding on the brief message that your ad presented to the prospect, (b.) tracking which ads performed and how, and (c.) collecting and reporting on any leads that the advertisements generate.

We’re pros at developing effective landing pages that complement the look and feel of the ad campaign itself, and collecting and reporting on only the important data you need.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Submission

When you perform a search on Google or any other search engine, the results are typically returned in order of relevancy—the most relevant sites show up first. These search engines use very complex and oftentimes secret algorithms to rank websites.

There are companies that specialize in SEO and “guarantee” top positioning. We can’t offer this guarantee. What we can do, however, is ensure that your site and its content—which is the most important part of SEO—is relevant to the messages that you want to communicate to your customers.

We also employ several sophisticated third-party tools with detailed reporting capabilities to help with all of this, including submitting your website to thousands of search engines and tracking rank progress.

Social Networking

You’ve probably heard all of the buzz about social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, etc. And there have been a lot of case studies on how businesses are using these tools to acquire new customers or increase existing customer loyalty.

The common misconception, however, is that the more people you have “following” you, the better you are at social networking. This is completely untrue because, in most cases, you only want to connect with people who you know you can eventually profit from one way or another.

Networking is the key word here… and we’re pretty good at it. We can build your pages on the various social networking websites and manage the entire process with consistent updates that will be useful to your followers as we continually search for more and more relevant connections.

Blog Setup and Management

Blogs started out as the equivalent to a kid’s diary; only the diary was made public. Today, blogs are used by just about everyone, including businesses. A blog tied to a business website should be used to inform people about things relevant to the market that business serves. Blogs are also an excellent tool when it comes to SEO.

We can set you up with a blog of your own or manage the entire process, including consistent blog posts with a little input from you, of course.

Internet Research and Reporting

Whatever the topic, we’re experts at finding stuff on the Internet, including data beyond the traditional web (i.e.: USENET groups, etc.). We can find out what people are saying about your business or its products and services, what your competitors are up to, locate various lists and other data, and more. We’ll research your topic, collect and mine through our findings, and report back to you in whatever format you need—a written report, spreadsheet, etc.

Online Focus Groups and Surveys

If you’re looking to find out how the marketplace will respond to your product, service or idea, we can work with one of our trusted third-party online focus group vendors to find out for you. There are usually small incentives tied to this research, which we can help you figure out as well. If you just need a simple survey with data collection set up on your own website, we can help with that too.