Every once in a while you run across a web site that has many of the desirable aspects you might look for in design and simplicity. These days there seems to be so much clutter on most sites without thought to what's really trying to be done. BuyLightFixtures.com is a Minnesota lighting company and has one of those sites which has the simple attitude when people are looking to buy light bulbs or light fixtures. We like this site for how it makes navigation easy with good images and fast load times. If you haven't seen it, check it out and let us know what you think.

I recently had the pleasure of visiting a fine men's restroom in the area I live in. It was clean and that always makes me feel good, at least having the illusion that disease is far from me. Of course, we know that isn't true, lurking everywhere in public bathrooms are a uncountable number of germs which are cross breeding into super microbes. Apart from the health issues, I saw an interesting thing in the urinal. There was a plastic cover which prevents stuff from being thrown into the urinal clogging it up. But what it said amazed me. The printing on it showed the manufacturer with the tag line, "Don't use drugs". I believe that when your message has a good chance to get urinated on, it has a diminishing factor on your idea or promotion.

I know that if I was a addict, it wouldn't stop me from using drugs. I imagine an addict seeing this and instead of being detered, is reminded that it's time for a little white powder. This gets to my idea of the of a message. When a message is trivialized, it is more than worthless, it actually goes backwards. The idea is that you need to get what you have in front of everyone regardless of the medium. The medium still is the message, that is, it affects the message by what channel it goes through. That why a lot of web marketing makes no sense. Sprayed everywhere like fertilizer, people think that something will grow, but the truth is a seed must have been planted first. In the case of urinal advertising, I can't think of a poorer way to communicate an important message except for maybe spam marketing or banner ads, completely out of context and useless.

Real marketing for higher web site rankings, RealWebMarketing.com

For those of you who have been in a cave over the past several years, software delivery and digital rights management have become important for many companies offering these products. Many people don't know about the Minnesota company that helps other companies get thier software sold online as an outsourced solution. That's Digital River. They are probably one of the most successful software solution companies in Minnesota, but few people really know much about them. They have an interesting history starting out with very humble means and then growing into a full service provider of solutions for worldwide distribution. Check out thier web site to learn more about this Minnesota business success.

Real marketing ideas for better web results, RealWebMarketing.com

There is excellent local company to the Minneapolis and St. Paul area which specializes in rattan and wicker furniture. The company is Aaxxons.com and they have a wonderful selection of all kinds of rattan and they even have bean bags for sale too.

Their web site has a clean look and is easy to navigate to see what they have. The photos are good and give you an idea of all the types of things they do. The web site is fairly new but the company isn't and have been around for many, many years. Take a look at their site, it's easy to find furniture you might want. It's an easy, logical web site that will show how keeping things simple makes for good web marketing.

I found this article about a guy who has a jewelry business and the fact that he's in Colorado right now but many other states as well. It documents some of his success but there is an interesting reference to Minnesota in all this. There was a period of time in his life where the article states, "after a winter in Minnesota" he moved to Texas. I think this is interesting that he didn't stay here and it leads me to wonder about what happened in that cold winter of Minnesota. Minnesota can do that to people who weren't used to the rigors of winter, they generally leave. I wonder if it had anything to do with the business climate here which sometimes can be as cold as the winter. But those of us to stay here and make a life here know something that people from other places don't. Cold weather keeps some of the riffraff out. It's as simple as that. No, this doesn't have much to do with Internet marketing, but it does make a point. You've got to find the place where you are most comfortable and can to the best at what you do on a daily basis. There are opportunities here in Minnesota even in the winter that few other places can offer. I'm going to use this statement more often, "after a winter in Minnesota" to dig deeper and to see the role the diversity plays in a life in the north. If the sun was always shining and the air was always warm, would we discover who we really are?

Real marketing ideas for the web, RealWebMarketing.com

Please don't forget to visit my web site www.realwebmarketing.com if you are a Minnesota business or a web site owner who wants to get better search results for their web site. We help companies get better results by creating or updating a web site to good search engine standards. There's never been a better time to take a look at how your web site can make your business thrive.

Recently I've seen news articles regarding shoppers online and how they use search engines 51% of the time. This really isn't a news item. Many people use search engines for a lot of different reasons, but shopping is one of those main tasks that people do. Of course, there are shopping sites but a lot of those leave something to be desired. Usually comparison shopping online isn't complete and doesn't have what you're looking for. That's still what makes search engine so popular when it comes to online shopping. If you can find what you're looking for, the comparison isn't that important. Until there are tools which can definitively find what you're looking for and give you a price comparison, search engines will be the default vehicle for finding what you need.

I sometimes wonder why press releases like this are even mentioned as a news item. Isn't it really obvious that the search engines are getting used to a great extent? But perhaps the question is, are people aware of what natural search results are and what paid search results are? I think in most search engines it's pretty obvious which is which. The ads are on the right hand column and the natural listings are usually in the center. But what is most troubling is that the trend is to crowd out the natural listings with paid listings. From some of the articles I've seen, it doesn't seem to matter to people as much as it used to. Although I think most people trust natural listings, they will go for paid listings if they can't find what they're looking for. The question isn't whether shoppers use search engines, they do. The main thing to glean from it is whether it's the right kind of shopper for a web site. And I guess that all depends on how they got there in the first place.

Getting real for the web, RealWebMarketing.com