CKMG Supported Websites

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Service Providers, Websites, Technologies & Software Partners

Tranquil Net IT Solutions provides CKMG with Full Service Outsourced IT Solutions. Supporting all of our internal technology needs along with a large majority of our clients who were looking for a better solution and a more personal relationship from their IT partner.

Organization Tools That Make Our Lives Easier

Google Documents. We started using Google documents a couple years ago after working with a large client project manager who was baffled by the amount of excel documents we were customizing and passing back and forth. Integrating Google Documents into our day to day project management lives has been a massive time saver and data collection collaboration tool.

Smart Sheet. Taking our use of Google Docs one step further with more in-depth customization capabilities and pre-built project, marketing and financial templates has helped us to become even more efficient with our time.  As a Full Service Web Agency in a constant state of operational and deliverable innovation, the use the use of SmartSheet is no longer a “hey, that’s a cool tool”, but a necessity.

BasecampHQ. Basecamp was our first project management software and after a short stint with Central Desktop will be our last… Looking back at some of our busiest business quarters and taking a moment to recognize just how much get’s done with our little shop is amazing at times. I’d love to create a contest between larger agencies and higher staffed internet marketing companies to see who can get more done, accurately and on time using Basecamp to manage projects from A to Z.

NotableApp. For those of you who’ve ever dealt with a project where what was supposed to be a basic design or creative overhaul became a back and forth revision nightmare you’ll appreciate the ease of use with this creative feedback software. There are still some elements that I think Notable needs to address; integrating features similar to what you can do with a screen shot capture tool like fireshot… BUT… it’s been a great time saver for us and has helped to minimize the total count of revisions with our creative projects.

Keyword & Competitive Analysis & Research Tools

Google Keyword Tool. The free tool that Google provides prospective and existing Google Adwords Advertisers is great for quick keyword traffic opportunity and competitive landscape assessments. Showing someone how many times people are searching for their products or services for the first time is always an interesting eye opener.

SpyFU is a new tool we’ve added to our repertoire that helps us during our pre-sales & pre-project process when we need to create a diagnostic of where the client project is today and what we need to focus on to help.  They have multiple tools… awesome solutions and big-time time savers.

Keyword Spy is a great tool for dissecting niches for PPC campaigns, by keyword or via URL.  This tool can obviously be used for SEO purposes, but when it comes to PPC it’s pretty awesome.  Again, it’s all about tools that give you the information you need in order to make the right decisions and the right game plan to succeed.

Word Tracker. We’ve been using word tracker to help develop our editorial calendars and keyword target lists for clients since starting CKMG in 2006. As of late they’ve become a go-to resource for daily reading and industry “insider” intelligence with their well written tutorials and quality articles helping us help our clients get a better understanding of the current search landscape when it comes to SEO & PPC.

Advanced Web Ranking. I was actually introduced to this tool in 2005 when I was looking for a more efficient way to provide clients with up to date ranking reports showcasing how the new content pages targeting new keywords were providing new entry points for hits and new business. I can still remember doing google search after google search going page by page to show clients how the work we did moved their Website from page 9 to page 3 or the 15th listing on page 2 to 5 on page one… AWR allows us to track progress month over month with a few keyword strokes giving us the most up to date web page rankings for hundreds to thousands of keywords across Google, Yahoo, MSN down to the most obscure search engines here in America and abroad.

Google Analytics & Webmaster Tools. When we first started CKMG we were using a number of different Website analytics software solutions. Mostly based on our clients existing solutions or preferences… doing our best to learn the ins and outs as quickly as possible to get the data we needed to make improvements month over month. Whether it was to get more traffic to a page or to recognize that we needed to overhaul the information architecture because many of the main navigation links or tabs weren’t even being clicked on and we were wasting prime real estate. With Google’s Webmaster Tools and analytics constant improvements and our level of knowledge utilizing the tools properly also improving month over month we’ve become loyal users and promoters. Using the information to improve everything from traffic optimization to user experience to conversion optimization and information architecture decisions.

Website Content Management & Publishing Tools

WordPress. WordPress has slowly become our first choice when it comes to choosing a content management system for new Website builds or Website overhauls. In the past we’d only use WordPress when a client wanted to set up a blog or a micro site to create additional real estate and unique entry points to promote their products or services. Using WordPress as our “Guerilla Marketing” revenue growth add-on solution while wasting time and money trying to build custom applications w/ unrealistic budgets and operational man power to hit home runs for our clients. By shifting our focus to revenue growth initiatives and implementing our “lean and mean” strategy we’ve been able to leverage WordPress and a handful of smart WordPress Plugins to create a blue print that allows us to guarantee month over month growth for our clients.

Drupal. Great

Joomla. Great

Tumblr. Great

Blogger. Great

Social Media Marketing Tools & Publishing Outlets

Sprout Social. We’ve only just started to utilize Sprout Social to manage the effectiveness, growth and areas for improvement managing all of our social media marketing profiles by client from one main console. There are many aspects that we’ve yet to begin optimizing and/or customizing so we’ll be adding onto this blurb for them.

Twitter. Creating custom twitter profiles for clients has become a mandatory part of every client project. Since making twitter a mandatory part of our over all internet marketing growth campaigns we’ve seen traffic grow month over month across all projects. That alone is a reason to integrate and sync twitter with every project… When you tack on the additional benefits of having another piece of branded real estate within the SERPS (Search Engine Results Pages) and the fact that you’re essentially building a new distribution channel for personal, corporate and promotional communication and it’s a clear no-brainer monthly expense.

Facebook. We’ve only recently begun to tap into the power of Facebook as a marketing and advertising tool for our clients. It’s slowly becoming a bigger part of our over-all game plans for client projects the more versed we get with all it’s features for individual and corp brands.