http://roninstudios.com/forum/ Ronin Studios Client Forum en-US Sat, 19 May 2012 03:26:33 +0000 http://bbpress.org/?v=1.0.2 q http://roninstudios.com/forum/search.php http://roninstudios.com/forum/topic.php?id=39#post-97 Mon, 22 Nov 2010 16:54:26 +0000 Carmen 97@http://roninstudios.com/forum/ <p>Hello Scott,</p> <p>My name is Carmen Richard. I was in your internet marketing class on the morning of November 3rd. You probably remember, I was the young woman working as a marketing intern for Portland Mindfulness Therapy. I have a question that I hope you could help me with.</p> <p>My employer wants to increase the company search engine ranking on a couple of key words, namely "Portland therapy" and "Portland therapist". To do this, he wants me to post duplicate content (blog entries/articles) on numerous different websites for SEO. I'm feeling a little overwhelmed by this. There are a lot of different websites I could do this on, but is it really worth my time and energy? Will it make much of a difference? Do you have a better suggestion?</p> <p>I would really appreciate your input on this. There isn't anyone in the office with any true internet expertise.</p> <p>Thank you,</p> <p>-Carmen<br /> <a href="http://www.portlandmindful.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.portlandmindful.com</a> </p> http://roninstudios.com/forum/topic.php?id=52#post-115 Fri, 22 Jul 2011 19:24:34 +0000 KylePDX 115@http://roninstudios.com/forum/ <p>Hi Scott and the forum community,</p> <p>I'm in the process of putting together the first pieces of my WordPress site. Does anyone have advice for the newbie and what I should push forward with (or avoid)? </p> <p>I'm in the financial services industry and I would be looking at some tools to bring to my site visitors. There are so many tools out there...right now I'm looking at a retirement savings calculator, life insurance needs calculator and long term care calculator.</p> <p>What would you do OR what would you want to see if you visited a website and you wanted to learn more about various financial services that pertained to your personal situation? </p> http://roninstudios.com/forum/topic.php?id=51#post-111 Sun, 19 Jun 2011 05:51:46 +0000 sara 111@http://roninstudios.com/forum/ <p>Hi Scott-</p> <p>I was wondering about your opinion of services such as webgreeter.com? I've not been impressed in my interactions with that particular company. But I'm guessing there are others out there, and I find the idea interesting. At the same time, I'm one of the people that gets very annoyed at popups or anything intrusive, so I'm not really sure about it.</p> <p>Any thoughts?</p> <p>Thanks.</p> <p>Sara </p> http://roninstudios.com/forum/topic.php?id=38#post-96 Sat, 30 Oct 2010 13:27:08 +0000 Scott Sakamoto 96@http://roninstudios.com/forum/ <p>Welcome to the <strong>Ronin Studios Client Forum</strong>. This purpose of this forum is to offer a free resource for our Clients and Attendees of our Internet Marketing Workshop to interact, network, seek solutions, and to share successful approaches to challenges. As a member of this forum we believe you will get a return proportional to the effort you participate. This is also an opportunity to use the best practices for online forums we discussed in our Internet Marketing Workshop.</p> <p>Contribute remarkable content and give a way for others to find you via your signature (include your business name, website, etc). On your first post, you may introduce yourself and tell us something about you and or your business. </p> <p><strong>Here are the general rules:</strong> </p> <ul> <li>Please respect and accept others, their views, and their choices. No personal attacks as we want to foster a safe environment for members especially those that are not used to online forums.</li> <li>Please treat information discussed on this forum as a private conversation with a trusted friend that you will not discuss outside of this forum as it relates to a specific business.</li> <li>Please stay on topic as this helps the search function to find information more easily</li> <li>When asking questions, you may receive a better answer if you first describe the situation and the specific advise you are looking for.</li> <li>If you feel uncomfortable with a post made by another, please notify the Ronin Studios webmaster via email and we will review and possibly remove the post.</li> <li>Above all make the journey fun as we all create success for each other. This is YOUR forum, contribute, participate, and let’s all prosper in doing so.</li> </ul> <br /> <strong>Thank You,<br /> The Ronin Studios Team</strong> </p> http://roninstudios.com/forum/topic.php?id=37#post-89 Wed, 29 Sep 2010 22:29:09 +0000 russrenner 89@http://roninstudios.com/forum/ <p>Scott,</p> <p>Very enlightening talk the other day at the SCORE seminar. I wished I had gone before setting up my web site. </p> <p>I am the landscaper looking to get recognized in the universe of other Portland Metro landscapers. I have a couple of questions:<br /> 1: My yahoo account does have analytics and they show that "Your site hasn't been indexed" with both Yahoo and Google. Does that process take a long time. Yahoo noted that my site has be sent to Google and Yahoo search engines? Did I miss something?</p> <p>2. I was told by Mr. Lily (Forgot first name, maybe got last name wrong? Sorrrrry), he mentioned going to Google and Yahoo maps and finding the "Add your business here" section to get into the directory? I may not have understood that correctly? I looked on both sites but did not see anything like that? Could you explain how to get on those directories again?</p> <p>Thank you.</p> <p>Russ Renner </p> http://roninstudios.com/forum/topic.php?id=36#post-88 Mon, 27 Sep 2010 12:47:32 +0000 Scott Sakamoto 88@http://roninstudios.com/forum/ <p>Hi Guys,</p> <p>I've been asked several times over the past few weeks about who we'd recommend for Website Hosting.</p> <p>The answer is: <a href="https://secure1.inmotionhosting.com/cgi-bin/gby/clickthru.cgi?id=scottsakamoto&amp;campaign=featured_link"><strong>Business Class Hosting by InMotion Hosting.</strong></a> </p> <p>We normally recommend the "Power" category. For the extra $2 per month you'll have plenty of resources for your Business' future growth.</p> <p>It's simple to get started:<br /> 1 - <a href="https://secure1.inmotionhosting.com/cgi-bin/gby/clickthru.cgi?id=scottsakamoto&amp;campaign=featured_link"><strong>Click on the link above (or this link to InMotion Hosting)</strong></a><br /> 2 - Navigate to Business Class Hosting<br /> 3 - Click on the "Order Now" button<br /> 4 - Select which level of service you'll need (again we recommend "Power")<br /> 5 - If you need to register your Domain Name, Great! They include one Domain Name registration for FREE!<br /> 6 - You're done</p> <p>I've found their Service and Tech Support are second to none - 24/7 with either Voice Support, Chat, or eMail.</p> <p>I can always count of talking to someone within a couple of minutes once I call them for support. More importantly, my clients are always pleased with the helpful instructions they receive when they have questions. i.e. How to set up their IMAP email accounts etc.</p> <p>There you have it!</p> <p>Scott Sakamoto<br /> Ronin Studios<br /> 503-788-5570 </p> http://roninstudios.com/forum/topic.php?id=35#post-86 Mon, 20 Sep 2010 16:56:17 +0000 Sharon 86@http://roninstudios.com/forum/ <p>Scott, I have one quick question regarding linked in. I did sign up for it but remembered you telling me not to put my email address on it. In signing in it forces you to put your email on there. Is there a different way to do it that I can get it off there? </p> <p>Sharon Richards </p> http://roninstudios.com/forum/topic.php?id=34#post-84 Fri, 20 Aug 2010 00:13:37 +0000 Sharon 84@http://roninstudios.com/forum/ <p>Hi Scott, I am writing with a couple of questions. When I got home and tried to access Google Keyword and Google Analytic it seemed that I had to have a Google ad word account because it said to sign in through that account. Is there another way to access these products without signing up for an ad word account? Secondly, is an ad word account something I should consider as a worthwhile investment? Thank you for your assistance and thanks again for the workshop. I found it very informative and hopefully I will be able to put it to use. </p> http://roninstudios.com/forum/topic.php?id=32#post-79 Tue, 17 Aug 2010 21:37:36 +0000 Robert Lilly 79@http://roninstudios.com/forum/ <p>Hi Scott,</p> <p>That was a great workshop you did this morning through SCORE. I am a programmer by profession and I found your overview of the various aspects of Internet marketing both informative and helpful; just the right amount of detail.</p> <p>I didn't get a chance to give you the URL to my wife's site so that you could give me your feedback. It's: <a href="http://www.intuitivehypnosisportland.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.intuitivehypnosisportland.com/</a>. She made the site using the Website Tonight tools on GoDaddy.com. I've since moved the site to shared hosting and want to re-code it. I'm not afraid to start from scratch if that's warranted. I will be looking at WordPress and see if there are any templates (themes) we can make use of.</p> <p>I haven't done any SEO or anything yet. So, feedback as far as design, logo, usability, keywords, etc., is all very much appreciated.</p> <p>I would like to get feedback from you other participants in this forum as well.</p> <p>Thanks,</p> <p>Robert Lilly<br /> <strong>RCLilly WebDevPro</strong><br /> <a href="mailto:rclillywebdevpro@gmail.com">rclillywebdevpro@gmail.com</a><br /> 503.895.5974 </p> http://roninstudios.com/forum/topic.php?id=31#post-77 Mon, 19 Jul 2010 16:55:00 +0000 Kevin Young 77@http://roninstudios.com/forum/ <p>Hi Scott,</p> <p>It’s been a few months since I attended a SCORE workshop that you co-hosted. It was so beneficial to me and my employer. I wanted you to see the before and after.</p> <p>Before:</p> <p><a href="http://www.quayvancouver.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.quayvancouver.com</a></p> <p>After:</p> <p><a href="http://03150e6.netsolhost.com/" rel="nofollow">http://03150e6.netsolhost.com/</a></p> <p>The “before” will go away any time now, as we have a domain transfer pending.</p> <p>Thanks for your help! I look forward to attending another seminar that you host.</p> <p>Kevin Young<br /> Director of Sales and Marketing</p> <p><a href="mailto:kevin.young@redlion.com">kevin.young@redlion.com</a><br /> 360-750-4901 direct<br /> 360-750-4903 fax</p> <p>---<br /> 100 Columbia Street<br /> Vancouver , WA 98660 </p> http://roninstudios.com/forum/topic.php?id=30#post-74 Fri, 16 Jul 2010 16:31:38 +0000 Curtis Piantes 74@http://roninstudios.com/forum/ <p>I attended Scott's Internet Marketing class on Tuesday and found it to be very useful. There is a ton of great information and I have a list of action items a mile long. Thank you very much for the great class, Scott. Hitting the high impact, low effort items first; I reviewed my web site's meta keywords and changed them to be more relevant to my business, listed with Google Places, and looked over my LinkedIn profile, which isn't complete. </p> <p>My web site (www.myteamsportsonline.com) needs a serious make-over so I researched and downloaded Wordpress Version 3.0. I feel I am somewhat familiar with computer systems and programs but Wordpress seems difficult to set up even with the "famous 5 minute setup". Any suggestions on how to make the installation easier or am I even using the correct version? I am using an Apple Mac that is less than 6 months old. Any help would be greatly appreciated.</p> <p>Thank you in advance for any suggestions. Great job again, Scott</p> <p>Curt Piantes<br /> My Team Sports<br /> 503-453-5011<br /> <a href="http://www.myteamsportsonline.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.myteamsportsonline.com</a> </p> http://roninstudios.com/forum/topic.php?id=29#post-72 Wed, 30 Jun 2010 13:45:06 +0000 Scott Sakamoto 72@http://roninstudios.com/forum/ <p>Hi!</p> <p>How do I:<br /> -- Add addresses to my website (e.g., <a href="mailto:sharon@portlandsewing.com">sharon@portlandsewing.com</a>)?<br /> -- Link my website to my Facebook page)?<br /> -- Allow people to follow me on Twitter?</p> <p>I'll be going to Paris soon and many of my students would like to follow my blog. So I guess that means setting up an RSS, whatever that is.</p> <p>What do you think? Any advice/help is much appreciated!<br /> <a href="mailto:Sharon@portlandsewing.com">Sharon@portlandsewing.com</a> </p> http://roninstudios.com/forum/topic.php?id=19#post-44 Thu, 25 Feb 2010 22:45:08 +0000 stsonev 44@http://roninstudios.com/forum/ <p>Hi Scott and Jeff,<br /> Thank you both for the well structured, very substantial and fun presentation this morning at SCORE,PDX.<br /> It was really great and helped me figure out many areas of improvement and optimization of my current site, <a href="http://www.tzimages.net" rel="nofollow">http://www.tzimages.net</a>. I would appreciate if the forum participants provide brief critiques on it. It is based on a rigid template (I am quite unhappy with it) and not even SEOd. I find it frustrating to deal with my current hosting provider so my intention is to explore and possibly move to InMotion Hosting and use WP for the new website design. I'd like to create several sites for different products /services (e.g. Stock photos, Portraits and Models, Nature and Wildlife, Product photography, Architectural, Video production...)under the same domain, instead of channeling all the potential viewers to the same umbrella website. Ideally I would sell some pictures or offer service booking on-line. On one of the sub-domains I need to post videos. Currently I use a link to YouTube and I suspect the viewers are not coming back to my website even though I mention the URL there.<br /> A major conundrum I have is related to choosing a new template. My choice seems locked between 2 alternatives, a similar structure to the well established studios/ artists so the viewers can navigate faster (a structure copy-cat, original color scheme)or an unconventional for the industry, set to stand out model.<br /> Any comments, ideas and suggestions are very welcome.</p> <p>Thanks again,<br /> Stan Tzonev</p> <p>TZ Images</p> <p>Photography and Video production<br /> Vancouver, Wa </p> http://roninstudios.com/forum/topic.php?id=28#post-68 Fri, 11 Jun 2010 15:07:55 +0000 Jdrentlaw 68@http://roninstudios.com/forum/ <p>Hello Scott,</p> <p>Your class was very helpful, and also generated some new ideas. I would greatly appreciate any comments you may have on our website. <a href="http://JLDllc.com" rel="nofollow">http://JLDllc.com</a> Once the Website is all tuned up, perhaps we can work together on some general marketing.</p> <p>Thank You,</p> <p>John Drentlaw – LEED™ AP<br /> JLD Construction Management<br /> <a href="http://JLDllc.com" rel="nofollow">http://JLDllc.com</a><br /> P (503) 777-2519<br /> F (503) 200-1431 </p> http://roninstudios.com/forum/topic.php?id=27#post-66 Thu, 10 Jun 2010 14:21:16 +0000 Jdrentlaw 66@http://roninstudios.com/forum/ <p>Hello Scott,</p> <p>I have been developing my company website and I would appreciate your input on areas that can be further developed. Http://JLDllc.com is the site address. </p> http://roninstudios.com/forum/topic.php?id=26#post-63 Thu, 29 Apr 2010 04:26:31 +0000 nwgrace 63@http://roninstudios.com/forum/ <p>Thanks Scott you are very helpful and I have learned a lot today. I will let you know when I get Linkedin! <a href="http://www.nwgrace.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.nwgrace.com</a> </p> http://roninstudios.com/forum/topic.php?id=21#post-50 Thu, 18 Mar 2010 05:04:45 +0000 Kevin Young 50@http://roninstudios.com/forum/ <p>It's taken me a couple of weeks to log in and thank Scott for the wonderful presentation he made with Jeff Yarne at the SCORE event I attended last month. Fantastic! If anyone has a chance to see Scott or Jeff speak, do not miss the opportunity. Great, consise, actionable material. Wow!</p> <p>So, I'm glad to be here after leaving a confusing message for the comic book folks. I'm eager to size up some Wordpress themes. I have three websites in mind:<br /> a restaurant sight with a slightly nautical theme (Red Lion at the Quay, in Vancouver)<br /> business site to promote a startup that provides production of audio digital media (podcasting and such)<br /> another sight to promote voice-over services (for one specific voice talent, me).</p> <p>I don't mind paying for the themes. I'll want some plugins, especially for Podcasting, rss.</p> <p>I'm leaving this first posting as much to introduce myself as to get specific answers. Thanks! </p> http://roninstudios.com/forum/topic.php?id=25#post-60 Thu, 22 Apr 2010 22:50:57 +0000 S Blair 60@http://roninstudios.com/forum/ <p>Hey Scott -- I'm trying to set up a photo gallery on the About-Portland Sewing Supplies page of the Portland Sewing website. I'm trying to make it look like the pattern company sites such as kwiksew.com or mccalls.com. I sort of know how to do it in I-Web (see: <a href="http://www.studioskb.com/Activewear-KnitsPatterns/Photos.html)" rel="nofollow">http://www.studioskb.com/Activewear-KnitsPatterns/Photos.html)</a>.</p> <p>Is there a tutorial on how to do it in WordPress?</p> <p>Tx - S </p> http://roninstudios.com/forum/topic.php?id=9#post-21 Fri, 30 Oct 2009 13:42:16 +0000 Susielpeterson 21@http://roninstudios.com/forum/ <p>I'm taking your suggestions about our sites home and about us pages and putting together some ideas. I was wondering, when giving Jasons story, do you think it should be as if he wrote it, or more a story about him. I'm trying to find the most powerful way of telling the story. Thanks...great presentation. Very helpful!!!! </p> http://roninstudios.com/forum/topic.php?id=22#post-52 Thu, 25 Mar 2010 20:55:01 +0000 Kristen H. - Farnham Electric 52@http://roninstudios.com/forum/ <p>Good afternoon!<br /> I often think of how to improve something to be more efficient or more functional throughout my day. Here recently I thought…well, it sure would be nice if we had the option on our website for customers or potential clients to download a v-card to their e-mail contacts or for them to be able to e-mail it to themselves. Is this something that can be done and if so how do you set it up on your website? Would you suggest it be only in the "contact us" page or would you suggest it being an option on every page? </p> http://roninstudios.com/forum/topic.php?id=20#post-46 Sat, 06 Mar 2010 02:37:09 +0000 S Blair 46@http://roninstudios.com/forum/ <p>I've published my local business listing on three sites. But it seems City Search is no longer free. Is that true? </p> http://roninstudios.com/forum/topic.php?id=18#post-43 Sun, 14 Feb 2010 15:14:12 +0000 Julie Ferguson 43@http://roninstudios.com/forum/ <p><strong>Thank you so much for the fabulous work on my website! </strong>I especially appreciated the very user friendly lesson regarding making changes to my site via online chat. I was hesitant at first about that training mechanism but I found it to be helpful and easy to follow. Thanks again! </p> <p>Julie Ferguson<br /> JRF Consulting Services, LLC<br /> <a href="http://www.jrfconsultingservices.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.jrfconsultingservices.com</a> </p> http://roninstudios.com/forum/topic.php?id=17#post-41 Thu, 07 Jan 2010 16:41:23 +0000 mlkayser 41@http://roninstudios.com/forum/ <p>Hello!<br /> In yesterday's SCORE workshop, you mentioned using Mail Chimp for a newsletter on my WP site. I signed up for Mail Chimp, but am not seeing where I get the code to insert on my site for the contact form.</p> <p>Could you help? Thanks so much! :)</p> <p>Mary Lou </p> http://roninstudios.com/forum/topic.php?id=5#post-7 Thu, 17 Sep 2009 17:21:00 +0000 pamglenn 7@http://roninstudios.com/forum/ <p>(Tim--I'm not even sure that this is an appropriate subject for your Forum but thought I'd ask.)</p> <p>I'm researching online payment processing options for my small online retail business to learn how to set things up to make it easy for people to place orders. I'm particularly concerned about customer information security, and ease of payment at both ends of the transaction. Be very grateful indeed for any suggestions or information anyone wants to share on this. Thank you. </p> http://roninstudios.com/forum/topic.php?id=16#post-39 Sun, 22 Nov 2009 05:04:19 +0000 pamglenn 39@http://roninstudios.com/forum/ <p>I found the SBA/SCORE workshop on internet marketing presented by Scott Sakamoto, Jeff Yarne and Tim Streigel full of extremely useful information and ideas about website conception, construction and design; marketing approaches; data gathering and interpretation; and other resources. I was grateful for their answers to my questions and fairly detailed critique of my website in the workshop, and am delighted to be able to stay in contact with them and my fellow alumni through the exchange of ideas and information provided by this Forum.</p> <p>Pam </p> http://roninstudios.com/forum/topic.php?id=14#post-30 Tue, 10 Nov 2009 03:18:19 +0000 lossinthepress 30@http://roninstudios.com/forum/ <p>And how can I use them most effectively? </p> http://roninstudios.com/forum/topic.php?id=12#post-28 Tue, 10 Nov 2009 03:10:06 +0000 lossinthepress 28@http://roninstudios.com/forum/ <p>Guys,</p> <p>In your class you recommend using an email service provider to manage sending news letters and other email marketing to opt in lists. There are many out there. Which ones do you recommend? </p> http://roninstudios.com/forum/topic.php?id=13#post-29 Tue, 10 Nov 2009 03:15:11 +0000 lossinthepress 29@http://roninstudios.com/forum/ <p>Guys,</p> <p>Here is a graphical layout question for you. I am starting to post images to my Wordpress theme but where I have a specific area in the website I want the image to cover, how do I know what resolution and dimension to create before I post it? In particular when I download an image from istockphotos.</p> <p>TIA </p> http://roninstudios.com/forum/topic.php?id=11#post-26 Fri, 06 Nov 2009 20:18:55 +0000 Cindy Heilman 26@http://roninstudios.com/forum/ <p>Was in your training yesterday. Thank you it was very informative. I am looking at Wordpress sites. My question: from what I heard yesterday, functionality is more important than color when first looking for site. Emotion and first impression can be added with good pictures and Good Titles. </p> http://roninstudios.com/forum/topic.php?id=15#post-33 Wed, 11 Nov 2009 16:43:15 +0000 Scott Sakamoto 33@http://roninstudios.com/forum/ <p>At the point when we are reviewing the proposed site layout, we may need to select and purchase photos from iStockPhoto.com. We have had a legacy of success with this company and find them to be very cost effective. Here are the steps you should expect to take as we work together to build your site.</p> <p>A. You have the option of giving us your credit card information and we will use it to obtain photos on your behalf or:</p> <p>B. Here are the steps for working together to select and purchase photos:</p> <p> * After reviewing the layout, verify your approval for the photos we suggested (layout)<br /> * We will provide the reference numbers for the approved photos<br /> * You should set up a "Lightbox" on iStockPhoto.com and place the referenced photos in the Lightbox<br /> * We will review the Lightbox to make sure they fit the format and provide the visual impact we're looking for<br /> * If all photos fit the criteria we will advise which version (size) of the image to purchase<br /> * The images and size will determine how many credits to purchase </p>