For 2010, don't mess around with resolutions to get organized or laugh more often. 

Jump right into the serious stuff. The second decade of the 21st century is beginning, and it's time for all of us to get our businesses online and flying.

Onsharp has ten resolutions that will make a real difference for your business, and we'd love to help you achieve them. 

Choose one or all, and call us today to get ready for your profitable new year. 

• If you don't have a website, get one. No excuses.
• Make sure your design is a modern one that enhances your company's image.
• Get your website's code updated to current standards, for accessibility and predictability.
• Get your content updated -- no more outdated information, typos, or text copied from your company brochure.
• Make usability the #1 priority at your website -- your customers will love you for it.
  
• Install analytics so you really know how people are using your website.
• Include your website, blog, email, and social media in your marketing plan.
• Use your online presence to support your brick and mortar shop, and vice versa.
  
• Encourage staff to get engaged with customers online.
• Use online applications like SmartPay and SugarCRM to make your business more productive.

It's the time of year for merriment and good cheer. It's also the time for reviewing the past year for your business and making plans for the next year. For many businesses, those plans include creating a new website, updating a current site, or improving web services of various kinds.

These are good plans. The internet is now the primary source of information for American consumers, and more than two thirds of us browse online before we head out to visit a brick and mortar business. Your website is the first contact many people will have with your business. In fact, it may be the only contact many of your customers have with you. Very few things are as important to your business as your online presence.

So you've decided to invest in that online presence, and you're looking for someone to design and build your website, or to redesign or update it.  One of the first questions you have to consider is whether to go with a full-service web firm like Onsharp, or with an individual designer. 

Here are some factors to consider:

• The past. Onsharp has grown over the years as the company has gained experience and succeeded.  This fact can give you confidence. We also have a portfolio of proven results and happy clients you can examine for yourself. If you choose to hire a student or an inexperienced individual, you may think you're getting a bargain -- until you end up with something you can't use.
  
• The present. A full-service web firm will have the skilled professionals and the infrastructure to take care of all your web needs. Ideally, your web professionals will begin with a thorough analysis of your current circumstances and needs, and a specific strategy to get the results you want. At the very least, your web site will need content, design, coding (that is, it has to be written up in the language computers can read), and hosting. You may also want other kinds of development, such as animation, video, or sound. You may choose to invest in SEO and advertising to get faster results. Think of the time involved in finding individuals to do all those tasks, communicating with and supervising all those individuals, and paying all those individuals-- then think of letting us harness all the specialists at Onsharp to meet your needs. That's a much more pleasant picture, isn't it?
• The future. As your business grows and changes, Onsharp is there to support you in your needs. Email marketing, customer relations management, electronic billing, ongoing SEO -- these are just a few of the services we offer. We keep up with changing technology and online trends, too. When you are ready for changes, you can simply call us and we'll see to it for you. Compare that with having to do your own research, starting over every time.

The holiday shopping season is in full swing, but we still need to look ahead to 2010. At Onsharp, we're trying to help all our clients get their plans set for 2010 so we can hit the ground running in the new year.

"Our focus on an unparalleled customer experience is driving us to focus upon meeting people and discovering their potential to reach their business objectives using the web and web-based programs," says marketing manager Tami Dowers.

Tami loves to sit down with you as an individual and develop a plan for your particular needs. But she also has some general advice for all businesses.

• Make sure your landing pages are in good shape. The landing pages are the pages on your website where people first arrive. Often your homepage and your blog are your primary landing pages, but Onsharp's experts can determine the most common landing pages for your website. Once visitors arrive at your site, they decide within seconds whether to stay and look around or to go elsewhere. We can help you make sure that your landing pages are appealing to your visitors, encourage them to explore your web site, and lead them to take action.
• Make sure you're working on the right keywords. The keywords are simply the words or phrases people type in at the search engines when they look for the products you offer. It takes careful research to determine the keywords that will work best for you, and to make the best use of them once you've chosen them. Taking the essential step of developing and using a list of targeted keywords can do wonders for your online visibility.
• Have well-designed ads for your Adwords campaigns. The right ads in combination with the right landing pages are the key to success with online advertising. Don't take a chance with this important investment. 

Tami says that these three items ensure that "when our networking connections search for us they are sure to find us online." The right online presence combines with your networking to create the best outcome.

There's still time to set up an appointment with Tami to plan your strategy for the new year. Call us at 701.356.9010 to make your appointment today.

Our own Matt Sharp has the honor of being the current featured member of the Young Professionals Network of the Fargo Moorhead Chamber of Commerce.

Matt is our Sales manager, and as such he's responsible for relationship development and networking, among other things.

That's Matt's favorite part of the job -- he enjoys making connections with so many different business owners from different walks of life, and sharing with them the solutions Onsharp can offer. 

It's a good reminder that networking is valuable in the physical world as well as online. Taking an interest in people and their work, looking for opportunities to support one another and learn from one another, and creating lasting relationships -- these are our goals in the Chamber, and also at Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. 

If you'd like to get to know us better, look for Matt at Chamber meetings and Young Professionals Network meetings, or just come in and visit with us. We'd like to get to know you better. 

With the holidays fast approaching, you probably have two things on your mind: marketing and getting everything done in spite of days off, parties, and that break room full of sweets.

A different kind of sugar, SugarCRM, can help you with both those priorities. 

SugarCRM is a service of Onsharp, a hosted Customer Relationship Management solution that can automate your marketing, keep you in touch with your customers, and simplify communication and collaboration among your team members.

What SugarCRM can do for you in December:

• work out holiday schedules so you know who's in the office and available and who's out ringing the bell for the Salvation Army
• keep track of all files and communications for a given project even when the participants have more flexible schedules than usual, or are working remotely
• keep projects on schedule even if things get chaotic
• develop e-mail marketing campaigns fast to take advantage of the holiday shopping season
• send holiday greetings to customers and vendors
• measure ROI of marketing effort, tracking data and keeping it accessible for analysis when things slow down and you have time to look at it.

So often, this is an exceptionally busy time of year, and sales staff are so focused on day to day survival operations that planning, tracking, and keeping in touch with customers all get short shrift -- or they get done, but at the price of unacceptable levels of stress. January ends up being a month of cleaning up after December.

This year, use SugarCRM to keep track of projects, clients, customers, and workers, so there'll be more cheer and less stress -- and higher profits, too. SugarCRM is easy to integrate with yoru existing systems, and Onsharp will be happy to help you implement it.