So, what is “The Cloud” exactly?

The Cloud is internet based applications, data, file storage… which are stored and served from a distributed internet environment, as opposed to a local environment, like on a personal computer. That’s my one sentence definition.

Check out the video of my interview. Keep in mind this was my first time on TV and it was live. So… I was a bit nervous.

1. Mail – Google Mail offers pro users 25GB of email space. That is a whole lot of email to keep, for those smart people who don’t delete their email. Seriously, Google Mail is instantly searchable, easily accessible and they have recently introduced many features such as, nested labels (folders), read receipts, smart sorting (Priority Inbox). Mail also boasts great integration with Text/Video/Voice Chat, Contacts, Calendars and Documents. And, if you can get past your perceived need for a desktop email solution, you can enjoy a clean and simple browser only interface.
2. Calendar – Google Calendar has become the standard. It is almost unimaginable that someone wouldn’t use Google Calendar on some level. The ease of creating events, sharing events, inviting others to events, creating calendars, sharing calendars, inviting others to manage calendars, synchronizing events/calendars with devices… do I need to go on? Google has outdone themselves with how robust and easy their calendar tool is. Now, integrate that with all the business tools that Google Apps has and bam! You’ve got a pretty powerful cloud calendar solution.
3. Docs – Google Docs has instant collaboration functionality. I don’t use desktop word processing, spreadsheets or presentations anymore. I am 100% in the cloud, and I love it! For most people that I talk to, that is appalling, and the majority of those appalled have no legitimate reason why it is so appalling, can I say appalling one more time? The only thing I can get from them is that they just don’t understand it. Most have been brainwashed by Microsoft Office for so many years, that they believe it is the only way. Even when switching to Mac, they bring Microsoft Office along for the ride. Now that’s appalling! Okay, so imagine this, you create a word document outlining the details of a project you are working on, or for an event that you are planning. Then, instead of emailing that document to someone to review or to add to, you share it with them. You can choose whether they can edit, view only or comment only. So you chose comment only. Now that person gets an email about 5 minutes later and begins to view the document, while inserting comments about specific details that you were unaware of. You are seeing these comments in real time and are making changes to the document and resolving the comments along the way. The document is complete and you never had to send an email with an attachment. Now you can view only share with several people who need to be aware of the documents details, but don’t necessarily need to make any changes or add any input. Boom! That’s collaboration in the cloud.
4. Synchronization – Google + Exchange = Awesome!I was reminiscing with a colleague recently about how I used to manage email back in the day. I had my first blackberry smart phone, and I could check email easily. However, our small business didn’t have an Exchange server or Enterprise email setup. I was on a POP3 webmail server. I could download email to my computer and to my phone, however they did not talk to each other. I am not even talking about Calendars and Contacts. I couldn’t sync my email! Wow, that was frustrating. Delete 20 emails on my computer, then have to do it again on my blackberry.Now, with Google Apps for business, you can sync your Mail, Contacts and Calendars to almost any device. The integration with my iPhone 4 is beautiful. No more synchronizing with a USB, I am constantly in sync no matter where I go. All of my email, contacts, calendars and events are in the cloud and synchronized with all of my devices. That is a breath of fresh air.
5. Cloud Storage – Recently launched Google Drive has shaken up the cloud storage space. If you have been using Dropbox, box, SugarSync or another cloud storage solution, think again. Especially if you are already a Google Apps for business customer. With the expected tight integration into Google Apps for Business, and the competitive price point, Drive makes for an impressive option in the cloud storage space. Get 5GB for free and up to 16TB of total space. Also, Google Docs do not pull from your storage space. Pretty awesome!

Here is a quick preview of the top ways I use SEOmoz’s PRO Account tools to manage my SEO campaigns

1. Website Crawl Diagnostics – Provides insight into On Page issues that could negatively affect my search engine rankings. Length of title tag, length of meta description, number of links on page, missing elements…
   
2. Keyword Rank Tracking – This allows me to view all my keywords, their curent rank in the major search engines, as well as keyword competitive analysis.
   
3. Organic Search Traffic Data – This gives me the ability to see how my organic search campaign is growing on a weekly and monthly basis. It requires that you hook your SEOmoz PRO campaign to your websites Google Analytics profile, however it is very easy to do and very helpful.
   
4. Reports – Exporting reports to PDF or CSV allows me to quickly and easily show my clients the results their campaigns are achieving.
   

Many small business owners are looking for a simple way to accept payments online. I get this question all the time. Your quest is over. I’m not talking about adding a Paypal button to your website. I’m talking about an easy, integrated payment solution that is very simple to setup as well as affordable. Total cost of this solution will be approximately $60/month + processing fees.

Here are a few sample uses for this solution

1. Accepting payments online where you don’t need a shopping cart. So, selling one or two items on a website where you don’t want your buyer to add them together in a shopping cart/checkout solution.
2. Accepting online donations that are not recurring.
3. Receiving online payments for invoices.

Ok, now that you see the boundaries with this solution, you can see why it is “simple”. No shopping cart, not checkout system, no recurring payments. A key ingredient here however is the “integrated” part of this solution. It is much more professional to have a payment solution that is built (or seemingly so) directly into your website. I hate being tossed off of a companies website to process a payment somewhere else. It feels a little uncomfortable for my taste.

Here are the steps to setting up your simple online payment acceptance form

1. Create a Wufoo Account.Wufoo is a web form building tool that is great for almost any type of form you could possibly want to add to your website. The drag and drop form builder interface is very easy to use and doesn’t require any knowledge of code. We will be using Wufoo to setup our simple online payment form.

   

2. You’ll need to sign up for the Bona Fide plan. This is the entry plan into integrated payments, and considering that is topic of this post, it is the suggested plan at minimum. The Bona Fide plan cost $29/month.
3. Create a new payment form. You will need to click on the “add new form” button at the top right of the main wufoo admin interface. From there you will want to add whatever fields you would like for your customer to fill out. Make sure to select which fields should be required by checking the “required” checkbox. You will also need a field to associate with the price that the customer will be paying. In my screenshot example below, I have included name, email, an open price field so that the customer can choose what price they will be paying (such as with paying invoices online) and an Invoice number field for the customer to include for my reference.
4. Setup your Merchant Account. Now that your form is ready to go, it is time to get your merchant account setup and ready to take payments. Here are my suggestions to keep this payment form integrated into your site: Setup a traditional merchant account through a Credit Card Processing Company or Paypal Website Payments Pro account. Either of these will keep the form integrated into your website. With the traditional merchant account, make sure you choose one with no setup fees! There are too many out there competing for business to pay any setup fees. Some will even setup your Authorize.net gateway account with zero setup fees.The Paypal Website Payments Pro account will cost you $30/month + processing fees. The traditional merchant account shouldn’t cost you more than a $10 monthly statement fee, processing fees and a $10 monthly gateway fee. If you should get stuck on this part, message me or comment and I can suggest several quality processing companies who I know will treat you right.
5. Configure your payment settings. Once you have your merchant account squared away, you will need to configure your form to work with your account. This can seem pretty technical, however it isn’t as difficult as it seems. Whether you have chosen Paypal Website Payments Pro or a traditional merchant account with Authorize.net gateway, you will need to add the API credentials that they provide to the payment settings section of your form.
6. Setup a SSL Certificate for your domain. This can most likely be done through  your hosting provider. It shouldn’t cost more than $120/year. This will ensure that your payment form is secured on an encrypted connection and your customers can submit their information with peace of mind.
7. Get paid! Once you have setup your form and added your merchant account information to your payment settings, you are ready to go. You might want to consider setting up email notifications and customizing your receipt email in Wufoo. These are things that I won’t go into detail on as Wufoo does a great job covering them on the help section of their site.

I have found the best SEO plugin for WordPress (as i’m sure you picked up by the title of this post). It is WordPress SEO by Yoast. Joost de Valk (developer behind Yoast) does a great job describing the plugin and it’s benefits on his website, however I will drop in a few of my favorite features of the plugin here as well.

Template Title Control Across the Whole Site

Under the “titles” section of the plugin’s settings, you can customize your homepages title settings, and add dynamic templates for pages, posts, categories and more to use across the entire site. A list of the available template settings is located at the bottom of the Titles section. These dynamic templates allow you to keep unique meta data throughout the site without having to touch each page individually. However, once these are set, they are just the default settings and you can overwrite them on an individual basis if you so choose.

Advanced Index Control Over the Entire Site

The plugin allows you to control from one settings section which areas of the site you want included in search engine indexing. It is very straight forward and requires no technical skills (other than checking check boxes and knowing what each section is).

Individual Page Meta Data Control

With each page, post, category… The WordPress SEO plugin gives you the ability to control the meta data (page title, meta description) on an individual basis. One of the great features here is the ability to input your “focus Keywords” and allow the plugin to analyze your page and help you better optimize for your target keywords.

I hope this gives you just enough information to go try the WordPress SEO Plugin by Yoast for yourself.

So I have put together my part 2 of “Can Twitter help my business?“

This is a quick list of 5 things you have to do to use Twitter effectively for business. This list assumes that you have gotten past the sign up stage

1. Use a Twitter Management tool – I recommendCoTweet. You can manage multiple twitter accounts, assign users to manage individual or all accounts. The “on duty” function allows you to receive email alerts of replies and direct messages. Plus, I love that it is web based. If you are wanting to play, use Tweet Deck, if you mean business you need to use CoTweet (or similar).
2. Fill out your Twitter profile – Put your name, bio, website and location. I rarely follow anyone who doesn’t have this basic information. There are enough spammers out there to keep even the most wild user from following you if you don’t have this filled out. Make it real. People like following real people, not robots.
3. Schedule your Tweets – Create tweets that are resourceful and informative and schedule them out 1 or 2 weeks inadvance (more if you’re feeling froggy). Find blog articles related to your industry, copy the title (or customize it a little) then copy the link and create scheduled posts. This doesn’t mean you should give up on posting normally or that you should schedule all of your tweets, but that you should have a steady stream of tweets scheduled out a week or two so that you don’t have to constantly be on twitter.
4. Follow good tweeple – Do a little research and search twitter for followers posting stuff related to your industry or in your area (or both). If you are using CoTweet, use the search pad for this. Follow these tweeple and then look at who they are following and also who is following them. It is likely that you will find they are following other valuable tweeple. Look at their Lists if they have them.
5. Create conversation – Once you have a solid foundation of posts and a good follower base,  you need to start interacting and conversing with tweeples. It’s ok, they won’t bite (Ok, some will so be careful). But seriously. One great way to make friends is to retweet what others have posted. Many times they will say “thanks for the RT!” Keep this up.

Follow these five simple steps and you will be able to create a strong follower base, good brand awareness and driven traffic to your website using Twitter. I hope this helps. Follow me @38wes.

Here is the result of a few hours of work. I will explain in detail the organization of my psd file, but if you are wanting to begin without reading everything, feel free to go ahead and download my Twitter background template here.

Most instructions on how to use the psd file are on the top layer, but here is a quick rundown of how things are organized.

• Twitter Design Colors – Reference Guide – This just has some helpful hints on how to use the file and tips on how to design your background.
• Monitor Size Guides – I have created guide lines for the following monitor sizes: 800px x 600px, 1024px x 768px, 1440px x 900px, 1280px x 1024px, 1680px x 1050px, 1900px x 1200px and 2560px x 1600px. Each guide has been given a center line so that you can slide the Design Layer over to fit the monitor size you would like to design for.
• Working Layers – I have recreated all elements for two different views of your Twitter page – 1) How the public sees your accounts and 2) How you see your account. All type is editable and all elements are on their own layers. Feel free to do what ever you want here.
• Design Layers – This is broken into the same two sections as the Working Layers group – 1) How the public sees your account and 2) How you see your account. These layers have been setup to easily adjust the design colors when customizing your Twitter background within your setting of our account. Twitter allows you to change 5 Design Colors on your Twitter page: background, text, links, sidebar and sidebar border. Below you will see the top blue layer group is called How the public sees your account. If you double click on the “text” or “link” layer effect you can change the Color Overlay to a desired color to match your design. To change the color of both the “side bar border” and “side bar background”, simply double click the Layer thumbnail and choose a desired color for that element.
• Create custom background here – Place all your design files here for your custom Twitter background.
• Background – I have created a solid shape that covers the entire background for easy adjustment of the background color.

Download the Free PSD Twitter Background Template here

Also, leave a comment below or send me a message on Twitter (@38drew) to let me know if this was helpful. If you have anything you would like me to add or change about it feel free to let me know that as well. Enjoy!

Step 1 : An Effective Webstie

• Aesthetically appealing and professionally designed website

  Sure you can have your nephew design your website for you but if it doesn’t look good, chances are people are going to over look you.

• Developed to achieve your business objectives

  If your website only is there as an “online brochure,” that is fine, you still need to have some sort of call to action and capture those users visting through a well planned online strategy. Add a simple online form so that you can follow-up with them down the road to keep them up-to-date on new products and services.

• *Update* Crawlable

  Not all sites are built correctly. Again, you could have the best looking site in the world but it needs to be built correctly. In that it needs to have the ability to be indexed easily by search engines. Thanks to Alli Denning for the addition.

• Maintain content through easy web software (CMS)

  This is a big one with us. Gone is the traditional method of web design where everytime you want to make a change to your website you have to go through the “webmaster”. Find a content management solution (CMS) that is easy to manage and update content so that you can control things and not have to rely on someone else.

Setp 2: Marketing and Promotion

• Search Engine Optimization (On-Page & Off-Page)

  If you have a website and think that is it – think again. There is still work to be done. You must put together a strong internet marketing plan together for both On-Page and Off-Page SEO. A study by Forbes (via eMarketer.com) says that marketers of all sizes should start with search. Don’t underestimate the use of On-Page SEO and doing what you can organically. Also, one of the biggest things people overlook are having quality links back to your website with specific reputable websites and having a strategic Off-Page SEO plan.

• Strategic E-mail Marketing Campaign

  E-mail marketing is one of the best forms of marketing your company hands down (after SEO of course)

• Social Media Management (Facebook and Twitter)

  Yes, you can gain new business from creating a Facebook page and having a Twitter account. We are setting up our clients all the time with new social media accounts and helping manage them for them.

Smashing Magazine never ceases to amaze me at the quality of article it produces. Once again SM has put together another extremely helpful piece to help in “Mastering CSS Coding” for those wanting to really understand how CSS design really works. Here is a list of properties and capabilities that they cover in this article:

1. Padding vs. margin
2. Floats
3. Center alignment
4. Ordered vs. unordered lists
5. Styling headings
6. Overflow
7. Position

Here is a link to the article, “Mastering CSS Coding: Getting Started.”

Enjoy.

Here is a list of resources I have located to help business professionals cut through the clutter.

• 17 Invisible LinkedIn Tricks Revealed - If you’re like lots of people, you’re on LinkedIn.
  And you probably know all the typical things to do like:
  • Fill out your profile completely
  • Answer some questions
  • Ask some questions
  • Join some Groups 

  But what else can you do to maximize your use of LinkedIn?
  There’s got to be more to it than this , right?

  Well, there is!
  Buried within the deep caves of LinkedIn are some pretty neat “tricks.” After years of regularly using LinkedIn to keep my network alive, I thought I’d round up some of my favorite tips and share them with you.

• 32 Ways to Use Facebook for Business -Facebook’s not just for keeping tabs on friends and filling out quizzes — it can also be used as a highly effective business tool. It’s great for marketing your products, landing gigs and connecting with your customers. Here are 32 ways to use Facebook in your business.
• Twitter for Business 101 - Every day, millions of people use Twitter to create, discover and share ideas with others. Now, people are turning to Twitter as an effective way to reach out to businesses, too. From local stores to big brands, and from brick-and-mortar to internet-based or service sector, people are finding great value in the connections they make with businesses on Twitter.
• What a Blog Can Do For Your Small Business -  The blogging movement is picking up speed as businesses begin to realize the benefits of blogging. Discover what a business blog can do for you.What is a Blog?

  According to Pyra Labs Blogger, “A blog is a web page made up of usually short, frequently updated posts that are arranged chronologically—like a what’s new page or a journal.” The term is actually weblogs coined by Jorn Barger in 1997.

• 5 Videos that went Viral – Why do they work? – I love watching videos on line, long and short clips, funny sad or serious, interesting or just outrageous there’s a video to cater to everyone.  Of course, once in a while a video comes along that you simply have to talk about because of its ingenuity, humour, engagement or message.Here are 5 of my favourite viral videos and some thoughts on why they worked so well (you can watch any of the videos by clicking the titles or the bit that says “watch the video”…obviously).