Overview and resources on podcasting:

What is a Podcast? - (Wikipedia.org)

How to Create Your Own Podcast – Tutorial - (about.com)

Learn How to Podcast - (podcastfreeamerica.com)

Perkolate - Professional Podcasting Soltuions in Las Vegas

There is no more imposing a proposition than to try to do your own Las Vegas marketing plan using only online resources. You might go to a website like: http://www.business.com/directory/advertising_and_marketing/. There you will find online resources that offer to help you to do a marketing plan that will produce results. The only thing that you will get from any of those online resources is targetted emails from groups of people who might be interested in what you are selling.

The actual email formatting will have to be done by you. The sending of emails to all of those targetted groups will have to be done by you. The feedback, if you are interested in knowing who actually got and read your email, will have to be done by you. The facts are that doing a marketing plan only by using online resources can be frustrating, expensive (since those lists of emails from targetted populations cost money to buy), and can produce little if any results that translate into money for your business.

The money that you spend for online resources to promote your business can be better used to hire a professional marketing person who can make your marketing goals a reality. An online marketing professional knows how to look for the contacts that he will use to develop your marketing plan. He will not need to spend countless hours, as you would, in looking for sites that sell the information that you will want. He will know what sites online have the information that he will use to make your marketing plan a smooth, quickly operable and profitable working solution to your business growth and profit.

If you have a marketing plan but are confused as to how to get it viewed by a wide online audience, you are best served by a professional marketing person who knows how to set up your advertising and how to send it out to a large online market. The decision of doing your own online marketing or of hiring a professional to do your online marketing has to be decided on financial considerations if you are a business person who keeps track of expenses and benefits from advertising.

If you pay more for email lists that cost you time and effort to make individual emails and even more money to buy services for online sites that create a program for you to send multiple emails than you would pay to get the services of a professional marketing expert, the choice is obvious. Hiring a professional to do your marketing is not only cost effective but time effective and the proof should be in your profits.

These days, a business needs to optimize it’s Web presence. It’s just not enough to hire a web designer and put a site on the Internet like it used to be. Now, a site needs to be marketed in order to gain customers. That’s done with several different types of marketing, like adwords and Search Engine Optimizing. Marketing on the Internet is pretty inexpensive when compared to the cost of more traditional outlets for advertising-a company can reach a wide audience for a fraction of the cost of more traditional advertising budgets.

In order to have a successful Web presence, you must first research the competition, which is simple to do. Ask yourself; Is their site easy to navigate? Does it appeal to it’s target audience? Are they easily accessible on Google and other search engines? Is their domain name easy to remember? Is their product affordable and of good quality? Or is it too expensive?

Then, research the customers you are looking for, depending on the type of site you want to establish. Ask yourself these questions; Do they utilize some websites, like YouTube, more than others, like MySpace, Facebook and Twitter? Are they looking for a quality product at a reasonable price, or are they willing to pay more? Do they think a purchase out for several days or weeks, or do they buy on impulse? These are just the first of many questions along these lines that it’s a good idea to ask yourself about the customers you wish to reach.

You can target your customer in several ways, the most popular being what’s called geo marketing.

Basically, geo targeting/marketing is when a specific customer is targeted based on their geographic location by tracing their IP or ISP and then sent content based on their location. Geo marketing is also used to target a customer based on their personal interests and activities.

The more traditional way of marketing your website is to use adwords, or what’s generally known as keyword advertising. Take for instance, you have a swimming pool business. You want your company’s website to get as many “hits” as possible. So, you go on Google and type in several search terms for swimming pool companies. You then design your website to have as many of those keywords on the site as possible. That way, when someone does a Google search for “swimming pools”, your company website is one of the first ones that come up. It’s a general way of marketing your website, and quite simple to do.

The Internet is here to stay. everyone knows that. So, make the Internet work for you as the owner of a small business, instead of making it work for others.

Search engine marketing is a kind of marketing that helps websites be seen by viewers. It is like the yellowpages but for the millions of websites floating around now a days on the internet. How it works is that a website will be created by an owner and then a search engine will be chosen. There are quite a few to choose from such as Yahoo, Google and Inbox, ones that charge per customer view and ones that are free. Keywords or tags will be entered for the website in the search engine so when a someone who is seeking a specific thing can type in a keyword and a list of websites with those keywords will be populated with a brief description of what is in that website. Website owners can choose to boost their websites to the top of the list by purchasing Pay Per Clicks which is why you always see the most popular sites at the beginning. The more money you pay for pay per clicks the more likely that your website will be seen over and over again.

For an example of how a search engine works say I am going on a trip to Las Vegas. I need to find a hotel but I need to some reviews also. In the search bar I would type ‘hotels las vegas reviews’. It would populate a list of popular hotel websites and websites that have reviews on these hotels or both in one website. All of this took about 30 seconds. Today time is money and most people want things as quick as possible which makes search engines a valuable resource.

Search engines can be detrimental to a businesses success since a good majority of people have access to the Internet and prefer using it for quick finds for vacations as well as other things. With a few keywords into a search engine a potential customer can have names of hotels, resteraunts, places and things to do, shows, pictures, show clips and other tourist points of interest at their fingertips in a matter of seconds with a list of reviews from previous customers. These 5-10 minutes of a person looking at their website can quickly result in a decision of the customer. If the website is very resourceful then you have the domino effect happen to where word of mouth will happen boosting the sales of that website.

So from one person typing in a few keywords can have a major impact on a websites future since people now a days would rather purchase or gather information from a website rather than another source such as the yellowpages or newspapers. They get it all online.

Las Vegas is one the common areas to hold trade shows and conventions. There are numerous events that show up in Las Vegas every year. Many come to Las Vegas every year and are held at the same locations and offer the same service and venue. Also, many of the trade shows are open to the public and not just the company or organization members that it is being held for. Trade shows are a large part of Las Vegas and residents commonly attend trade shows and conventions in Las Vegas when they are the same as their own interests. If you are looking for trade shows to attend or know of trade shows that you want to go to, then there are some trade show websites that you will want to check out.

http://www.eventseye.com/fairs/cy1_trade-shows-las-vegas-nv.html

Here the website offers trade shows, conventions and events by the hotels that are hosting them. This site is connected to the City of Las Vegas website.

http://www.lasvegastourism.com/las_vegas_trade_shows.htm

This site breaks trade shows down by month and year. They already have listings for the coming trade shows for next year as well.

http://www.lasvegastourism.com/conventions_jan.htm

The same site as above, but a different listing of additional trade shows and conventions that will be in Las Vegas. Again, these are broken down by month and year and next years events are already listed.

http://www.biztradeshows.com/usa/lasvegas/

This is a business listing of trade shows that will be in Las Vegas. They also offer information on travel, hotels, restaurants and background information about Las Vegas.

http://www.pcap.com/lvconv.htm

This site lists past and present trade shows and conventions in Las Vegas.

http://www.allconferences.com/Search/search.php

This is a conference and trade show listing site.

All of these websites list trade shows, conventions and events for every type of job and industry. They cover the range of information needed to attend a trade show, as well as when the show will be here, the cost and how to obtain tickets. There is also information about whether the show is in Las Vegas every year or if it is a one time event. No matter what you are looking for, these websites have it covered.

As a busy las vegas company or business owner, there are only so many things you could do in a day, especially things where some element of skills is required. Designing your own website is one such activity, one which should really be designed by a professional Las Vegas website design company (we like to keep business local). If you are not a professional designer and developer, you should leave it in a professional’s hands, and a professional web design firm (like my company Perkolate.com) will work closely with you to ensure it meets your marketing goals and is properly and professionally designed.

Here are the key reasons you should hire a local Las Vegas website design company:

It’s Technical - Leave it to the Experts

Designing websites is definitely not something that just anyone can do. Sure, there are do-it-yourself websites out on the internet, but they have a lot of limitations. You neeed a professional company that can help you shape the design and flow of your website. You need a company that is experienced in specific coding languages like PHP, ASP, HTML and professional softwares like Dreamweaver, Photoshop, and Flash. If you are not familiar with these languages and softwares, you may well have to learn them, because without them, you cannot even think of starting to design a website.

Time is of Essence - Don’t Waste Yours

If you’re the average business owner or run a company, do you really have the time to be trying to build and launch your own web site? Rushing through things at this stage, even if it is assumed that you have the appropriate skills for web designing could mean you making a complete mess of your website. That is why I recommend that you hire a professional web design company right here in Las Vegas who will get everything done quickly and effectively.

More Cost-Effective In the Long Run - Don’t Do It Yourself

If you hired someone in house, you would have to cover all of the costs associated with hiring an employee. That employee most likely will not have all of the marketing, strategy, programming and development skills you might need for your corporate web site. Or if you are trying to build the website yourself, I ask you, wouldn’t your time be more wisely spent doing what you do best in running and growing your business and leaving a professional web design company to do what they do best and in your best interested? In most cases, working with a professional web company works out to be the most cost-effective option.

For more information on professional website design and development solutions, visit my company’s website at www.perkolate.com. (We are located in Summerlin)

Cheers!