Feel the burn of Pilates at Laura's Ultimate Pilates

Pilates for Golf, Equestrain Pilates, Barre Workout and much more will offered be at the studio. If you are interested in being kept up to date I plan on adding a Twitter account soon so check out her website for a future follow me on twitter icon.

Here’s an interesting tidbit I just learned about Facebook pages. According to Facebook, you now have the ability to change the user name associated with a page. So instead of dealing with that extremely long URL that they associate with your page, you can have your page associated with a username. In my case, the url for my facebook business page would be: “facebook.com/agrotising”. Only requirement is that you have at least 25 fans of your page.

Help me and I will help you!

As of this posting I have 18 fans of my facebook business page. If you add yourself to mine I will do the same for you! Let’s work together to get rid of those ugly URLs! Visit my (current) facebook business page address by clicking here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Agrotising/269036895087#!

For the complete Facebook posting on this topic visit:
Facebook | Facebook Pages: Usernames for Facebook Pages.

I just love the Internet and all it has to offer. Case in point, I am reading up on facebook, so far I have found two good sites for learning best practices for creating and marketing a business facebook page (more on that in future posts). While I was on one of the sites, I was reading this cool online book, you have probably seen them before, looks like a book spread showing 2 pages at time, click to advance to the next set of pages. Anyway I notice there is a link which takes me to the site Issuu – You Publish., turns out anyone can create and publish their own virtual book just by uploading it to this service. I haven’t read all about it but it seems very cool. I am sure that one day I will take advantage of this and wanted to share my finding with all of you.

ABtests.com is a website that displays how making subtle changes in the design a web page influences how visitors act on what is being offered (ie: conversion rates). The site has screen shot samples of Before and After designs with detailed explanations, conversion rate increase percentages and a summary they call “Results Hypothesis” where they explain what was changed and why they feel it increased the response rates. They even have popular categories like “Sign-Up pages” and “Home Page” so you can see example of what interests you.

The second site is bokardo. As their website states, bokardo provides “Interface Design & Consulting for Social Web Apps. We provide design, evaluation, & consulting services for today’s sophisticated social software.”

What I liked most about this site was they way they illustrate how the less is more strategy when applied correctly with good design greatly enhances the goals of the site. Lots of good case studies and white paper type info here. I have already signed up to receive their Social Design Newsletter (see, it worked!).

The third site is KISSmetrics.com. Their mission: “To give all online businesses (big and small) the tools and technology to measure what’s happening and tune their user’s experience.”

As of this posting their site tools were not yet available but their blog is worth checking out. Lots of good articles on website traffic reports, how to design a great form, and other valuable insights. Check out the KISSmetrics blog by clicking here.

Like a proud poppa I am thrilled to announce the latest website designed by Agrotising. TheZooGym.com is a virtual tour of one of Fort Lauderdale’s oldest and coolest gyms. Located right on beautiful Fort Lauderdale beach, one block south of Las Olas Boulevard. I had the pleasure of overseeing the photo shoot and got to meet many of the members. Great atmosphere, easy going staff and a magnet for some of the best fitness trainers in South Florida, maybe even the world! Check out the site: Visit The Zoo Gym on Fort Lauderdale Beach Florida

Disqus, pronounced “discuss”, is a service and tool for web comments and discussions. The Disqus comment system can be plugged into any website, blog, or application. Disqus makes commenting easier and more interactive, while connecting websites and commenters across a thriving discussion community.

I was intrigued when visiting a blog site that had this system in place. My first reaction when going to post my comment was – wow, this is easy (to post a comment). No more threatening “you must log-in to post a comment”. Nice. I installed Disqus on my WordPress blog (version 2.8) without a problem so now visitors to my blog can have that “it’s easy to post a comment” feeling too

I also integrated my Disqus account with my Twitter, Facebook and of course my blog. Now I will be able to monitor my comments from all of the websites I post to from one source – Disqus. Cool, I love this stuff!

Social Media Bandwagon

Ok, I am jumping on the social media bandwagon. So far I have signed up with Facebook, Twitter, and Link-In. I also am a member (although not as active) of Naymz.

In researching this cyber community craze I found some great resources which I would like to share with you.

Here’s a great article written by Paula Drum, who for the past 3 years has been with the social media team at H&R Block. Read her top ten list for Social Media Marketers.

I would love to hear from you too. Share your best tip to help navigate the social media waters for business development. Post your comments!!

I read an interesting article recently about the differences between Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM). In it the author stated that

“Search Engine Optimizing must be the first step in promoting your site”.

I could not agree more. Most of us do not have an unlimited budget for marketing. With a properly optimized website, it’s like giving the gift that keeps on giving. Once your website is optimized, the search engines will find it easier, and based on the theme of the pages, search engines will categorize your site so it displays in the search engine’s result pages when people search for a product or service that your site offers.

So what exactly is Search Engine Optimization?
Search engines are constantly surfing the web for new pages/sites and sites that have changed since the last time they were visited. It only makes sense to program website pages in such a way that makes it easy and more exact for the search engine to add the site to their index. There are many sound practices that go into Search Engine Optimization like page titles that reflect the content of the page, meta tag description and keywords, page content that is unique – not copied from another site. Another sound Search Engine Optimization tip is to have your page focus on one theme.

Beauty Is In The Eye Of The Beholder
Believe it or not, aesthetics also plays a part in good Search Engine Optimization. Not all search engines are automatic, some of the largest – YAHOO Directory for one – are maintained by real people. If your site is not pleasing to the eye, easy to navigate and loaded with helpful content then it will always run a distant second to one that is.