New Client: Rotary District 6380

Our latest project was to develop and online user-driven directory of Rotarian owned and affiliated businesses for the local Rotary District. The owner, Scott Brills, is an active Rotarian, and so he donated the companies time and resources into getting the project going.

The Rotary Business Directory is based on a custom WordPress template, and the process of using it was deliberately made very simple. The district hopes this will be an invaluable tool in not only allowing members to connect with trusted businesses in the area, but also as a way to raise a bit of extra money through advertising.

Quality Web Hosting

Web hosting used to be tricky to navigate and overly expensive. Nowadays, the proliferation of hosting companies has driven down the cost and learning curve to a point where nearly anybody can sign up for an inexpensive account to host their own web site. Go to Godaddy.com and you can get a hosting account for as little as $30 per year.

With all of the choices comes quite a bit of mediocrity, along with a few really poor providers. Sure, you can get your site hosted for $3 or less per month, but will it still be up on that critical day when your product launches? What if you get a load of traffic and the web site crashes, or the hosting company shuts down your site because you’ve exceeded bandwidth limits? We’ve seen it happen to clients before (although never when they hosted with us of course!). Pricing is the same. Storage and bandwidth are more or less the same. There are really only two main qualities you should look for in a web host, all else being more or less equal: a.) up-time/reliability and b.) support.

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Domain Registry of America Scam

Have you ever received one of these envelopes in the mail? I know I have…along with many of mSeven‘s clients. The company’s name is Domain Registry of America, and they send out millions of spam letters every year to domain owners throughout the U.S.

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New Client: Organizing With You

Thanks to Pooja Gugnani, owner of Chicago-based Professional Organizing Firm Organizing With You. mSeven just finished the renovation of the Organizing With You web site in time for Mrs. Gugnani’s appearance on NBC 5 Chicago News’ Tips of the Trade segment.

Congratulations on your big media debut and best of luck with your future business opportunities!

Easy WordPress SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

Whew! It’s been quite a while since the last update hasn’t it. Over the past year we’ve been extremely fortunate to have the amount of business that has been coming our way, and that sometimes makes updating internal projects (web site, blog, etc.) a bit difficult. All in all, not the worst problem to have in the world.

Today we’d like to touch on the subject of SEO–Search Engine Optimization–which basically means tweaking various parts of your web site to get ranked higher in free (versus paid, or PPC [Pay Per Click]) search engine rankings. About 30% of our business is devoted to SEO, and it seems that more and more clients are asking about it when it comes time to discuss the terms of their project.

You don’t necessarily have to go to a firm like mSeven to achieve better rankings though–there are many things that the average web site owner can do on their own, without a lot of time, previous knowledge/experience, or effort on their part.

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Working in Michigan

Today we have a guest post by mSeven founder Scott Brills.

The first thing I’m always asked when people hear that I live in Metro-Detroit is, “Oh, how’s it going over there?” Yes, everyone’s heard the horror stories of the post-apocalyptic wasteland known as Detroit–even those living in foreign countries, thousand of miles away. I always reply that, yes, things are tough for many in the region, but the vast majority of people are trying their best to improve their lives as well as the situation of the state they live in.

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mSeven’s New Web Site

It was time for some change, and it’s almost finished. It’s been a while in the making, but the new mSeven web site is almost completed. Stay tuned…

New Client: InterfaceASIA

We are proud to announce our latest client, InterfaceASIA, the Los Angeles-based arm of a Tokyo-based Asian market research firm IID, Inc. mSeven has been hired to redesign the entire web site as well as setup and integrate a full content-management system (CMS) and an e-mail marketing system.

Interview with mSeven Founder, Scott Brills

Today we talked to the founder of mSeven, Scott Brills, about his company, his interests, and where he thinks the internet and the company are heading.

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