Pete Reum on the Web

January 26, 2010

Clicks vs. CLICKS

Filed under: Clients — Tags: ad words, google, pete reum — Pete @ 7:02 pm

In running Ad Word campaigns I have been, and continue to, learn how to best help my clients. Google is more than happy to take as much money as you are willing to throw at them. You will have to do your homework, but if you get your ad and bids lined up, and people are clicking on them then that is good, right?

Google has gotten the market share that it has because it is very good at providing good, relevant results to what you are searching for. Just because you are willing to spend lots of money if you do not get clicks from your ads then they will not be shown as you would expect.

Here are some things that I believe:

Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. I notice that most of my click thru’s are for very few of the key words that are chosen. Therefore using the 80-20 rule I believe that you should spend your money on the big hitters for search and not worry so much about the other key words that might or might not bring someone to your site, but can cost you.
Ask if time matters. For some campaigns it might not make sense to run the ad all day everyday. By just limiting your ad to certain times will the clicks be better off for my client? You can limit time to time of day and day of week. If no one is able to answer a phone on the weekend and a phone call is key to the business then pause the campaign when no one is able to answer the phone. This can save my clients money.
How much are you willing to spend? This can be important to limiting time or keywords. Maybe a client cannot spend much but can bet OK traffic by using a set of keywords that are not the biggest hitters but still get good relevant clicks. Why spend as much as possible if you can get by on less. There are always trade offs but it is good to think about these sorts of issues.
Write a compelling ad. This is not as simple as it seems. I have run a number of ads all with similar but different parts to them. I am always amazed of the difference in clicks that a small change can make. Words matter and words are at a premium on Ad Words. Write with clarity and don’t be afraid to get rid of an ad that is not working.

I might not be the best or the brightest but do feel that I can run good solid Ad Word campaigns for my clients. Yes anyone can do it but then you might just get what you pay for. One of my Pete-ism’s goes like this — “there are times to do your own plumbing and there are times to hire a plumber”.

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December 23, 2009

Advocacy

Filed under: General Information,Search — Tags: advocate, pete reum, Search, social media — Pete @ 6:08 pm

Advocacy - the act of pleading or arguing in favor of something, such as a cause, idea, or policy; active support – according to dictionary.com. What are you an advocate for? Are you an advocate for your company? If not why not? I have been thinking about this of late. Word of mouth is so very powerful in generating new growth. I think that this is especially true in the small business community. I try to be an advocate for all my clients. I want them to grow and become better at what they do. I always am thinking of my clients first when I hear about any opportunities that might be a match for them. I would like to think that others think of me when they hear about an internet opportunity that might be a match for me.

need a handyman – I know someone
need commercial building work done – I know someone
need your carpets cleaned – I know someone
interested in home automation – I know someone

It has been my experience that the smaller a company is the more likely it is that employee’s are advocates for the company, and for other companies. Having worked in big, medium and small companies I found that my skill set was best utilized in a smaller business environment. I like doing a variety of things and have many different skills. Many times my clients do not even realize that I have a skill that they could use, until I am chatting to them about something else, and it will come up that I know how to do the task that they are in need of.

Search and social media come to mind when I think of skills that my clients might not know that I have. Social media is all the buzz right now. Facebook, Twitter, blogging, Flickr and all sorts of other sites. Ask me about it sometime and I will give you my 2 cents worth. I don’t think that just because you can means that you should — each business is unique and I try to speak to their needs. And not all social sites are a good match for all business operations. Search is a term that could have many different meanings for different people. Some might say search when they mean paid ads while others mean organic search. When clients are not sure of what they want it can be tough to speak to their needs. How do you handle this situation? I would love to hear about it.

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December 8, 2009

Facelift for Web Mountain Technologies

Filed under: Clients — Tags: home automation, upb, web mountain — Pete @ 12:25 am

There are still some details to work out, but Web Mountain now has a new look on the web. Visit the site here. Web Mountain is a supplier of UPB (Universal Powerline Bus). They have created many unique products using the UPB technology. They also provide quite a number of hints and applications information in their applications notes.

Web Mountain started in the X10 business but found that the UPB offered many features that made it a superior technology for their products. They have a love for home automation and that shows through in their product line and the companies that they partner with and supply devices for. Based in Aurora, CO they provide devices throughout the United States.

One of their newer products is the TIM-01. Terry Bolinger from Web Mountain says, “it is the world’s most advanced UPB timer,scheduler and count down timer.” Bolinger continues, “our landscape people love this device and were instrumental in the development of this product.”

With lots of products to show off for home automation and the holidays just around the corner visit the Web Mountain site for a fresh look and good deals!

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November 28, 2009

Mashup – Fun to Say Fun to Do

Filed under: General Information — Tags: google calendar, google maps, mashup, pete reum — Pete @ 10:44 pm

Mashup is a mixing of different data from different places all into one place. Everyone has seen one of these before but might not have recognized it as such. A good example of this idea – mashup – is to place a map, generated by google, onto a website that you own. RCI’s contact page here is an example. Many sites now use google maps as a great source of mapping information that they can access easily and reliably.

Mashups can add a variety of information to a page. RCI has a client that has a need to see a collection of information all in one place. Here is a partial list of their requirements:

Map of the different regions in their system.
Location of their suppliers, in the region of interest, on the map.
Location of their vehicles in the region.
Location of their open trouble tickets in the region.
The ability to zoom in and out and move around the map.

To provide this mashup I collect information from the clients GPS provider from their web interface. I then collect the suppliers geo-information in the requested region from the data base. Then collect the open trouble tickets in the region from the data base. At this time I am ready to create a page that will display all of this different information. On the page I use google maps to create the map that the client will be able to zoom in and out and move around as required. I then add the geo-data onto the map thus creating the mashup.

Map showing Mashup

You can see from the image to the left that there is all the information showing up in a map that you can use to change the look and be able to see all the required information at a glance. The client is able to click on an icon to get more information about that particular item. They can also click on the icons above the map to just see those icons on the map. This gives my client the ability to handle dispatch duties based on their current view of where their vehicles are and the priority of the trouble ticket. It is a very versatile item in their tool box for the dispatchers.

Another mashup is to add a google calendar into a clients web page. This is also a very simple thing to do and provides my clients with a great calendar that is then viewable on their web site keeping their sites look, feel and navigation. Google calendar is very easy to use and has a powerful set of features. Anyone who has a gmail account with google has the calendar function available to them. They can then add/modify/delete events and add other information that they want to share with others into the calendar. I then add the calendar into a page on their web site creating the mashup.

Calendar Mashup

You can see that all the information on the calendar is available and viewable by the client on their site. This mashup provides a great calendar that is integrated directly on the clients site. This mashup is a great solution for a client that is looking for a powerful calendar at a low cost to them (free). All the data for the calendar is located on the servers at google and the display integrates this information into their look and feel. The calendar has all the features of calendar programs and is modified by the user from their gmail account. The changes are immediately available on their site. Links, details and maps can all be added easily and quickly from the google site.

Mashups can be fun and are able to provide a variety of information into a consolidated page that has your sites look and feel. This is the power of mashups — your site looks like it contains all the information — even if it comes from a variety of places. Mashups are a great information consolidation tool.

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November 21, 2009

Tools of the Trade

Filed under: General Information — Tags: java script, pete reum, PHP, web developer — Pete @ 3:03 am

While talking to a client some time ago, they asked if I knew any “programers”. Digging into the requirements that she shared with me about her needs, I realized that she did not understand what I was capable of. She needed a method of job scheduling that would work for her particular needs. She had looked at a variety of product offerings and had felt that none of them provided exactly what she was after. I then offered to create a bid for my solution to her stated needs. She had not thought of me a programmer, and I thought maybe others might be thinking the same thing. Thus this post.

Programmers tend to talk about the languages that they know. For web development I use 2 main languages, PHP and java script. PHP is a server side scripting language. What that means is that the computer where you make the request for a web page — the server — can run this language to create a page that has dynamic content. An example would be a list of links on a site that is stored in a data base. PHP is able to ask the data base what links it has and then create the display that would go back to your browser, maybe sorting the links in alphabetical order. This language allows me to do a number of different tasks that help display many different groups of information in many different ways. In the previous example, the web request client would see a list of the links displayed. However, they would not be able to modify those links. An administrator on that same site would be able to add, modify and delete links as needed as the links changed. I am able to provide a web interface to data that is stored on the server and let my clients be able to modify it without me being involved. More costly at design time but much cheaper than having me modify content that changes frequently.

The other language that I often use in web development is called java script. It is a language that is run on the web clients computer. This language allows me to change the look of a page and to update information on a page without having to reload the entire page. An example of this type of code is when you are inside of a page that is displaying a map from google. As you move around in the map, say zooming in or out, that is the only component on the page that is updated. The main body of the page is not forced to reload to update the map portion. I have explained the difference between PHP and java script in this way. If you display the time using PHP it will show the time that is currently set on the server. If the web server is located in California and the web browser is located in New York the time would display a 3 hour difference. However if the time is displayed using java script the display will show the time that the local computer is set to. Thus, no matter where the server is located, if the time is displayed using java script it will show the local computer time even thought the page came from a California based server.

Using these programming tools I am able to create sites that will display and use dynamic content that the user, my clients, can control and update to a certain extent. My clients are all unique, and by using these tools I am able to give them a web based interface, that can be accessed from anywhere Internet access is available, to control content. My clients love this ability and once they understand what I am able to do for them the requests start coming in sounding something like this — “I know we can change this [insert feature], but can you add the ability to change this [insert new feature]“. I enjoy when my clients start to “get it” that I can add all sorts of features, I just have to understand what their requirements are, or their how they have implemented their current procedures.

I have so far talked about programming but I also have other skills. That will have to wait for a different post however.

Hopefully this will give a better idea of the web development programming languages that I use daily to help keep my clients happy. I do love “Happy Clients”.

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November 15, 2009

Thoughts on Problem Solving

Filed under: General Information — Tags: pete reum, problem solving — Pete @ 11:21 pm

Another winter storm has hit Denver, and has me pondering problem solving. If there is enough snow then it becomes an issue for people to figure out what to do with it. There are many different methods that I have seen over the years. Each person tends to choose a method that suites them, and sticks with it over time. Problem solving when it comes to snow, begins with — do you do anything at all. There are people that just let nature do its thing and never lift a hand to shovel snow. There are others that choose a to use a mechanical advantage. That might include a snow blower or atv type snow mover. Other still choose the manual method.

Snow blowers come in all sorts of sizes and shapes. We generally don’t get enough snow in Denver to need the really heavy duty sort. Most of the machines here are the small to mid range of blowers. Shovels also come in all sorts of sizes and shapes. I have seen people use a regular garden type of shovel while other choose the “back saver” versions. These tools are best to have in place long before a storm starts. Choosing the right tool for you is important.

Once you decide that you are going to move the snow, and have chosen your tool of choice, now comes the interesting part for me. How do you tackle the pattern that you use? Some use the same pattern all the time. Others “wing it”, choosing a different pattern every time out. I would define one type of pattern like this. Start on your driveway and go across it side to side removing snow as you go. Another pattern might be to create a path from the top to the bottom of the driveway, thereby splitting the removal terrain into 2 different sides. Then move down one side at a time and remove from the path you created to the edge.

Another part of the problem is when to start to remove the snow. Do you wait till it stops snowing or try to stay ahead of the storm and remove the snow as it comes down. Each has it merits. If it snows large amount over time if you wait untill it stops snowing there is a larger volume to move at one time. However if you try to stay ahead of the storm then the wind just might kick up, making it look as though had not done anything at all.

We all work this problem every time that it snows without too much thought going into it. The tools are usually available before hand, unless you have just moved, or they are lost or broken. So there is a bit of prep work but not too much of that is required.

I have found myself being a very methodical person using the same method on each storm. It generally works well for me and it is a task that I can complete pretty quickly unless there is just a ton of snow.

I also think that I use a similar methodology in web development. I have a method for certain tasks and tend to do them the same all the time. I have my tools available before hand and they are well broken in and trustworthy. Now one thing different is that in web development there is almost always something new that needs to be learned or implemented. I really like/hate this part of my job. For me it is always very cool to learn new things. I have found that keeping ahead of the storm with web development can be a big challenge. I use many different types of learning material. I really like podcasts. I can walk the dog and still be learning something fun and informational. I also try to keep up with news on the web via twitter. There is almost always someone who is chatting about something new and different. Choosing the right tool to listen to the stream has helped me filter out what it is that interests me from the stream.

I often think of my job as solving problems all day long. The problems differ but still need to be solved. Each of my clients have a different need and I try to stay mindful of those differences. I think that I am pretty good problem solver be it snow or web related issues.

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November 8, 2009

New Iron

Filed under: General Information — Tags: dell, reum, windows 7 — Pete @ 7:20 pm

The boss has let me upgrade my workstation. I was able to order some pretty good “iron”. I now have a new dell 546. The cool part is that I now have 8 gigs of memory with a 750 gig harddrive. It came with 64 bit Windows 7. I had some experience with Vista in the past and was not very impressed with it at all. I have had this new system for a bit less than a week and just love it.

My old system had worked quite well for me for about 3-4 years. However it had been getting bogged down when I had numerous applications open and trying to do multiple things at once. The waiting for completion of tasks had started to become an issue. I must say that when I am looking at getting things done I want my machines to go as fast as I can. That was becoming an issue with the old setup.

In loading up the new system I found that windows 7 was pretty smart in adding applications. I use Adobe CS4 for development work. On my old system it could take up to 5-6 hours to get and install updates to it. I was able to get that same task done in less than a half hour with the new system. It has been very fun with this much memory to have the machine just fly through tasks that used to take a VERY long time.

In all I think that it took me about a day to get all — that I could remember that is — of my applications loaded and working on the new system. Very quick work and it all went very smooth. Start-up and getting ready to do work has gone from a couple of minutes time to something like a minute or less. That has me loading dreamweaver, smartcvs, firefox, thunderbird, skype and tweetdeck. I am very impressed, thank you very much.

As a developer I also felt that I needed to update my skills to keep up to date. My clients expect me to have experience on many browsers, operating systems and all things internet. This upgrade will allow me to be able to have updated skills on the windows platform. At this time I am very happy and I must say pretty impressed with Microsofts’ latest offering.

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October 30, 2009

Words on Words

Filed under: General Information — Pete @ 9:51 pm

As a reader you and I are consumers of words. I am finding that as a writer I am much more aware of words and their power. The old kids saying — “sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me” – is not quite as true as I was brought up to believe. Words have a power all their own and we all use them — sometimes without thinking things through — to do all sorts of things. Words can convince, hurt, sooth, clarify, obfuscate and so many other things.

Recently the “balloon boy” story caught my attention with an article in the paper. In the article they used a word combination that got me to thinking. They said that there could have been a “terrified 6 year old boy” in the balloon. Now at one time I was a 6 year old boy and the thought of going flying in a big balloon might well have seemed like tons of fun for me. I think that the author of that article was trying to bend the thinking of the reader to feel that it would have been terrifying experience. Without a real boy in that balloon however I felt that terrified was a stretch. That seems like a small issue but those are the sorts of things that I find myself looking at more critically of late.

I am noticing that the use of the adjectives can offer the author of the article a slant in how he reports information. Here are a couple of different directions that the balloon boy adjective could have taken

terrified
fun loving
inquisitive
stupid
normal
special needs

If one of these other words were used in conjunction with an article it might lead the reader to having a different picture of the young man in question.

When you read, do you read every word, or do you tend to skip around and maybe only read a lead paragraph and skim the rest? Do you question what you read? Are you always in agreement with information that you read? I think that these are all very good questions to ask yourself.

In working with a couple of writers for different things that I do here at RCI I have become very impressed with their ability to use words to meet different needs. Writing just for myself I am trying to be a better wordsmith and have some great examples of how the professionals take what is requested of them, and turn out a great product. I still have much to learn!

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October 27, 2009

Aaron Sachs & Associates, Springfield, Missouri, urges youngsters and parents to stay safe, and attend the James River Assembly October 31st. Party, rather than trick-or-treating.

Filed under: Press Releases — Tags: aaron sachs, aaron sachs and associates, Halloween, James River Assembly, joplin personal injury, JRA, safety, springfield mo, springfield personal injury — Pete @ 10:30 am

Springfield, MO October 26, 2009 – Aaron Sachs is proud to sponsor the “October 31st Party” at James River Assembly. Aaron Sachs, whose personal injury law firm has offices in Springfield, Joplin, Columbia and Cape Girardeau, is committed to community service and safety. He encourages parents and youngsters to attend an alternative, supervised event on October 31^st, Halloween at one of James River Assembly’s two Springfield locations for a fun filled evening.

At this fun, safe event at either the new Wilson Creek location, or at the original James River location, young people can safely enjoy a world of amusement and get the all-important candy “stash,” without knocking on a single stranger’s door.

Sachs states, “There is more candy than most children can handle, over 120,000 items. There’s kettle corn, a live show, inflatables for the tiny ones and plenty to do for adults, too.”

On Saturday, October 31^st, the show will start at 1 p.m., and still be going as it starts to get dark around 5 p.m. The James River community is planning for approximately 7,000 children for this event.

Aaron Sachs Associates’ personal injury law offices are located in Springfield, Columbia, Cape Girardeau and Joplin. Their community-service outreach program is covered in much greater detail on their website: www.autoinjury.com under the “community service” header.

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October 19, 2009

Telephone Number Marketing

Filed under: Marketing — Pete @ 5:51 pm

Looking at how companies are currently using telephone marketing I was struck by how dated some of the techniques seemed to me. Going forward it seems that there has been a change in how people look at and use telephone numbers as company contact information. Before the web the telephone number on advertising was essential to making sure that people could remember and find you.

In today’s world I think the the web address has replaced the phone number as the information that you need to get potential clients to remember. From the web address the person should be able to contact you through a variety of methods — email, phone, fax and online forms – as long as your website allows that.

A bit of history comes to mind. As a youngster I remember that phone numbers had a name to help people remember the numbers. Something like Klodike 46789 would mean something to the person rembering a phone number. If I have this right it was that you would replace the first 2 letters with the number that is associated with them. So for Klondike it would mean 55. This sounds very quaint today but I still remember my folks and my grandma sharing numbers this way. Also in this time a “long distance” call meant that someone was spending quite alot of money to be making a call that came from a different state or region. All those long distance calls were started by dialing a 1 first.

Companies I think just extrapalated on this idea of the name to number code to help make it easy for people to remeber a number, even if they were away from pencil and paper at the time. So a company might advertise their number as 450-ASAP which again would decode to 450-2727. As the telephone network grew and more and more people were added to the system many phone numbers were expanded to 10 digits, even if was a local call. For instance in my area, Denver, a while back the telephone company did a area code “layover” which means that even neighbors could have different area codes, even is the call was just across the street. These calls did not require a 1 first to dial them.

Many companies have bought numbers that are free to call. These started out as “800″ numbers but now they can be a number of other area codes such as 866 and 888. This was required to handle the number of people that wanted free inbound calls.

This all worked very well but now there is a new member of the party. With cell or mobile phones the free goes right out of the equasion. At least in the North American market cell phone providers will charge for “air time”. That means that they charge for both incoming and outgoing calls. For them it costs for the connection. That makes a “free” call into a call that is no longer free if you are calling from a cell phone.

I was thinking these and other thoughts when I came across a truck that had an “800″ number on its side. They also had a word to help remember the number. While that is all well and good I had this thought. If I wanted to call this company and I had my mobile phone with me there is information that is not of any use to me. For one I am not sure that there is anyone who does not understand that you need to dial a 1 before starting a call like this. The next issue for me is that on my mobile phone ( a blackberry ) there is not an easy to see code on the phone to decode the name to number. So now I have to try and decode their nice “ASAP” name into a number if I am to call them right now today. That is what they call a barrier to entry. It just might be enough of a barrier that I might not make that call at all. Also I do not remeber if there was a web address. If there was I could use that, but since I was so distracted by the name to number decode it just simply slipped my mind.

So in closing I think that as you advertise you must keep in mind how people are finding you and the devices that they have available to them. For many business’s I might think that they can assume that most of their clients have mobile/cell phones. Many of these phones are also smart phones in that they may be able to visit your website right then and there. In the end it is making it easy for potential clients to be able to contact you and I believe that the rules have changed. Have you changed to meet the new model?

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