'Tis the Season of Stories

The importance of stories in your business

It's a few days after Thanksgiving, the Christmas holiday preparations have begun, and I just didn't think a techie post makes sense for this time of the year. Who wants to think about that stuff now!

So, I scratched my head and wondered, "What would be useful, yet appropriate, as a post for this time of year?"

And, then it came to me -- STORIES!

If there is ever a time of year that stories appear EVERYWHERE, it's during the month of December.

Build Your Business Reputation With Customer Reviews

Reviews and testimonials are everywhere! Because they work!!

They are especially prevalent online. Do you ever see a product on Amazon that doesn't include reviews? Have you relied on reviews when choosing a hotel? A restaurant? A home repair person?

Soon after you make a purchase or use a service, do you start getting emails asking you to provide a review or give feedback?

Google Analytics - Learn More About Your Audience

This is the third post in a series to explain Google Analytics and to help you discover how it can be used to understand traffic to your website, how visitors use your site and provide you some insight into improvements you may consider to increase the effectiveness of your digital activities.

In this post, we will explore some of the more useful information in the Audience Reports section.  Since this series is meant to help introduce Google Analytics to those who don't know much about it, I will be skipping over a lot and talking about reports that could be most useful to the widest audience.

Google Analytics - Understanding the Data

This is the second post in a series to explain Google Analytics and to help you understand how it can be used to understand traffic to your website, how visitors use your site and provide you some insight into improvements you may consider to increase the effectiveness of your digital activities.

In this post, we are going to talk about the basic data you are presented with throughout the Google Analytics tool and what it means. Understanding these terms will help you understand the reports that we will explore in future posts.

We will be referring to this image during the tutorial:

Google Analytics - What it is and how to use it

You've probably heard of Google Analytics. But, what the heck is it?

I am a firm believer in making changes based on facts and data. While I sometimes let my "gut instinct" lead the way, I generally like to crunch the numbers. Google Analytics provides a great way to know what is happening with your digital footprint.

Google Analytics is a set of analytical tools for your website.  A small bit of code is inserted into your site and provides all kinds of reporting about how your website is performing. The information available includes:

How and why to optimize your web images

Optimizing images for your website is very important. We've all heard about the importance of fast-loading website pages. It is one of the ranking indicators for Google. But, even more important, a visitor to your website is not likely to sit around waiting for your pages to appear.

How to resize bulk images for your website

In an earlier post, we discussed why it's important to optimize your website images, what that means, and showed you how to use a free online tool.

The tool we described is great for working with one image at a time. But, what if you need to resize a bunch of images, maybe for a slideshow or to display in a grid? You could work for hours resizing one image at a time!

My Brain

This isn't really about my brain—or maybe it is.

Back in the late 1990s (1998 maybe?), I attended an IBM conference where IBM was introducing a new technology gadget. They called it the IBM WorkPad and it was a neat little handheld device where you could keep notes, your contact lists, calendar, and tasks—all in the palm of your hand!  There was no keyboard, you used a plastic pencil-looking stick to navigate and "type." And, of course, you could use it to help manage your IBM enterprise systems, which is why it was branded as the WorkPad rather than the PalmPilot.  They had a fantastic offer—50% off. If I remember correctly, that was about $150, still a huge "investment" for me on my non-profit income.

This was in the days before we all had hundreds of passwords (well, those of us working in technology were starting to have them in volume!), before the Internet was common on our desktops, before you had to sign into everything and anything! But, I still had plenty of small details to keep track of, and I soon dubbed this little wonder machine My Brain.

Storytelling Resources

Storytelling is an important technique to use in all aspects of marketing your business. And, storytelling techniques CAN be learned.

The following books, video and web resources are provided to give you a starting point for your storytelling journey.

Books to Help Your Storytelling

Videos

Web Content

• Why is storytelling important for a brand?
• The Best Ways To Use Storytelling In Your Small Business
• Why Storytelling Will Be the Biggest Business Skill of the Next 5 Years
• Why Storytelling is Scientifically Proven to Boost Sales
• The Science of Storytelling: What Listening to a Story Does to Our Brains
• Business Storytelling - Using Stories to Inspire
• Your Brain on Stories
• Why Your Brain Loves Good Storytelling

Some More Information To Consider

Your Little Bit of Online Gold

If you are lucky enough to have any gold, I'll bet you take pretty good care of it. If it's valuable enough, you may even keep it locked away for safekeeping, only bringing it out on special occasions. If you don't have any gold, you probably have some valuable possession that you take extra special care of.

Did you know that you have something just as valuable in your online world?