Over the last few months, I’ve been compiling a list of web sites of where to find the best tips on all things green, from mindset, to travel, to clothing, to interior design — I thought I’d share it with you!

One of my 2012 goals is to learn, and implement sustainable living in our home and business, and these eco-friendly web sites have propelled that journey!

If you have any to add, please do, I’d love to see them!

Charly

GoSolarEnergyForLife.com

Our very own Southwest Florida visionary, Mr. Dan Morrissey (owner of Fafco Solar in Cape Coral, too!) continually shares his thoughts, and great resources on sustainable living through renewable and solar energy use!  He inspired me to take small steps over the last 6 years to resource my carbon footprint, and I have — thank you Dan!

EcohomeResource.com

A true blessing on the Web – your resource for creating a healthy home!  Build a green home from the ground up, it reviews every segment of your home (Bedroom through Office, and outside, such as Landscaping, too!)

IdealBite.com

A truly wonderful resource for helping you get healthy one bite at a time (with one of my favorite posts “Kill the Soda Habit or Die“).

Yooxygen.com

This section of Yoox.com offers environmentally conscious fashion, books and music — along with great tips, too!

GreenWithGlamour.com

Carefully selected home products like organic silk pillows, natural clay candlesticks and organic cotton scarves give you the opportunity to look and shop smart.

Inhabitat.com

This site continually offers smart, innovative ways to use green solutions in the home.

ApartmentTherapy.com/categories/green_living

Budget friendly tips on how to transform living spaces into environmentally sound, stylish living.

BranchHome.com

Sustainable design for living – a great source for great ideas!

Envirogadget.com

Gadgets for the eco-warrior!  The original green gadget business specializing in innovative, energy efficient products and gifts.

As I mentioned in my last post “Promote your Business with our 10 Steps to Online Success“, we debuted our new service a few weeks ago called “Show Up Online Now – the 10 Steps to Online Success”.

We offer two options:

1. People can do the work themselves, or
2. We can do it for you!

For those that choose to have us do the work, we use the online project manager, TeamWorkPM.net.  TeamWorkPM tracks all:

• projects,
• tasks,
• notebooks (think a shared Word document), and
• correspondence

with our customers. It’s amazing!

Side note: We used to use BaseCamp for Online Project Management, however, their new, completely revised version doesn’t offer task templating YET, which is a huge disappointment…

TeamWork Online Project Manager is awesome!

We’re really happy to be helping out so many people, and seeing our 10 Steps gain popularity as it has!

Some of those people attended are Pressure Washing & Window Cleaning companies that attended our 10 Steps to Online Success presentation about a month ago in Albany, New York.

We educated them on the power of linking from popular places (like this blog, The Big Picture, which has a high rank!), and we also showed them how linking to the individual pages within their web sites, helps those pages show up in the search engines as well.

With that, here’s some of the people we’re working with – a very special “Thank You” to each of them for choosing to have us help them!

• Perfect View Services which offers Window Cleaning, and Pressure Washing in this Service Area (they even offer a Rain Guarantee, that’s cool!)
• Alpine High Window Cleaning which offers Residential Window Cleaning, Commercial Window Cleaning, Exterior Cleaning, and Gutter Cleaning!
• A Brilliant Solution which offers Residential Power Washing, Commercial Power Washing, SealCoating in the following Service Areas.

Looking forward to hearing more about the results of the work we’ve done together!

Enjoy,

Charly

Wow, it’s finally up, and I’m SO excited to share this with you!

After over 6 months of preparation…

…revisions, and review – I’m extremely proud to introduce my good friend Jason and my new online product – The 10 Steps to Online Success.

It’s designed to show easy, free, ways to promote your business online – we’ve systemized the easiest, most impactful things the ISG Marketing Team does!

The best part is that I walk you through each step, AND if you don’t want to do the work, it’s a simple button click – and we’ll do it for you.

The 10 Steps to Online Success directly address the five biggest questions we receive:

1. I have a web site and I’m not getting anything from it!
2. Do I need to participate in Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc?
3. How do I do participate in the social networks properly (and help my web site at the same time!)
4. Is my web site SEO’d?
5. What is SEO, how do I do it properly?

As you’ll see, we’re all about abundance, and want to assure you understand:

• exactly why you’re doing each step,
• how to do the stuff that really matters (we’ve tested & measured it for you!),
• we’re available to answer any questions, help you with each step, or even do each step for you!

Every step starts with a short video introduction by me, too.

Learn exactly how to Promote Your Business Online with our 10 Easy Steps to success!

Here’s to your success!

Charly & Jason

When I ask the question “Have you been pinning on Pinterest?” I still get a look of…

…confusion in many cases?!

However, those who know what I mean – are usually pretty passionate about it!

In December’s “ISG Way” event, I reviewed how Pinterest.com was one of the fastest growing sites in 2011.  I also reviewed how if that’s where the eyeballs are today – we need to be testing & measuring Pinterest for:

• creating awareness,
• sharing passions (in many cases, that means services & products), and most importantly,
• seeing if helps people reach their online goals!

The verdict is in – it’s definitely been helping people reach their goals.

There are two simple reasons Pinterest can help your business:

1) The audience is huge, and it’s trending right now!
2) As long as your pinboards are public – Google, and the other search engines will give you credit for your links!

What does that mean?

It means that every time you add a web address in the caption of your photo, you’re helping build the popularity of the place your linking to!

Yep, Pinterest helps you rank higher in the natural search results!

If you haven’t yet – give Pinterest a try!  You’ll need an invite, so feel free to let me know if you’re interested, and I’ll invite you!

Charly

First of all, Happy New Year to you, your family and friends!  Can you believe it’s 2012, already? Wow!

If you haven’t picked up on the vibe, yet, smartphones & tablets are taking over in a major way…

Here I am, a couple of days ago, blown away by the how awesome the “Ease into 5K” running app is on my iPhone — thanks Amy for telling me about it!

Not only did we see an exponential growth in mobile device use (i.e. smartphones & tablets) in the last quarter of 2011 with all of the web sites we host, but I’ve never seen so many people — of all different ages — using mobile devices of some sort, everywhere I’ve been!

A group at our local Apple Store are learning exactly how to use their new iPads!

It’s been said that smartphones and tablets will overtake PC’s as the primary device used online at some point in 2014…

WOW!

Conclusion?

The Future Is In Your Pants...

And NOW is the time to assure you, and your business are smartphone and tablet friendly…

Special thanks to Brad Larson, of Larson Education Services for sharing that phrase with me – I love it!

At our last ISG Way event, we summed up exactly what we’ve seen in mobile usage for the hundreds of web sites we host and market:

• A 12% increase in mobile use (going from 3% to 15%), growing exponentially in the last quarter of 2011,
• iPad users, in particular, seem to dominate the mobile user base (30%+),
• iPhone & iPad users not only make up the most mobile visitors (over 50%), but they stay on sites longer as well.

Personally, I’ve noticed:

• More people becoming savvy with their apps – Mail and Web Browsing, but also Facebook, Twitter, Flipboard, Instagram, Words with Friends to name a few!  Most smartphone users are checking email on their smartphones first….
• Rows of people using their smartphone and tablets on a flight back from Ohio on Christmas Day – over 2/3′s of the plane had people playing games, reading the paper, reading magazines, watching movies, and listening to music using their phones or tablets (iPhones were most popular),
• The 60+ age group fully adopting, and most importantly, getting excited about what they can do on their tablets.   I saw two iPad training sessions going on in Apple Stores (see photo above), and a Nook training session – filled with older generations excitedly learning of the capacities of their new device!
• The younger generation (teens & 20 year olds), especially, ignoring voice mails and phone calls, yet responding almost instantly to text messages.
• I’ve switched from taking my notebook computer into meetings to taking my iPad with wireless keyboard (I’m can type very fast, and can’t keep up with discussion on a smartphone/tablet keyboard…)

Here’s my new and improved 2012 setup:

 What does all of this mean?

• Personally, if you have a smartphone, you’re going to see it being used in more interesting ways very shortly.  Think reviewing items in a store AT THE STORE, vs the older method of reviewing just a store (Oink is doing a great job of this already)!
• In business, at this point, you need to assure your web site (and blog, if you have one) are mobile friendly, and that they work properly on all mobile devices.  Simply test your web site with a smartphone or tablet to see if you can click the buttons, and navigate through your web site. (Be sure to test your contact form-if you have one, too!)
• Simplicity rules!  The simpler the site design the better (think bigger buttons, and no more than 5, if possible!)  Keep your contact forms minimal – not only does it result in higher conversion for standard computer users, but means more mobile users will be apt to contact you as well!  Take a look at our web site with your mobile device at www.ISGFL.com for a good example of this.

With all of this in mind, what’s the most interesting way you’ve been using your mobile device(s) recently?

Happy New Year, and cheers to you, your family, friends and business associates!

Charly

Yep, it’s true!  There are hundreds, if not thousands, of people who have created sales for…

…their business by simply having a listing in Google Places!  (Think of it as today’s version of having a YellowPages listing!)

As you can see in the screenshot above – having top placement in the list - with reviews – even adds more of a punch!

In a future blog post, I’ll be discussing ‘freshness’ in relation to the way Google indexes, views and ranks its listings, but for now all you need to know is that it’s VERY important to:

a) Have your business listed, and claimed, in Google’s Places for Business.
b) Assure you are continually asking your customers to provide a review in your Google Places listing (this assures Google views you as “fresh” and continues to rank your listing higher and higher!)

So, how do you do all of this?  Let’s review…

Read the rest of this entry »

Just before Thanksgiving, I drew our three winners for our Vote, Like & Win contest!

And here they are:

Stan Poole – from Southwest Florida, won the 32 GB, iPad!  Congratulations, Stan!

Daniel Shirey, from Athens, Georgia, won the Amazon Kindle Fire!

And Anika Knight won the Amazon $100 Gift Certificate!

A BIG THANK YOU to everyone who participated – we’re looking at firing up a new contest in January (how about a Macbook Air as the grand prize?)

Enjoy!

Charly

We had quite a bit of fun creating the bios on our web site…

…and thought it’d be fun to create a contest where you got to vote on which you like most (and tell us why)!

Yep!  You can win an iPad, iPod Touch, Kindle Fire, or even a $100 Amazon Gift Certificate by participating…  Here’s how:

The three things you need to do qualify to win our contest are:

1) Read our bios on our web site at: www.isgfl.com/about.
2) Vote on your favorite, and tell us why you like it, by filling this quick, easy survey.
3) Be a fan of our Facebook Page – simply click “Like!” if you’re not a fan already!

On Wednesday, November 23rd, we’re going to randomly draw three names from our Facebook Page, if you’re drawn & have answered our questions – YOU WIN!

Grand Prize – A Brand New iPad (32GB, your choice of color!)
First Prize – A Brand New iPod Touch (8GB) OR Kindle Fire (your choice!)
Second Prize – A $100 Amazon Gift Certificate!

We’re really excited about this, and can’t wait to hear from you!

Enjoy!

Charly and the ISG Team

PS – Special Thanks to Jason Evers (Quality Service Pros) for inspiring this contest with a Facebook comment he made about our bios!

PPS – We’re spreading the word, far and wide, this contest has been listed on:

www.SandysRealm.com
Contests.About.com
Free Sweepstakes and Giveaways
ContestGirl

We’re REALLY excited about the debut of our latest mobile web development project…

…the Edison Ford Winter Estates mobile web site!

To view it, simply visit:

www.EdisonFordWinterEstates.org

on any mobile device (iPhone, Android, Windows7, iPod Touch, etc), and it will automatically come up!

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As the Internet continues to mature, there are more and more ways for you to save money…

…and here’s a few to get you started!

Did you know that in 2010 – 4% of redeemed coupons were printed from the web, and that’s up 40% from 2009?

Here’s 10 Ways to Save Money using the Internet:

Cut the cost of eating out:

• Restaurant.com – Imagine having your favorite meal and paying 50% less, be sure to always check here before a night of dining!  There’s over 18,000 local and chain restaurants included, and you can search by city, or ZIP code!

In a few of the Internet marketing strategies I’ve created for restaurant owners, I’ve recommended this, and the feedback has been very positive!  It works!

Pay less when shopping online:

Read the rest of this entry »