The value of your site depends on a number of factors including the age of the domain, the number of characters in the domain, how many incoming links you have, and your Page Rank from Google.

A quick and easy way to monitor the value of your website is to visit the website at http://www.urlappraisal.net and enter your domain name. Within a matter of seconds, URL Appraisal will give you an approximate value for your website. In addition, the site will tell you where you rank in Google, how good of a domain name you have, and a number of other valuable pieces of information.

URLappraisal.net is a great resource for determining the value of new domain names, determining how much you should sell your website for, and whether or not your website is headed in the right direction. Check it out!

The SAAC website, The SAAC Newsletter, The SAAC Show… totally professional appearance, sophisticated execution, great new looks for all. What an impressive overhaul of image! In the case of the website, there’s a richness of content that is unsurpassed by any regional association. The short movie re: the show is very well edited, far surpassing the painfully unprofessional efforts that stream on the national association sites. The peel-away “We need your help” on the home page is the ‘icing’.

Wow! I’m in tears. The dream finally became a reality.

I think it’s safe to say they’re happy with the redesign!

Click here to see the new SAAC website.

A little over a year ago we were asked to create a new website for the Specialty Advertising Association of California (SAAC). Click here to see the design we created.

Since that time, SAAC has come back to us and asked that we create a site for them that is more modern, easier to navigate, and consists of two separate areas – one for the main SAAC website information and another for the SAAC Tradeshow, which is an event that the organization conducts each and every year.

To make the site appear more modern, we changed the colors throughout the site and redesigned the header content.

Navigation was improved through the creation of several different sidebars and a newly organized navigation drop-down menu.

Finally, a totally new web template was created just for the annual SAAC Tradeshow. (The image above shows the main SAAC website, while the image below shows the new SAAC Tradeshow website.) Using an existing brochure that had been made up for the coming year’s Tradeshow, we designed the SAAC Show website to match the artwork on the additional Tradeshow marketing materials.

Here is what my screen looked like when it was all stretched out:

And here is what my screen looks like now (at the correct zoom level):

It’s a bit difficult to tell the difference between these two images (as they have been shrunken down here for design purposed) but the difference on my wide-screen monitor was both noticeable and annoying.

If you are having the same problem and the images/text on your screen appear to be larger than normal and a little bit fuzzy, here is what you need to do in order to fix the problem:

1. Go up to the menu inside Firefox and click on “View”

2. Then scroll down to “Zoom”

3. Then press “Zoom Out”

The shortcut for zooming out is “Ctrl + -”. The shortcut for zooming in is “Ctrl + +”. And if you want to reset your zoom back to normal, the shortcut for that is “Ctrl + 0″

They look a little something like this:

Every good web brand has a favicon! And not only do they have a favicon, but they have an icon that unique to their company and instantly recognizable.

The icons you see show above are actually taken from a screen-shot of my personal computer. These are the sites I visit most… and so I’ve saved them as bookmarks on the top of my Mozilla Firefox web browser. You will note, however, that I do not have a description of these sites next to the icons. The reason for this is simple: I don’t need them!

That’s right, I don’t need to type out the description of each of these sites because their favicons brand them well enough that I am able to remember which icons belongs to which sites.

When it comes to branding on the Internet, this is the type of image you want to create for yourself! And that’s why you gotta have a favicon!

So, what about you? Where is your company’s favicon?

Grab it here: Free Twitter Success Report

The report is called “Why Being An Expert Is Making You Useless On Twitter“.

It was written by a friend of mine (named Laura) who works with small business owners and helps them succeed in the world of social media (very much like I do).

The report basically talks about how remaining TOO SERIOUS and PROFESSIONAL is actually working against you – which is something many businesses are guilty of.

In the report, Laura tells you why it is actually important for you to talk about silly and personal things like what you ate for breakfast and what you are planning to do on Friday night.

This is valuable information for any business trying to leverage themselves on Twitter – especially those of us whoa re actually trying to make money from our social media endeavors!

To get a free copy of this incredible new Twitter success guide, simply click here.

The report is free, you don’t need to enter your name or email in order to download it… and it’s filled with some great information I am sure you can benefit from. Enjoy!

Because we go through this process so many times, we’ve decided to set up a recommended resources page, where we list the companies and services we recommend for building your business’ online web presence. If you are one of our clients, we will direct you to this page from now on so that you can simply click and sign up for the services we recommend for your specific web-business undertaking.

To see the list of services we recommend for building your online money-making web business, just click here.

Basically, Gary is saying that you need to get in the trenches with your prospective customers and connect with them on a daily basis… over and over again. He suggests regularly using the major social networking websites as a way of doing this, but also suggests you spend time leaving comments on other people’s blogs, adding to discussions taking place in online forums, and helping others in the physical world.

Overall, I think Gary is trying to say something that I have been telling my clients here at Silver Mountain Marketing for a very long time. He’s saying that you can no longer throw up a website and expect to make money on the Internet. Succeeding online takes a lot of hard work, dedication, and constant improvement. But if you are one of those people who are willing to put in the work and passionately connect with the community that surrounds your business, you stand a very good chance of becoming a super-star in your specific industry.

Time and time again I talk to business owners who either have a website or have had one at some point in the past, but the site they have fails to produce any actual business because it was nothing more than a digital brochure… and brochures just don’t work anymore! These individuals have to be re-educated on what a website is actually meant to do and how it is to be used to make money for a business. Making money online has come a long way since the 1990s. Heck, things have progressed a lot in just the past two years… and the way businesses make money online now is significantly different than it was just a few years ago.

If you are one of those people who have a website set up for your business, but it is under-performing (for whatever reason), please contact me right away and let me see if I can help you turn your online endeavors into an actually money-maker. At the very least, let me help to educate you on what needs to be done in order to actually turn your Internet marketing endeavors into a legitimate source of income for you and your business.

I just finished reading Gary Vaynerchuk’s first book, “CRUSH IT: Why Now Is The Time To Cash In On Your Passion“.

Gary is what he describes as a “Z-list” celebrity when it comes to social media use and building a brand through the use of the Internet and social network websites, but he’s really a social media superstar.

I’ve personally been following Gary for a number of years now and while I love him as an individual, his book left me sorely disappointed. I think the book would be a great read for some of my new clients who are unfamiliar with the social media world, but for someone like myself who has been doing this sort of thing for quite some time now, there just isn’t much new information to be found inside the book. To find out more, simply press play on the video above.

To learn more about CRUSH IT, purchase a copy of the book for yourself, or even read the reviews of hundreds of other people, just click here.

One of the most powerful ways of multiplying your business’ online sales (and increasing your website’s daily traffic) is through the use of an automated affiliate program. Using an affiliate tracking software such as iDevAffiliate, your business can take on an army of third-party salesmen located around the world… and the best part is that you don’t have to pay them a cent unless they send you a sale!

An affiliate program is simply a piece of software that integrates with your business’ “Buy Now” buttons or online shopping cart, so that when third party websites that are registered as affiliates of your site send you traffic… and one of their readers buys something from your site, the affiliate software tracks the sale and pays the affiliate his or her percentage.

Affiliate sales can be extremely complex or they can be incredibly simple. Most affiliate programs work by simply paying their affiliates a certain percentage of the sale. Of course, the more you pay your affiliates for each of the sales they refer, the harder they work to send you targeted traffic that actually wants to buy the products and services you are offering.

The real power of an affiliate program is that without it you are doing ALL the work to market and promote your business by yourself. But with the affiliate software and a team of affiliates in place, you now have a small army of people scattered about the Web who are actively working to sell the products and services your business provides!

If you sell products or services online and you are looking for a way to quickly and easily increase your sales, an affiliate program might be just what you need!

Here at Silver Mountain Marketing, we recommend an affiliate tracking software called iDevAffiliate. We recommend it to most of our clients because you can purchase the software for a low one-time fee and host the tracking software on your own server, which means there are no monthly fees or excess charges for having a large number of affiliates.

I could easily go on and on about affiliate programs, affiliate marketing, and how to acquire more affiliate sales, but I think that’s enough for today.

If you have a question about integrating an affiliate program into your business, please don’t hesitate from contacting us. Affiliate marketing really is one of the fastest and easiest ways of making more money in the constantly changing online world! If you want to make more money in your business this year, let us help you set up an affiliate program for your business today!