In this article I am going to take a step back from the standard learn about how to take advantage of the Internet for your business and cover how a widow maker heart attack can change your life and help you help others around you. A life altering even can easily change those around you to make your life more fulfilling than it was before.

There are many free local online listing services, like our very own Find Business Directory. Using these services, you can increase the visibility of your website and further build your company brand. In this article we are going to cover many of the listings that you can list your business for free with minimal time and effort.

We recently built a website for one of our Valparaiso Indiana clients. They heard about us because of our membership in the Valparaiso Chamber of Commerce but also because of our new Business Finder Directory where every JM2 Webdesigners customer receives a Platinum membership free of charge ($180/year value). During the process we thought about what goes into building a professional website solution for our clients. The entire process took around 20 hours to complete and as we dug into what was involved we thought we would share so that others can see what we feel was a great effort by our entire team.

On Friday, January 8, 2016 we launched a Business Finding Directory from our Valparaiso Indiana office. We felt and know that the only way to grow was to make a difference by changing what businesses have done in the past. We knew there were dozen, possibly hundreds, of companies that were doing the same thing. We saw they all were focused on either charging the business or the consumer. We felt both should be allowed to get their good and positive words out there without having to spend a fortune. For those that wanted greater exposure they could advertise to get that exposure but at a cost that even the smallest company could be part of.

Based on customer and our sales team requests we needed to find a solution for our restaurants to get them increased exposure without adding costs to our restaurant clients (currently the largest part of our business). To do this we needed a solution that could provide value to them without increasing their already tight operating costs. As we built our system it expanded from being specific to restaurants to being built for any type of business. Rather than just listing coupons businesses can now offer products, services, and coupons.

We are starting the year off about how to prevent abandonment issues with your eCommerce site. Abandonment issues are the true killer of any eCommerce site. We are going to cover the major issues that we’ve seen in regard to visitors coming to an eCommerce site and abandon their shopping cart.

We send out monthly emails like most businesses that have a marketing strategy to stay in constant contact with their customers. Email is extremely effective in getting your information in a person’s inbox. Text marketing will take your email marketing to a new level that is read more often, more quickly, and is great for time sensitive information.

As a web design, eCommerce, and software development company we are obviously biased that a company needs a website to be successful. We will do our best in this article to step back and explain why your business truly needs one and why just having a Facebook page (or no page at all) is not a good business decision.

In 2016 we see a continued growth from what started out in 2015 with a true emphasis on the customer experience. Whether this is the interface of your website or the personalization to provide content rich information for consumers. We do see some shifts in the way the Internet works with the improvements in computer algorithms (had to say we are programmers after all). These are due to the major players (Google, Microsoft, Apple, Twitter, and Facebook) taking on more personas to make the Internet a more personable experience for users.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is becoming a big item lately and for good reason. Social media alone will only get you so far in the engagement process with your customers. Social media isn’t your “brand”, you have no control over the look-and-feel, colors, layout, etc. Companies are quickly learning that social media is important to engage their customers and their website and eCommerce sites are equally important to help close the sale. Companies want to get out the good word about their products and services and they want the search engines to work for them to get that good word out.