Category Archives: Web Services

Recently, like Seth Godin suggested, we started looking for way to “redefine a service as a product”.

We’ve found that custom HTML email signatures was a way to use our web design and email management skills to create  an introductory product that’s great for a wide variety of clients. Our typical clients are independent business owners or non-profits who can make their own marketing decisions, but now we have a product that can help franchisees or real estate agents who don’t or can’t have their own web site, but do have control over their email signature.

Email signatures provide a way to offer increased interaction, coupons, calls to action, and integration with review sites, business directories, social media sites, and home pages. They can be inserted into many of the major web based email programs as well as traditional email clients. The images can be hosted on your web server or ours.

We’ve considered branding for the email signatures can range from “mini-web sites at the end of your email” or “custom HTML email signatures”. When we do keyword research for doing our SEO, keyword terms like, “professional email signatures,” “email signatures for business”, and others come up so we might use those.

On our home page, we currently have a huge image of the email signatures product with a giant button that says, “Learn More”. This is in response to feedback we got about our old page design which lacked a central call to action. In the future, we’d like to have that central image and text swap out in what’s called a “content slider”.

This is a new product for us and we’re still doing customer development and looking for feedback. We’ve done many customer interviews and implemented a lot of what we heard in order to continue to iterate the product. The end product may change from where it is now, but so far, it’s shaping up to be something people really like.

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This is a guest post from Robby Slaughter, who runs an Indianapolis consulting firm.

Hiring a web design company is only one step of the process.  Once you have a new custom website designed that meets your needs, you still have to maintain it.

Sure, there are many website design companies in Indianapolis (and elsewhere) that you can pay to manage all of your site content and marketing. But that may not be within your budget. For many small businesses, keeping their website current falls on their own shoulders. And with all of the work that you have to do for clients, managing the website may fall by the wayside.

Ensure You Have a CMS

One of the benefits of working with a web design firm like Watershawl is their use of a CMS, or content management system, to build your website. A CMS is a software application that lets you edit most of the text and  some of the imagery and layout in your site using point-and-click tools.

WordPress, which is the CMS I’m using to write this post, is a popular and effective product in this category. I don’t have to worry about coding or technical details in order to add content to the site. I just login and type.

Get Training on Your CMS

At first, it may seem like you don’t need training to use a tool like WordPress. It’s similar to a word processor. There’s a box you can type into, and there are buttons at the top that you can use to change formatting or insert pictures.

However, just like a word processor, you don’t know what you don’t know. There are some incredible features inside every CMS and without training, you probably won’t find out about them.

Schedule Time To Maintain Your Site

If you plan to write a new blog post once a week, put an hour aside on your calendar and make an appointment with yourself. Or better yet, reserve a day on your calendar to write blog posts for the next two months. Then use, the scheduling feature of your CMS to parcel the blog posts out over time.

Don’t know how to schedule posts? Talk to your website design company.

Create a Guest Login

This is an incredible productivity secret that will save you time. If you want to have others post on your blog, create a guest account for them. That way, you don’t have to ask them to send their post by email, copy and paste it into WordPress, and deal with formatting issues. Instead, you’ll find out that there’s a new post ready to be reviewed. What could be easier?

In short, you can actually be more efficient when maintaining your website. Talk to your website design company about your CMS. And if you don’t have one, considering checking with Watershawl about moving to a platform like WordPress.

Good luck!

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Unless you act before March 30th, Facebook will automatically change your Facebook Page to the new Timeline layout. This means that your business page will no longer look the same and therefore any custom tabs or images you created for your Facebook Page will move or be changed. The biggest change is the addition of an optional “Cover” photo which is 850px wide by 315px tall. We’ve designed some Facebook Page covers for several of our social media management clients that we’d like to showcase here.

You can find our Facebook page here. Please let us know what you think about it in the comments below.

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I realize we just updated our logo a couple of months ago, but consider that an iteration on the way to the final product, which you can see here. The last logo was a circle of blue around an empty center, with a cutout at the bottom. It was meant to symbolize a ring of water encircling the customer, but some people just didn’t get it or thought it looked like an unfinished life preserver.

Our new logo essentially means the same thing as the old logo: it’s a water shawl surrounding the customer representing the suite of services we provide. But one peculiar thing happened once the new logo was created. I was on my way to Lafayette to visit a networking meeting and I realized that the “water shawl” could also represent a “cloud”. It was if a light bulb went off and I didn’t know how I had missed it before. Watershawl was a cloud consulting firm that specialized in WordPress web design and Google Apps integrations.

What is Watershawl?

Watershawl has helped small businesses around Indiana build cloud-powered, WordPress web sites; and cloud-based email, document, and sales management. Watershawl provides cloud technology consulting to help small businesses do more with cloud applications and platforms like WordPress, Google Apps, and Salesforce.com. Our services range from cloud marketing to cloud migration to cloud management. Cloud technology helps small businesses market their business, reduce spam, and be more productive all at a lower price point than traditional software.

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After reading what Fusion Alliance wrote about Information Security and writing what I did about WordPress Security, I thought I’d write a bit more about how we keep our client’s WordPress web sites secure here at Watershawl.

WordPress Updates

WordPress is updated regularly to address new security issues that may arise so we’re always updating our client’s to the latest version to keep them secure. Since version 2.7, WordPress has featured automatic updates and the WordPress Dashboard lets us know when the updates are available.

WordPress Plugins

One of the most common attacks against a WordPress web site is HTTP exploit payloads for specific vulnerabilities in outdated plugins. Plugins are add-on software that runs on top of WordPress. Think of WordPress as the operating system and plugins as the programs. If you’re not using a plugin, delete it from the system.

WordPress Themes

If your WordPress theme uses custom scripts to render thumbnails or other images they might be susceptible to being exploited. This happened to one of our web hosting clients who purchased a theme they were using on their WordPress web site. A hacker exploited the vulnerability and used our server to begin sending out spam before it was stopped.

Secure FTP (SFTP)

We use secure FTP (SFTP) to transmit files, which means we protect our server passwords while transmitting your files on the Internet. If you’re still using regular FTP, you’re sending your password via plain-text over the Internet, which is like using a post card to send your credit card information to someone.

WordPress Backups

In the event that all of these security steps still lead to a problem with our client’s site, we make local backups of all of our client’s sites and because we use two web hosts for our web hosting, we can restore those backups on another web host in order to keep your web site up in the event of a problem.

If you’re looking for an experienced WordPress web designer and WordPress web host in the Indianapolis area, contact Watershawl at 317-572-7521.

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Google AdWords

One of the things that can really help get your website traffic fast is paid advertising.

We recently helped an Indianapolis dentist get started with paid advertising from Google AdWords. We came up with a marketing plan together and created a budget. We were able to use input from the client and data from Google Analytics to know what people had been searching for and finding them in the past. Basically, we wanted to amplify and expedite what the site was already doing well through content marketing and SEO.

We setup a campaign for the metropolitan area of Indianapolis, funded it with an initial payment, and setup 6 different ads so we could test to see which one was more effective. We plan on revisiting this over the next couple of days to see which ones were more popular and possibly add new ones. The ads usually take a little under a day to start showing up. This is because of an initial approval process by Google and for time for the payment to process.

Bid Per Call

One recently new feature (added in 2011) is a bid-per-call feature that allows you to bid for phone calls, in addition to bidding for clicks, when you show Google search ads on computers and tablets. According to Google, both your max bid per click (max CPC bid) and max cost-per-call bid (max CPP bid) can influence your ad’s position on the results page. You can increase your ad position and drive more phone calls to your business by setting a bid that is equal to or greater than the $1 minimum call fee.

Bid-per-call requires you to use a Google forwarding number when you activate call extensions. It provides detailed call reporting, so you can have a better sense of the value of calls and clicks your campaigns are generating.

With bid-per-call, the maximum cost-per-call (CPP) and your call Quality Score will be factored into your Ad Rank. This means that you’ll automatically be rewarded with higher ad position and lower cost per call when your phone number is useful to users. And you’ll have increased control over the position of your ads and your call volume by adjusting your bid. As always, you’ll never pay more than you’re willing to for either a phone call or a click.

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Pages for Google+

Different people are interested in different parts of your business. Whether it’s breaking news, updates, promotions, links, photos – even talking face-to-face with groups via easy-to-use video chat – Google+ lets you easily share the right things with the right customers. And unlike Facebook, Pages for Google+ can actually help your SEO efforts.

Google advocates putting the +1 button anywhere you’d like people to be able to recommend your business, products or services to friends and contacts all across the web. Google+ makes it easy to learn more about how your followers’ interactions on your page affect your brand, and your business.

We’ve been testing Pages for Google+ for a couple of months now. We ran into one instance where we couldn’t add more pages for our customers, but we found that we were just in a waiting period before being able to add more. This is probably a built-in protection against spamming.

Need help setting up your Google+ Page for your business? We can help.

About Google+

Google+, the search giant’s new social network and answer to Facebook features a new friend list function called “circles”, which has been very positive overall. Users have commented that it’s the easiest system on the market for putting friends into groups, making it easier to share posts with just your business colleagues or your family. We are really interested in the circles option, but it needs more people on there so it doesn’t die like Google Buzz. We like the idea of circles and the integrated video chat/hangout function. They’re not really inventing anything new, just putting things like Facebook groups and Skype-like chat front and center. It becomes a more cozy place to hang out online. Facebook will start to look more stuck up and sterile over time, the same way MySpace started to look more trashy.

We have noticed there are less people requesting to be friends and less friend requests being answered. We think Facebook peaked in 2009 and started to decline after that. But even though numbers are down, they are still number one, for now. It has to do with elasticity, which used in this context means peoples ability to want and except change. In the beginning, when things are new, people are more lenient and will try new things, but over time, ideas harden and change becomes harder. It works with friendships, departments, new businesses, and even social networks. We’ve got high hopes for Google’s inventiveness. The on-demand video chat feature called “Hangouts” is a great idea. Considering it’s 2011, We’re suprised that’s not a feature that we take for granted already.

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Is Google Docs Cloud Computing?

Google Docs is a free (with paid service options): Web-based word processor, spreadsheet, presentation, form, and data storage service offered by Google. It allows users to create and edit documents online while collaborating in real-time with other users. Google Docs is Google’s “software as a service” office suite. Documents, spreadsheets, presentations can be created with Google Docs, imported through the web interface, or sent via email. Documents can be saved to a user’s local computer in a variety of formats including: (ODF, HTML, PDF, RTF, Text, Microsoft Word). Documents are automatically saved to Google’s servers to prevent data loss, and a revision history is automatically kept. Documents can be tagged and archived for organizational purposes.

Google Docs serves as a collaborative tool for editing amongst users and non-users in real time. Documents can be shared, opened, and edited by multiple users at the same time. Users can be notified of changes to any specified regions via e-mail. The application supports two ISO standard document formats: OpenDocument (for both opening and exporting) and Office Open XML (for opening only). It also includes support for proprietary formats such as .doc and .xls. Google Docs is one of many cloud computing, document-sharing services like Microsoft Office Live. The majority of document-sharing services require user fees, but Google Docs is free (mostly). Its popularity amongst businesses is growing due to enhanced sharing features, accessibility, and stability (it’s no longer in beta). In addition, Google Docs has enjoyed a rapid rise in popularity among students and educational institutions.

Is Windows Live Cloud Computing?

Windows Live is the collective brand name for a set of services and software products from Microsoft, which is part of their “software plus services” platform. While a majority of these services are Web (cloud) applications, accessible from any browser, there are also client-side (binary) applications that require installation on a user’s PC.

There are three ways in which Windows Live services are offered:

1. Windows Live Essentials applications - Windows Live Messenger, Windows Mail, Windows Photo Gallery, Windows Movie Maker, and Windows Live Essentials
2. Web services – Hotmail, SkyDrive, Windows Live Contacts, Windows Live Calendar, and Windows Live Devices
3. Mobile services - Windows Phone Live

Windows Live is different and separate from Xbox LIVE, which is a multiplayer gaming and content delivery system for Microsoft’s Xbox and Xbox 360 as well as the Games for Windows – LIVE multiplayer gaming service for Microsoft Windows. However, formerly separate, Office Live, (Microsoft Office cloud) services are now part of Windows Live services.

So is Windows Live actually “cloud computing” like the commercial says? Some of it is and some of it isn’t. Find out more at Windows Cloud.

Read more on cloud storage solutions from Dropbox, Google, and Microsoft.

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The future of IT is in cloud computing, but how do you explain that to the “C” level executives? This model uses two specific business metrics and 5 ways that you can explain the ROI of cloud computing to your boss or to the board:

• IT capacity – storage (GB or TB), CPU cycles (GHz or THz), network bandwidth (Mbs or Gbs), and/or memory capacity (RAM) a measure of performance.

• IT utilization – uptime availability (% available per year) and volume of usage (# of requests) as indicators of activity and usability.

Effective cost/performance ratios and levels of usage activity do not necessarily imply proportional business benefits. They are just indicators of business activity that are not in themselves more valuable than lower operating costs. What is needed instead is a set of business metrics that build on the cloud computing model.

The following are business metrics that can help translate the indicators from the capacity-utilization curve to direct and indirect benefits to business and examples of how a CAPEX is different than an OPEX in cloud computing:

1. The speed and rate of change – Cost reduction and cost of adoption/de-adoption is faster in the cloud. Cloud computing creates additional cost transformation benefits by reducing delays in decision costs by adopting pre-built services and a faster rate of transition to new capabilities. This is a common goal for business improvement programs that are lacking resources and skills and that are time sensitive.

2. Total cost of ownership (TCO) optimization – In cloud computing, users-not just IT-can select, design, configure, and run infrastructure and applications that are best suited for their business needs. Traditionally this has often been strictly in the realm of IT even after projects are handed off to production services, but in cloud computing environments end users are more involved.

3. Rapid, elastic provisioning for dynamic usage – Resources can be scaled up and down to follow business activity as it expands and grows or is redirected. Provisioning time compression can go from weeks to hours. This service management affects end users and business needs as the scope of functionality and services for users evolve and seek new solutions.

4. Increased margin and cost control – Revenue growth and cost control opportunities allow companies to pursue new customers and markets for business growth and service improvement. And because it can scale, IT avoids over-and under-provisioning of IT services to allow for smarter business services. This is enhanced capacity utilization, the ability to add and use hardware on-demand without extra hardware or labor costs.

5. Business process improvement – Cloud computing capabilities can be leveraged through shared services. Users can have access to business capabilities allowing improvement or development of new skills and solutions through cloud sourcing and on demand solutions like Amazon Web Services, Google Apps, IBM Cloud Computing, Microsoft Azure, and HP Cloud Assure.

These five measures define a new set of business metrics that can be used to create a matrix and dashboard of your current and future operational business and IT service needs relating to your cloud computing potential return on investment.

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There are three good options for small businesses wanting to store and share documents in on the Internet in the cloud: Dropbox, Google Apps, and Microsoft’s Office 365, Docs for Facebook, and Windows Live SkyDrive.

Dropbox

Simplify your business and boost productivity with the freedom to use the same tools you work with daily. This means you don’t have to switch the programs you use, you just have to switch where you save and open your documents.

You can share Word documents, Powerpoint slides, and large files easily and securely with colleagues and/or clients. Collaborate across the hall or around the globe and get more work done on the go because your files are always available from Dropbox.

Dropbox works with Windows, Mac, Linux, iPad, iPhone, Android, and BlackBerry. It even works when you’re offline. You always have your files, whether or not you have a connection. Watch your changes synced instantly across shared folders.

With easy setup and control you can get started in minutes. Put Dropbox for your business on a single invoice for all of your employees and manage and migrate accounts with admin controls. If someone leaves, you can simply change their permissions online and if someone needs more space, use the admin panel to add more.

This is the same service trusted by tens of millions of personal users that’s now available for businesses. Enjoy dedicated phone support, bank grade AES-256 bit encryption, and unlimited version history for all your files. This means that you can view previous versions of your files if you need it.

Plans start at $795 for 5 users, but before you balk at the price think about all of the other hardware and software this one service is replacing. There are no more USB flash drives, external USB backups, taking backups to an off-site location, managing grandfather schemes to keep revisions, or buying expensive file servers. There is one more login account that users will have to manage, but that’s a minor inconvenience for what you’re getting.

Google Apps

Google’s web-based messaging and collaboration apps are more than just cloud storage, but they can do that too.

Google Apps requires no hardware or software and needs minimal administration, creating tremendous time and cost savings for businesses. Google allows email clients like Microsoft Outlook to have POP or IMAP access to email, contacts and calendar so the transition can even be seamless to your employees.

Each employee gets 25 GB for email storage, so they can keep important messages and find them instantly with built-in Google search. This is higher than what personal Google Mail users get, which is hovering around 8 GB right now. Google Docs lets you store documents in the cloud in a Dropbox-like way, but only 1 GB of storage is included with the plan. More storage can be added as needed for a nominal fee.

Gmail is designed so employees can spend less time managing their inboxes, and more time being productive. Time-saving features like message threading, message labels, fast message search and powerful spam filtering help employees work efficiently with high volumes of email. It’s spam protection is one of the primary reasons we recommend Google Apps for business.

With several options for accessing their information while on the go, employees can be productive with Google Apps even when they’re not at their desks. At no extra charge, Google Apps supports over-the-air mobile access on BlackBerry devices, the iPhone, Windows Mobile, Android and many less powerful phones.

With synchronous replication, your data and activity in Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs and Google Sites is simultaneously preserved in multiple secure data centers. If one data center is unable to serve your requests, the system is designed to instantly fall back to another data center that can serve your account with no interruption in service.

Integration options let you connect Google Apps to your existing IT infrastructure if you’re business is already on a domain and support options include: phone support for critical issues, email support, and self-service online support. Plans start at $5 per user per month or $50 per user per year.

Microsoft Office 365, Docs for Facebook, and Windows Live SkyDrive

Office 365

For those who want the familiar Microsoft Office collaboration and productivity tools delivered through the cloud, Office 365 is the ideal solution. Everyone can work together easily with anywhere access to email, web conferencing, documents, and calendars. It includes business-class security and is backed by Microsoft. Whether you are a small business or multinational enterprise, Office 365 offers plans designed to fit your organization’s unique needs.

Microsoft Office 365 for professionals and small businesses is $6 per user per month subscription that lets your employees access email, documents, contacts, and calendar from virtually anywhere on almost any device. This plan is ideal for organizations with fewer than 25 employees that do not have IT staff or expertise. Compare Office 365 to Google Apps for Business.

Docs for Facebook

Built using Microsoft Office 2010, Docs for Facebook provides the best possible document service for the Facebook environment. Seamless integration with Facebook means that the service is all about sharing your documents. Docs enables Facebook users for the first time to create and share Microsoft Office documents directly with their Facebook friends, using the Office tools they already know. Docs uses the Facebook login and is intended for personal use, but can be used for business if it suits your needs.

Windows Live SkyDrive

Windows Live SkyDrive is a free cloud storage service that allows users to upload files to Internet file storage and then access them from a Web browser. It is part of Microsoft’s Windows Live range of online services, and uses Windows Live ID to control access to files, allowing users to keep the files private, share them with contacts, or make the files public. Publicly-shared files do not require a Windows Live ID to access. The service offers 25 GB of free personal storage, with individual files limited to 100 MB. Compare this service to Dropbox for Teams.

Watershawl Technology Consulting

If you need help choosing or deploying any of these solutions at your business, contact Indianapolis Technology Consultants, Watershawl, Inc. We serve the Greater Indianapolis area, but travel all over the state of Indiana helping small business owners get more out of their technology.

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