Top benefits cited include:

• An overall easier experience, especially for non-developers.
• A more friendly, diverse community.
• A more cost effective solution to web publishing and content management.

All of these tools have helped keep me organized and more productive. So here goes:

Harvest

This website allows you sign up for the “Harvest” online application (software as service). It is an AMAZING time tracking, billing and reports system. From collecting retainers to tracking project progress and business income, this tool is very easy to use and convenient. It also comes with all sorts of integrations with other technologies. Starting price for 1 user and unlimited clients is $12/mth

OutRight

This website also offers a software as service solution, for finances this time. I connects with your online banking portal and extracts data. The end result is a self-generated visual report on Profit/Loss as well as the ability to easily categorize all your income and expenses… leading to a self-calculated amount of taxes due (quarterly or yearly). This tool can also be used to connect with your harvest account, but I personally prefer connecting it directly to my business bank account. Starting price is $10/mth.

Google Apps

Google apps for business is just about the most affordable, reliable and flexible solution for business email, calendars, documents and a whole bunch more. From using Gmail for you @mydomain.com account to collaborating in real time on the writing of a document, it’s a priceless resource for tech-savvy business owners. I couldn’t live without it (or my android phone for that sake). Single user is free… business solutions start at $50/yr/user.

Insightly

Another software as service solution (like all above), this time for CRM and project management. There are two things I really like about this app. The first is that it offers, without the complication of something heavy like salesforce, a ton of functionalities that would normally be obtained by using several, non integrated solutions. Opportunity tracking, project tracking, email and attachments archiving, to do task lists (with the ability to create task sets and pipelines) and client database. It allows you to track all these things as well as all sorts of meta data to easily search through them. The other thing that I just LOVE about this app, is that it integrates SO WELL with Gmail and Google calendar. You can literally do your project management within Gmail. You get an email referral and just click the “save opportunity” button and enter the estimated price, chance of winning, close date etc right there and then. Same for tasks. Basic plan is free.

ManyMoon

An alternative to Insightly, Manymoon is more project management focused, so it offers a narrower business solution, but what it does, it does smoothly. It’s like basecamp but way nicer. It also integrates pretty darn well with Gmail. Basic plan is free.

Trello

I don’t even know where to start to describe the awesomeness of this web application I just discovered.
It is by far the most intuitive and fast application I have ever used in a browser. Though it has the limitations due to lack of maturity, what it brings to the table in terms of project organization and collaboration is revolutionary. You can literally click and drag cards through a pipeline, like swiping on your iThing.
Perfect for sales pipelines, large scope project management and much more. A gem to follow.

What I love about all these tools?

At Adal Design we don’t just build you a website and send you out into the weird, wide world. We certainly know the nuts and bolts of how to build a website, but what is just as important is how to use the internet to grow your small business. We know all about that too and we will incorporate that knowledge into the way we design and buildyour website. We will help you:

1. Gain Exposure, spread the WWWord. This includes:

• Listing your business in Local Business Directories
• Leveraging social networks such as Facebook and Digg.
• Making yours a Search Engine Optimized website
• Pay-per-click advertisements.

2. List and promote your products and services.

• More detailed promotion on your website with compelling product and company info.
• Be ‘in’ with specific online communities and discuss the details of your trade.

3. Accelerate sales by using your website to educate your customer.

• Inform your customer about your product and industry.
• Link or publish high quality, relevant content: such transparency will impress yourcustomers and generate the trust you deserve.

4. Sell your products with an online store (it’s cheaper & simpler than you think).

• List your products on your own website and automatically submit to online market-places.
• Receive payments with PayPal or Google Checkout which are both secure and credit card compatible.
• Keep records, and manage transactions & inventory with tools that are already included.
• Auto-generate shipping prices and printable labels.

5. Increase customer satisfaction and retention.

• Provide automatic purchase confirmations.
• Provide or link to product info, support, and FAQs.
• Keep them in the loop through the use of blogs which can be built right into yourwebsite, social networks, and even automatically generated Newsletters.

Adal Design Websites are the centerpiece of a lasting online marketing campaign. Let’s start spreading the wwword!

I even stuck it on my fridge for a while.

I have a hard time with a lot of taglines. Too many companies approach them without thinking; or at least it seems they aren’t. Because if they actually did think for a second, they might see just how insipid, inappropriate, or indistinctive their tagline is.

A tagline, if nothing else, should leave your audience with a lasting impression that separates you from the competition. It should epitomize, in a few choice words, what you’re all about, and, in the best cases, how you feel about what you do.

Why do so many advertisers fail at this? I suspect the culprit is simple laziness. Many think they can stick any ol’ statement at the end of an ad and people will pay attention. Some subscribe to the misguided principle that if the tagline just repeats what’s already been said in the ad, it’s a good thing because everybody knows people need to be hit over the head with a message. I can spot these cases from a thousand miles away, as I’m sure most people can. But lazy taglines don’t add any value. They subtract it.

The second reason so many taglines fall short (a nice way of saying “suck”) is because the advertiser fails to understand their own unique selling proposition—the one attribute that differentiates their brand. If an advertiser can’t define it for themselves, how do they expect to define it for the audience?

The third reason so many taglines make me roll my eyes – and when I taught copywriting I always told my students this: a tagline isn’t always required. Just because there’s a logo at the bottom of the ad doesn’t mean you need to stick a pithy statement underneath it.

So if you’re ever charged with coming up with a tagline, or approving one, I have a few words of advice.

Stop asking me questions.

Microsoft first did this years ago with “Where do you want to go today?” and it was pretty cool at the time because it was fresh, and tapped into the newness of the World Wide Web, which, at that time, was in its infancy. Or at least its adolescence. But then everyone jumped on the question bandwagon:

• Got milk? (California Milk Processor Board)
• What’s in your wallet? (Capital One)
• Have you driven a Ford lately?
• Is it in you?  (Gatorade)
• Are you in good hands?  (Allstate)
• Do you Yahoo?
• Will you be ready? (Cialis)
• Can you hear me now? (Verizon)
• What can Brown do for you? (UPS)
• Have you met life today? (Metropolitan Life)
• How big can you dream? (Cadence)
• How are you? (Vodaphone)
• Why pay more? (Bi-Lo)
• Are you Miracle Whip? (no, I’m a person; not a condiment.)

Sadly, there are many, many more examples of question-asking. So many, the industry as a whole should be embarrassed. So stop already. You’re not being provocative. You’re being derivative. And annoying.

Pay attention to your competition.

• Church’s Chicken. Gotta love it.
• McDonald’s. I’m lovin’ it.
• Personally, I hate it.

Make up your mind.

Multiple taglines are a bad idea. The worse offender is Verizon, which has three; presumably for good luck. They are, in no particular order:

1. Can you hear me now? Good.

2. We never stop working for you.

3. It’s the network.

Volkswagen is runner up, with two.

1. On the road of life, there are passengers and drivers.

2. Drivers wanted.

Your noun ≠ my verb.

The smarter way to office. (Kinko’s)

“Office” is not a verb. It will never be a verb. Stop trying to make it one.

Kindly refrain from defining my entire existence on this planet through the lens of your relatively insignificant product.

• Life’s messy. Clean it up. (Bissell)

• My life. My card. (American Express)

• Love it for life. (Dannon yogurt)

• Cotton. The fabric of our lives. (Cotton Incorporated)

• Live richly. (Citigroup)

• Ideas for life. (Panasonic)

• Good food. Good life. (Nestle)

• Ingredients for life. (Safeway)

• Life more interesting. (Pier 1 Imports)

• Life’s better the Milky Way.

Avoid fill-in-the-blank banality.

• If it doesn’t say Jiffy Lube, it just isn’t Jiffy Lube. [True enough, I suppose.]

• We are Honeywell. [Thanks. For a second there I thought you were Boeing]

• Since [insert year]  [Who cares?]

• For all your [insert noun] needs.  [I dunno...I have lots of needs.]

So think about your tagline. Before you try to make it work for you, make sure it isn’t already working for someone else. Be sure it’s relevant to who you are and what you do. And please make sure it has a degree of creativity to it. Otherwise, you may as well slap “Quality and value in a name you can trust” under your logo and be done with it. And, trust me, no one wants to see that.

To accomplish this task I utilize the services of a graphic designer and copy-writer (of which I have several trustworthy connections to choose from), sometimes also involving an affordable marketing strategist.

I then take all the pieces and assemble them into self-hosted WordPress sites that are coded to meet the most modern standards of browser compliance. I research and integrate the best javascript and plugins into custom-coded themes, and handle all technicalities from the initial purchase or transfer of a domain to the detailed set up of google apps or other third-party applications.

Customer service is as important to my business model as clean code and I am confident that any customers show-cased in my portfolio will refer me with enthusiasm and honesty.

So it’s not surprising that potential customers look online when shopping for services, which are by nature intangible and inseperable from purchase.

This is why it’s important to NOT overlook your online presence; and one of the best ways to do so is by having a gorgeous website that carries your brand and content that is relevant to your customers – today.

I can help you shine on the web, today and tomorrow.

The good news though is that more and more, websites are growing beyond the scope of their designated URLs. With the advent of XML and other expansive communication technologies, web developers and amateurs alike are faced with the power to spread their data in many ways.

Partially because so many of my customers have asked me how to do this themselves, and partially because facebook has changed their layout, out-dating previous tutorials on the subject…

Today I present you with a step by step, image-illustrated tutorial of how to automatically publish your blog posts on a facebook page. I will also show you how to create such a page in case you aren’t taking advantage of this great resource.

Note that some facebook applications can allow you to get more fancy but if you want a simple solution: read on.

This tutorial applies to the latest release of facebook, in April 2010.

Step 1: If you have not yet created the facebook page… (otherwise skim till next header)

Go to the facebook home page and click the “create page” link under the sign up box:

On the detail page that appears, specify the characteristics of the page you are about to create. If you are not ready to publish the page, make sure you check the box created for this effect.

You will now see the blank new page you have created:

Now for everyone…

Step 2: Import the blog feed

The goal of this operation is to import the feed from a blog that already exists, and thus save yourself the time of posting twice.

On the new blank page you have created, click the “Edit Page” link:

This will lead you to an options page that has many useful management tools for your newly created facebook fan page. Another option you might want to explore later, available here is the “Static FBML” application that you can find in the “More applications” section. FBML allows you to create tabs or boxes that display any HTML code you type in. This is create for creating 100% custom content.

To import the blog feed: in the notes section, click the “edit” link.

This will lead you to the notes options. Notes are displayed on the wall of your fan page, so this is the application we will use…

On the right hand corner, under “Notes Settings” you will finally see the “Import a blog >>” link. Click here to specify the feed address of your blog.

Here you can finally enter that URL. If you don’t know what the RSS feed URL is for your website, contact you administrator. On wordpress blogs, the feed is usually simply: http://yourblogdomain.com/feed.

Happy posting!

Also read:

• My post on displaying an RSS feed on Linkedin.
• An awesome post on facebook applications to display multiple feeds.
• A tightly-written guide on two-way integration with facebook.
• facebook’s official website integration developer center.