Happy New Year and 2015 Outlook

Hi all, Tim here, we hope you had a wonderful Christmas and fun new year celebration!

Here in Utah

We had a white Xmas and although it was cold it was very pretty. I drank a little too much wine on Xmas eve, paid for it on Xmas day, and have been unable to touch any beer or wine since.  I expect most of you have been there… : )  New year’s eve we spent playing games (Sonja’s favorite pastime) and she beat me.  Well, it had to happen sometime! : )

Sonja managed to pop another disk in her back a few weeks ago, “L2/L3” this time so as you can imagine, she is a tad frustrated (massive understatement). It is slowing her up quite a bit but she is still on the case, often working flat on her back, with her laptop levitated over her on a hospital-style bed table.

Mr. Moto

We are on track to implement a major lifestyle change around April.  We plan to be on the road, renting out our house, and living in our (new to us) motorhome which we call Mr. Moto.

We have quite a bit of work to do to get him ready as he needs a bit of renovation and customization.  Just fitting him with desks for both of us will be a major project, between us we have seven computer screens plus a ton of other geeky stuff so he will probably end up looking a bit like an FBI surveillance van inside.

Once on the road, our plan is to travel for a day or so then spend 2-4 weeks in a different city visiting with clients, then repeat, possibly spending an occasional week in the middle of nothing (desert/forest called boondocking).  The States is ideal for this as it is so big and diverse.

It will also help us spend more time visiting family and have way more face-to-face time with clients far more regularly.

We are very excited to get going.  Our biggest challenge is downsizing, getting rid of all the “stuff” we have accumulated over the years.

On The Road

We just spent six weeks on the road, San Francisco, Lake Tahoe, Las Vegas, Palm Springs, Escondido, San Diego, San Clemente, and Capistrano Beach in Orange County prior to Christmas.

We attended a technical conference on eCommerce in San Francisco (more on that in a moment) and a lot of time with clients in California.

We also had fun and I got to go bicycling along the beach in the sunshine, that really was fun!!! The trip paid off, helping us to sign up a number of new clients and strengthening the relationship with others.

Holistic Web Presence – Outlook 2015

The outlook for the business is very good.  It is clear the economy is picking up and we have several new clients.  While all of the checks are not in yet, we know we have a new wine storage facility client, a divorce attorney, a credit repair company, and another two or three new clients who have said they want to engage.

All of our existing clients also seem very happy and are doing very well.  Incorporation Attorney (Andy Gale) is doing very well with business picking up.  That’s good news as that particular business niche has been a major challenge to get tracking (visibility) as it is so competitive.

Wine Cellar Specialists (Nancy Noga-Higgins) recently hired a new salesperson to keep up with all the business.  Coastal Custom Wine Cellars (Jerry Wilson) is dominating his market.  M&M Wine Cellars are ramping nicely and Blue Grouse Wine Cellars are growing and have told us they love working with us.

US Cellar Systems and Iron Wine Cellars have told us they want to ramp up and do a lot more online marketing this year.  We also have a lot of new videos which will translate into projects for you all through January and beyond.

What’s Worked and What’s Coming?

eCommerce

It’s clear that eCommerce is becoming a big deal for us, we have two online stores nearing completion for BGWC and Coastal.  Hence the trip to the WOOCOMMERCE ecommerce conference in SF.

Anne has been doing an excellent job developing the stores and Joahne and Joseph have been doing a lot of hard work to get the products uploaded, written up, and optimized.  Sonja has been driving this initiative and it’s clear that eCommerce will be a major focus this year.

Adding ecommerce stores (a lot of new product pages) seems to have the secondary benefit of boosting the clients’ overall visibility (ranking in the search engines).

Client Stories

This process, from the M&M and Arctic service call write-ups, to the Coastal, BGWC, and WCS project write-ups, works really well.  Johnaden, Kirt, and Joahne have all done a really good job making that process work.  It’s clear that they drive both visibility and conversion (user engagement).

The full process of video, transcription, page, partner versions, mag site posts, and social media (Houzz) posting being the key.

Houzz, Stephanie’s focus, in particular, has been very important, driving a lot of additional traffic and leads to our clients.

Quality of Content

Improving the quality and depth of our content is also proving to have been a major factor.  As we measure the success of individual projects it’s clear that our content ranks very well and outshines competitive materials.

We have also been able to use this content as an example of what we do to help us win new clients.  Generally, new companies are “blown away” by the quality of content we produce.

Everyone has stepped up and helped us reach this quality level but I want to single out Johnaden and Wade who have really worked hard together on this and set the bar very high.

Kirt did a great job of leading the way with the test case of updating older pages with additional fresh content.  This also seems to have paid off.

Local Listings

This has really been Wade’s focus and more recently a part of Kirt’s efforts.  Most of our clients have seen a significant boost thanks to this work.  There is way more to “local listing” than is immediately apparent and we anticipate it continuing to be an important (albeit background) activity this year.

The related online review process and pages, Sonja’s original idea but something Wade really developed and rolled out, being a major component.  Again this is something that has helped us strengthen our relationship with existing clients as well as win more clients.

Website Design & Development

Thanks to Jade and a lot of work by Romwil we have rolled out a lot of new, very contemporary, website designs lately.

The new styles, see examples; Solpaletas.com, WineCellarCoolingLosAngeles.com, customwinecellarsflorida.com, BusinessAttorneyOrangeCountyCA.com are proving to be highly effective both in terms of user engagement (lead generation) and simply impressing the clients.  Again these designs are something that has helped us win additional clients.

In addition to this, they are all “responsive” (mobile optimized) looking great, and presenting very well on smartphones.  This is a big deal as viewing and interacting with websites on mobile devices is becoming a “must-have”.  At this point, thanks to this work, we are ahead of the game.

Training

We’ve added a lot of new training to our website.  We now have 21 Houzz training videos, new training on local listings and online reviews as well as a lot of “how to add content to WordPress” and 19 new videos on “how to add products to an online store“.

This training content has been very well received by our clients, helping our staff, and is proving to be a very valuable resource.  The training includes contributions from Wade and Sonja, and Romwil has done a great job enabling the new, more advanced, account access process.

Rockstar Status!

Everyone, without exception, has done a great job stepping up, broadening, and improving their skills in 2014.

However, we want to single out one individual, Romwil, who has literally been everywhere, managing a lot of websites, building a lot of high-quality new sites, fixing problems, generally being very proactive, and communicating directly with clients extremely effectively.

We have taken to calling Romwil a “rockstar” with good reason!!!

Looking Forward

We anticipate scrambling to keep up with the work in the first half of the year coming from both existing clients and new client projects in Q1 & Q2.

We think it’s likely we will need to grow the team around Q3 time offering more services and more output.

Ecommerce, mobile optimization, and demand for more content to be published through even more mediums being major drivers.

Significantly more video work is also looking very likely.

Bottom Line?

For Staff

The company is in good shape, there will be more work and plenty of opportunities to increase skills and earnings in 2015.  Quality and creativity of work, attention to detail, and output in that order being the key factors for success as we move forward.

For Our Clients

Holistic Web Presence is in good shape. This is thanks to you and of course the results we have been able to generate for you.

We have worked hard to stay ahead of changes and new technologies in the online world and then be very creative at implementing them.

Our goal being to be the best to work with and the best at getting results for you. Your feedback in 2014 has indicated that we have been achieving this goal.

As we look forward to 2015 we intend to continue driving these ideals.

Feedback?

Is there something you want to tell us that you think we may not have understood or something you would like us to be better at? Is there something that you would like us to do that we do not already offer? We value your feedback, if you have any suggestions we would love to hear from you. Simply email us at tim@holisticwebpresence.com with your thoughts and please title your email “2015 Feedback”