Westward Strategy is proud to announce a recently launched robust eCommerce web solution for a Las Vegas Client: Furniture Etc USA (www.furnitureetcusa.com). Westward Strategy provided an affordable ecommerce solution that used low cost and efficient entry level interns to help facilitate the loading of the website. This in turn kept overall cost down for the client.

About Furniture Etc USA
Furniture. Art, Accessories and more
Specializing in fine furniture and home accessories for the bedroom, dining room, living room, kids and youth furniture and more! 30-day money-back guarantee on all purchases. Fine furniture and home accessories for the bedroom, dining room, living room, kids and youth furniture and more!

Contact Kristy Crabtree for a website appraisal or Chris Gandolfo for an SEO consultation. Westward Strategy is a Sparks and Reno Web Agency providing cost effective and affordable online marketing solutions. We maximize your revenue with SMART Web Design.

It’s Friday but truly my Wednesday and I’m feeling a little emotional and wanted to take a few minutes to say Thank You for everything that happened this last week and am very much looking forward to the next! Have a great weekend!

1. Thank You
- to the following new Nevada web design clients and new Oregon web design client for allowing all of us at Westward Strategy to work with you and your business. We truly appreciate the relationships.

Nevada Web Design and Nevada SEO Clients

• The Gold ‘N Silver Inn - Best Breakfast in Reno
• The UPS Stores – Reno, Sparks and Carson City
• Recycled Furniture – Best Used Furniture
• Adventure Productions – Best Place to Learn to Fly
• Belding Physical Therapy – Best Sparks Massage
• Reno Big Band – Best Reno JAZZ Orchestra
• Sierra Firefighters – Best Patches O’houlihan Dodgeball Tournament
• Furniture USA - Best Beljen Mills Rugs

Oregon Web Design

• Paramount Bedding – Best Bedding in Oregon

2. Thank You to ‘The FNG’
– this was a great first week and we look forward to many more (well actually, I better take that back and give you another week before I make up my mind: HA – you know I’m kiddin’!)

3. Thank You Annie
– We’re getting you a spiked collar for that unleashed Bulldog I know you are. Your generiosity does not go without notice.

4. Thank You
– to everyone that still builds some things using tables so I don’t feel all that outdated.

5. Thank You Chris
– for burning a copy of the New Metallica CD: Happy Death Magnetic Day. I needed a break from JT.

Pew found that the use of search engines, both the large generic kind and the small site specific kind, has risen dramatically since 2002. Where the use of email on a daily basis rose just 15 percent, the use of search rose 69 percent.

The best part is Pew gives us the demographic information to go with their study.

Those who are using search engines on an average day are more likely to be socially upscale, with at least some college education and incomes over $50,000 per year. They are more likely to be Internet users with at least six years of online experience and to have their homes wired for fast Internet connections.

Younger Internet users are more likely than older users to search on a typical day, and men are more likely than women to search on an average day, Pew reported. And those who use broadband connections at home are significantly more likely than those who use dial-up to have ever tried using search engines at all, by 94 percent to 80 percent.

With the explosion of content on the web, more and more users are integrating search into their daily activities with the expectation that utilizing this tool will garner the information they are looking for from an otherwise impenetrable mountain of information. Thus far major search engines have been able to answer this call (from the user’s standpoint) and each successful return of relevant information from a search query builds trust with the search engine and warrants it’s use the next time the user is seeking assistance.

As we tell all of our clients, just having a website does not mean it will generate traffic or dollars to the bottom line. Your website must be functional and findable.

“We think this new site will be a state-of-the-art platform for getting employer’s and job seekers together. One of the largest challenges we face in growing the local economy has been the difficulty that our businesses have had finding the employees that they need. This new site will potentially allow us to have a global scope in our recruiting efforts. The site will be a resource 24/7, every day of the year, and have a reach that traditional advertising and job fairs simply do not provide.” - HDA Board Chairman Pat Gray

Why Should a Humboldt County-Nevada, Employer Sign-Up and Use the Job Posting Tool – WinnemuccaWorks.Com?

• It is a free service.
• It will give an employer the ability to advertise for employees 24 hours per day, seven days per week, 365 days per year.
• This method of advertising can reach not only a local audience, but across the entire globe.
• Should help to attract more tech savy candidates, something every business needs these days in nearly every job position.
• Postings can be displayed when you want, for just as long as you need them. When not in use they can be archived, then retrieved, updated and reused.
• Using the most up-to-date search engine optimization technology, WinnemuccaWorks will continue to refine the content and update the site to maximize its rankings on Google, and all the major search engines.
• This is a case of us all being stronger if we work together. The more content we have, and the more postings that are made, the more powerful and effective the site becomes in attracting workers searching the internet for Nevada jobs.
• There are many, many job search sites out there, but what will set us apart is that this site will only post jobs for local employers. People looking for jobs in Northern Nevada will find us, and not have to sort though a pile of listings concerning work at home schemes, and jobs that are located elsewhere.

The site was the brain child of the HDA’s Workforce Attraction and Development Committee, and has been designed and created by Westward Strategy of Sparks, Nevada. The funding for WinnemuccaWorks.Com was provided by the Humboldt Development Authority along with a grant from the Nevada Commission on Economic Development.

If you have any question about the site or how to use it, call Bill Sims, Coordinator, Humboldt Development Authority, at (775) 623-1064 or use the “Contact Us” form at www.winnemuccaworks.com

Also featured in the THE HUMBOLDT SUN: July 18-21, 2008
Volume 39, Issue 58. Read the Full Article - Local Employment Website Now Avaialble

Featured in the Las Vegas Review Journal

After being a Web design developer for a local company, Kristy Crabtree decided to open her own company. Westward Strategy & Design Group was established to offer professional services to the small companies that might not want to invest large sums of money to get onto the Internet to promote their services or products.

“I had worked my way up in 13 years with my employer, from an apprentice to director of professional services, and I was managing 12 to 15 technical and creative designers,” Crabtree said. “I wanted my company to be more of a boutique agency. More intimate with the customers. Because I have low overhead, I have more time to spend with my clients. I wanted to target a different audience.”

Crabtree started her company from a home office two years ago. She now shares a 2,200-square-foot building in Sparks with ACS Business Insurance Services. Crabtree runs her office with one full-time employee, three technical contractors and herself.

“The technical people do the heavy program duties, set up shopping carts. Things like that,” Crabtree said.

Her customers range from sole proprietors to companies with 15 to 20 employees. “I don’t go after the larger clients. There is a place for them. I did not believe anybody was facilitating the niche market I want,” she said.

Crabtree says that a new customer coming to her needs to understand who his or her audience is. Clients also need to have goals and objectives they want to sell or the service or product they are offering. She stressed that so much is happening on the Web these days that anyone in business needs to have a presence or they will miss out on clients.

Another plus to having a Web site, according to Crabtree, is that analytical reports can be produced to show activity on the site. This type of tracking helps with marketing goals. Her company will produce monthly or quarterly reports as required.

“The typical site will have a home page that tells about the company or information about the team that works with the product or services,” Crabtree said. She also likes to set up a news page that tells more about the company. The Web site will be set up to provide fresh information.

She also advises each company to have its own domain name and to maintain ownership.

Clients interested in art or photography can get stock photos on Web sites. “They are very reasonable in price. If you search long enough online, as we do, you know which photos have not been used,”

She said that her assistant, Chris Gandolfo, a professional photographer, will also do photos.

In planning for a Web site, the company has to decide if it wants to reach a local area or a global audience.

Crabtree said she often has companies with existing sites come for a redesign.

“We first ask if they have any analytical tools to get information as to how a Web site is performing. We find out if anybody has been going to the site. We like to sit back for about a month so we can get information. We will create basically how I would plan to help fix (the site). We don’t want their money to go down the drain. We’re a small business, too. We understand money is important to everybody.”

Crabtree said she is always eager to accommodate the customer’s needs. Her company can set up a Web site in just a short time, but generally takes about two months to finish a detailed product.

The cost of a Web site with Westward Strategy & Design Goup runs as low as $500, but depending upon the content and intricacy can also run $10,000 or more.

Doug Kurkul, CEO of the Reno Sparks Chamber of Commerce, said that last January he entrusted Crabtree’s company to redesign the chamber web site www.renosparkschamber.org and he said he was quite satisfied with the results.

“I’ve dealt with Web designers for 13 years now,” Kurkul said. “I believe that Westward Strategy & Design is one of the best I’ve ever dealt with. They are easy to work with and they have outstanding skills on both technical and on artistic aspects of web design.”

I have long admired Opera for their educational aspect and their desire to advance the skill level of web workers everywhere. Looking over the outline of the documents it appears this is almost identical to the way I was educated at the University of Idaho and, as Sophia states in her article, it is extremely difficult to find a program like that – that is independent of computer science or graphic design. However, if the web is going to reach the longevity and revered status of print we need more educational institutions to begin teaching and sculpting artisans of this “new media” without the limitations of established programs, but also on top of or ahead of modern practices.

I can’t wait for the rest of the articles to come out!

A new football-tossing machine by Verdi-based Sports Attack LLC might just give the tiny 13-year-old company a leg-up in the sports throwing-machine industry.

Sports Attack last week introduced its “Snap Attack,� a throwing machine that simulates the quarterback snap, as well as the passing and kicking aspects of football. The company introduced the machine at football clinics in Georgia and Florida, but Sports Attack co-founder Doug Boehner says it’s too early to gauge feedback for future sales. Read Full Artcle>>

All of us at Westward have had the privilege of working with Sports Attack, LLC for a few months now and have helped them exceed their sales goals by adding search engine marketing and SEO (Search Engine Optimization) to their arsenal of marketing tactics. Their passion for their business is evident in every pitching machine, serving machine, and now football throwing machine that leave their facility.

It has been a rewarding experience to work with such passionate people!

A new football-tossing machine by Verdi-based Sports Attack LLC might just give the tiny 13-year-old company a leg-up in the sports throwing-machine industry.

Sports Attack last week introduced its “Snap Attack,� a throwing machine that simulates the quarterback snap, as well as the passing and kicking aspects of football. The company introduced the machine at football clinics in Georgia and Florida, but Sports Attack co-founder Doug Boehner says it’s too early to gauge feedback for future sales. Read Full Artcle>>

All of us at Westward have had the privilege of working with Sports Attack, LLC for a few months now and have helped them exceed their sales goals by adding search engine marketing and SEO (Search Engine Optimization) to their arsenal of marketing tactics. Their passion for their business is evident in every pitching machine, serving machine, and now football throwing machine that leave their facility.

It has been a rewarding experience to work with such passionate people!

Not much has changed in the past month. The title tags and the descriptions are still the global setup we implemented when the site went live and little to no content has changed since launch date as well. So, it’s no surprise that that a couple of our rankings have slipped a few spots. The content is slowly starting to get stale and I suspect the duplicate titles and descriptions will have a greater impact in the coming month.

However we can no longer say the site has only one link from our blog. We did release one article through a few article marketing websites and that has generated about a dozen links back to the site.

June 7, 2008

• ceo skills development program – #1
• skill development – #5
• leadership skills development – #9
• ceo lack of leadership – #11

July 8, 2008

• ceo skills development program – #2
• skill development – #7
• leadership skills development – #7
• leadership skill development – #1
• ceo lack of leadership – #23
• NEW! – small business coaching gym – #7

Are these the most competitive phrases? Not necessarily, but the traffic they are driving is more direct and average time on site is much higher than other sources of traffic. Conversion rate is ok, but definitely not where we want it to be – yet. Stay tuned for more updates in the future.