The Main Street Web Company | 866-950-3588
Nevertheless, inquiries into commissioned sales opportunities has moved our hand again. You may glean all of the details on our Sales Opportunities Page.
Thanks for your continued support and encouragement, as we move deeply into our third year as Princeton Indiana’s Web Design/Development firm in Gibson County.
You make our community great–we love sharing the news about you across the web.
It’s not so uncommon for my phone to ring, or for an email to flutter in, with a party on the other end who wants to help me “design websites.” Some are local talent, others are as far away as Chicago (hoping to land a job in Princeton).
Local talent wants to “mentor” with me and learn the trade. This is completely understandable because The Main Street Web Company is very successful, with clients around the globe.
Still, one needs to consider the educational capital that I secured learning this business while in collage, and the ongoing, expanding, brain cell assets filling up my side of the ledger sheet. Learning is hard work. Employment opportunities abound for those with the skill sets. Perhaps Seth Godin says it best when he posits that maybe–just perhaps–…we’re entering a new age of craftsmanship.
There’s always been a bright line around the craftsperson, someone who takes real care and produces work for the ages. Everyone else might be a hack, or a factory guy or a suit or a drone, but a craftsperson was someone we could respect.
I continue learning. I’m focused on one thing: delivering the De³™ Advantage™ to those who trust me with their advertising dollars. I succeed at creating a persuasive web presence–time after time–because I love my craft and this is all that I do professionally.
Now, I’m very skilled and experienced at computer hardware upgrades and repairs: I maintain all of my equipment. I’ve swapped-out motherboards, PCI boards, networking cards, Hard Drives, RAM, DVD Burners and laptop back lights. I’ve set up networking systems and WiFi nodes. Software? Yes, I’ve stripped Hard Drives, scrubbed and reloaded. Toot! Toot! I do this to keep my overhead low and I pay-forward those brain cell credits to my client base. Focus matters. I can and do recommend fantastic local talent who can help you with all other things non-web.
Feel free to call me if your business requires an experienced web professional. That’s what I do for a living.
Folks who are serious about the web trades congregate near the leaders: Jeffrey Zeldman, Andy Clarke, Raena Jackson Armitage, Allen Cole, Elliot Jay Stocks. Those folks–to name only a tiny few–are the gurus. I’ve seen very far indeed, as I’ve stood on the shoulders of giants. If you’ve been calling me seeking employment, you need a portfolio that demonstrates core competencies shared and demonstrated by these giants. I produce consistent, outstanding results because these are the people who’ve earned my respect and trust in nearly a decade of delivering the De³™ Advantage™ to my clients.
So read their books, follow their blogs, and spend some of your cash to learn the skill sets that are the basic requisites to work for persnickety folk like me. Attend An Event Apart. I like Andy Clarke’s work and I plan to attend the ALA Boston Weekend-Hardboiled Web Design with Andy Clarke. You might be surprised to learn that such an event adds a great deal of lift to your approach and juices-up an otherwise ho-hum resume.
Of Hardboiled Web Design, Zeldman says of it …
…[it's] different. It’s for people who want to understand why, when and how to use the latest HTML5 and CSS3 technologies in their everyday work. Not tomorrow or next week, but today.
Today. The web is standardizing at last. The Main Street Web Company is the Tri-State’s standard-bearer for a reason: We do our homework. See you in Boston.
It’s happened again. Facebook has garnered news headlines concerning their security woes.
All of this is fine for casual users, but serious business is easily distracted by passing fads.
Facebook is a great advertising tool. Its metrics permit retailers to target audiences with laser-sharp precision. While Google’s capacity to follow users is available, its reach into your interpersonal contacts is not at Facebook level yet.
At The Main Street Web Company, our advise remains steadfast: build-up a high-ranking website to maintain centralized information about your business and brand. Blog there; monitor the comments. Keep us in mind should you determine that a Facebook ad campaign is an itch needing a scratch.
As we’ve mentioned earlier, this business with Facebook is good for some businesses.
Facebook again dominates headlines with its “offshore investment groups” pouring billions of dollars into its coffers. While this speaks well of Facebook’s business plan, it further underscores why the company must exercise options that erode member privacy.
Selling ads that are based on member’s private data is the enrichment formula requisite for these massive cash infusions.
This perhaps marks a tipping point whereby the best place to position paid advertising is on Facebook rather than Google. We always recommend creating a W3C valid site that produces high search engine rankings without paid ads anywhere. We can also recommend strategies if you wish to explore Facebook and Google ads for your Main Street business.
It popped into my email box back on January 4: WRAY’s contest to honor Gibson County women for a spin on Gretchen Wilson’s country and western toe-tapper, “Rednecked Woman.”
I’m confessing to being a bit out of the loop on this one, as building great websites geared toward media dominance tends to crowd-out radio, TV and bar-hoppin’ fun during the course of a day.
I’ve encountered fair number of savvy women at the Gibson County Chamber of Commerce’s functions, Princeton’s Rotary and Kiwanis, and many other Tri-State businesswomen at BNI and elsewhere. The notion that I’d want to support and witness local ladies dumb-down their appearance for a prize just seemed plain-ole-disrespectful to me. While Gibson County’s proximity to the Mason-Dixion Line may lead passers-by to assume that there’s something quaint in the notion of redneckery in these parts, the women folk here are a cut above.
Gretchen would have you to believe that professing, …I ain’t never been the Barbie doll type/No, I can’t swig that sweet Champagne, I’d rather drink beer all night… is somehow nifty and virtuous. Our local FCC-licensed broadcaster, seeking the means to keep those meter needles bumping all night, dreamed-up an ad campaign to support this somewhat dim view.
It does cast a bit of a pall when one considers that Hillary Clinton so valued our little place to a sufficiently robust degree that she took a minute to stop by here a few years back. Advertising dollars are precious–not only for those who require a steady flow–but also for those of us who want to support our outstanding community in a meaningful manner.
So what’s in it for the supporters? Among several things, according to the promotional literature, Red Neck Woman Flyers for your business!
Eh-hem.
I’m sure all of this is good, clean fun. There are other events in the days ahead, however, that celebrate the values that local women bring to this community and that will lift them up in a meaningful manner. Those dollars matter, too.
Ms Wilson will tell you, Well, you might think I’m trashy, a little too hardcore/But in my neck of the woods I’m just the girl next door.
That’s entertainment.
The Main Street Web Company will need to sit-out this contest, as our reality in “this neck of the woods” may be a little closer to the “sweet Champagne” type.
It was a question posited by CNN, and one that I field regularly with my client base.
Firstly, to understand this question from a business perspective, we need to understand what Facebook is. Facebook–on the face of it–is a social networking platform. It has its share of pluses and minuses, like any given endeavor.
No one goes to Facebook to look up a business that sells shoes, for example. That’s what Google is for.
Currently Google and Facebook are warring for ad revenue, and Facebook members may block Google searches into their member areas.
Nextly, we need to ask ourselves what is the value of time? Facebook eats up a lot daylight. Where is your precious time best spent?
“Facebook is ‘FREE’ advertising.” Nothing is free once you calculate the time revenues expended fiddling with Facebook.
Facebook is a business model that grows with each new member. As you invest in Facebook, your site and brand suffers.
Your-site.com IS your brand, your business, and rightfully deserves your full attention. Adding a blog to your site and then blogging there builds your brand and bolsters your search engine rankings.
As brands go, having a centralized “voice” means that people can find your business regardless of Facebook’s privacy woes and platform bug-a-boos.
Privacy woes include Facebook’s marketing of members’ confidential data to advertisers, and occasional lapses of security that open up that data to the world. Do you care where your clients have been on the web? Facebook does, and so do their advertising clients. Tacking cookies, data sharing and Fire Sheep hacks, are among the latest of breaches that unwary business need no part in.
Live long enough and a person witnesses fads coming and going (mostly going). To CNN’s question, people may indeed be obsessive about Facebook.
At The Main Street Web Company, however, we lean toward smart, scalable, and auditable web development. Our outstanding media design is geared for those elusive search engine rankings that build brand awareness and “core-centeredness.” Our W3C valid sites drives the competition mad. Your web presence deserves nothing less. That’s where our investment grows. You win, and so do we.
Time spent on your site may not win you a Facebook “Like” button.
Want "Liked?"
This gimmick netted a flurry of emails to my address from the likes of Pepsi, Wal*Mart, et. al., who wanted me to “Like” them when Facebook launched the concept. Prizes, freebies, and discounts abounded.
Why not spend a little more time and money on producing a useful and “like-able” web presence that will withstand the test of time? Leaders lead. Facebook is a leader in the social marketing world. Following is a natural response–unless you’re a leader.
We don’t have or maintain a Facebook presence because our focus is on creating a hub that supports and encourages leaders.
That’s why we “like” you.
The Main Street Web Company™ launched November 17, 2010 from the offices of Courthouse Webs™, 116 North Main Street, in Princeton, Indiana. We retain the De³™ trademark and the inherent technological advantages of that engineering approach to web development, design and deployment.