In November, WSI PRO Marketing launched a new website for the Grill and Fireplace shop at West Sport in Sudbury, MA. Their new online solution is developed on WSI e-fusion platform. West Sport sells fireplace inserts, wood burning stoves, pellet stoves and grills throughout the Massachusetts MetroWest region.

Owner, Larry Shewan, has been selling grill and hearth products in Sudbury since 1975. He prides himself as a one-stop-shop, installing and servicing everything that they sell. You can browse any number of stoves, inserts, accessories and grills in their newly remodeled showroom. They pride themselves on their product knowledge, product lines and their high level of customer service. Stop by and see why Larry and West Sport have been in business for over 35 years.

It’s mid-December and that time of year when we all tend to reserve moments for soulful reflection. The calendar year 2010 was a banner year for WSI Pro Marketing on many fronts.  We will take a moment here to share the celebration via this blog post as a heartfelt thanks to all of you who helped make it happen.

We celebrate our colleagues throughout the global WSI network, their success, and the selfless nature in which information and insight was shared.  The WSI network truly enabled us to realize technical and strategic efficiencies that directly translated to steadily increased service value and client return on investment.    Thank You WSI colleagues. We truly value our relationship with you.

We celebrate our clients, each one of you.  We are humbled to report that this year, a record year for business development, was  100% sourced from your continued trust and direct referrals.  We are humbled by your referrals to family, friends, and associate business owners.  You put your name on the line for us and we appreciate that. We are humbled by those clients who span multiple industries and trust us to market their multiple enterprises.    Thank you WSI Pro Marketing clients for allowing us to serve as welcome members of your team.  

We celebrate our staff.  Simply stated, you make the business work.  It is your insight, skill, dedication, and attention to detail that sets your firm apart from the competition.    We value our relationship with each of you immensely.

Finally, and most importantly, we celebrate our families.  Throughout this year (and all previous years) you provided unwavering patience and support.  We sleep well knowing that you will selflessly sustain the same going forward. We can’t love and thank you enough.

WSI Pro Marketing colleagues, clients, staff and family…..our recipe for profound professional reward!

Many of our clients have asked us to provide bullets on what to expect when a project commences.  There will be a flurry of activity in the early parts of the project – too many to mention here – but the major items include the following:

• Obtain FTP access to the old site
• Scrape content from the old site for use on the new one
• Create a Google account and install analytics on the old site to establish a baseline evaluation of current activity
• Create client spreadsheet in Google to capture/share internet marketing activities
  • Provides you 24/7 real-time status updates—and this IN ADDITION to 24/7 Email/Phone contact readiness
• Perform keyword research to begin SEO work
• SIMULTANEOUSLY we will be going through the following phases of the site build:
  • Phase 1:  Concept Draft.  We create the look of your new site; we will work with you to get the exact look/style/color you want
  • Phase 2:  Function Design.  Skin the concept draft onto our powerful WSI eFusion website platform.
  • Phase 3:  Site build-out.  Using the best of your current content and any new content you desire, we will build out the pages on your site.
  • Phase 4:  Internet Marketing.  Simultaneous with site build-out, we work CLOSELY with you and your staff to perfect a SEO strategy based on YOUR business goals and objectives.
  • Phase 5:  Launch.  Once all work has been done, we will launch the new site and EXECUTE a multitude of proven SEO techniques customized for and driven by your Internet Marketing Strategy
  • Phase 6:  Measure and manage.  this is where you truly benefit by teaming with a professional marketing staff.  We continually analyze, measure, and strategize in partnership with you.  We modify both the site and the marketing strategy to maximize your web-generated leads.

This is just a high-level overview of the process.  We will be in steady and reliable contact with our clients as we guide them through every phase and throughout the life of our internet marketing partnership.

“Fun” and “run” have never belonged in the same sentence, as far as I’m concerned.  I just shake my head when I see a “Fun Run” advertised.  For me, running is daunting and that first mile can be brutal. But runners will tell you that if you gut it out and focus on technique, you will overcome the initial pain and find that it is actually replaced by pleasure.  I find this analogous to Social Media Marketing.  You may have attended a seminar in which you were told that you are missing out on a significant opportunity if you don’t jump on the Social Media bandwagon today.  But that first mile is overwhelming.  Where do I start?  What should I focus my time on?  How does all this socializing turn into business? Over 98% of every blog that’s been started has been abandoned for this very reason.  Facebook and Twitter pages suffer the same fate. Business owners need a social media running partner and that’s where WSI comes in.

Taking advantage of social media to maximize business results doesn’t necessarily mean you have to spend all day Tweeting or catching up on Facebook.  In fact, we find that 95% of our clients do not have the time to blog on a regular basis, much less spend time on Twitter or LinkedIn.  Over the last 2 years, we have developed a social media formula that places the onus on WSI, the social media experts, to do the heavy lifting while the business owner addresses social media from the 10,000-foot level.  One way we do this is through Social Media Optimization (SMO). SMO involves using a network of social bookmarking and social news portals like Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon, and others to post content and links about the business in an effort to drive people and search engines back to the business website.  We also use blogging to turn the company website into an information resource through a strategy we call Content Marketing. At least weekly, we write and post articles on the site blog and then immediately syndicate the content to approximately 100,000 potential visitors. Search engines pick up and index this information very quickly make it possible to be found in regular searches, driving in even more traffic.

The results have been staggering.  Many of our clients enjoy a dramatic lift in traffic to their sites.  Additionally, they see a linear increase in leads and sales from the site.  By gutting out the first mile of a consistent and calculated social media plan, businesses are able to outpace their competitors and enjoy the rewards of competing in the social media race.  With WSI as their running partner, it just might be a “Fun Run” after all.

One of the things we've learned about blogging, syndicating blog posts, and WSI eFusion in general is that having punctuation in URLs other than dashes and underscores is generally a bad idea.  Where does the punctuation come from?  The blog Title is the culprit. In blogging platforms like WordPress, URLs are automatically stripped of punctuation but in eFusion, the punctuation has to be edited out.  Fortunately, this is very easy to do in eFusion as you'll see in the video below:

Our long-time friends, Tidewater Custom Modular Homes of Carrollton Virginia, has just received an Internet facelift and a social media shot in the arm.  Last week WSI Pro Marketing relaunched http://tcmodularhomes.com on the WSI eFusion web business platform. The timing for new site couldn't have been better.

In the highly competitive Internet landscape, most businesses need a refreshed look and feel after about 2 years, along with a complete reassessment of how well business objectives are being met.  WSI launched TC Modular Homes' former site 2 years ago with its Business Edge platform, and while it performed extremely well, it was time to make some fundamental changes in conversion architecture and flow.  In essence, a redesign was necessary to make all the required changes.

Since eFusion is our preferred platform because of its power, marketing, and ease of use, it was a no-brainer upgrading our Modular Homes VA client to this technology.  In addition to a new look and feel, we implemented the following:

• Vastly improved Conversion Architecture
• Refreshed search engine optimization
• Enhanced lead marketing capabilities
• New blogging and social media optimization services
• Even the web analytics tracking code was updated with Google's new asynchronous script for an even clearer picture of web interaction

The client could be happier.  "I love it!" exclaimed TC Modular Homes VP Tammy Glover during the initial site review.  The changes have made an immediate impact.  Site traffic has already spiked and the Web leads have followed suit.

WSI Pro Marketing wishes our friends at TC Modular Homes continued success.

Imagine having access to a collaborative portal where everyone on your team, no matter where in the world they are, has access to the content, images, documents, ideas, notes and conversations each team member has on a particular subject.  That subject could be a project, a book, a brainstorming session, or even art.  How much would you be willing to pay for something like that?  What if I told you it was FREE?? 

Over the last 6 months or so, Google has been Alpha testing -- they couldn't even call it a Beta test -- Google Wave.  This tool is just to cool not to check out.  Up until now, you had to have a special invite from either Google or another Google Wave member to participate.  Well, no more.  Google recently upgraded Wave to Google Labs status and now anyone can join. 

Read more here:  http://googlewave.blogspot.com/2010/05/google-wave-available-for-everyone.html.

WSI Pro Marketing is pleased to announce the launch of Cabinet Refinishing by Kenneth C Lewis brand new site.  The internet marketing solution was developed on the WSI efusion platform.  KCL offers top line, elite cabinet refinishing and kitchen remodeling.

Cabinet Refinishing by Kenneth C Lewis - MA, RI - We love what we do and take tremendous pride in making the kitchens our customers dream about come to life.  We focus on every detail and no detail is too small.  Our cabinet refinishing has been described by many as the best they have ever seen.  Our two part lacquer is the best commercial grade lacquer on the market.  Every step of our entire process is driven to perfection.  Ken Lewis, the owner, is personally involved in all phases of every project.  Our crew follows the same values Ken founded the business on. If you want the highest customer service and customer satisfaction levels, contact us today.  We are eager to turn your vision into reality.