Fastmetrics extends technical support coverage with new office

Fastmetrics now has an out-of-state branch office. We contract some of our technical support (via VoIP), marketing, and web development work to this branch office for several reasons, but primarily for redundancy and time zone coverage.

To ensure functionality, we employ DSL and cable connections that are completely separate.

Under normal operation, we use a “Poor Man’s” QoS and separate the voice traffic from the computer traffic using VLAN’s through a Cisco 2950 switch that breaks the voice traffic out to the DSL link and the PC traffic to the cable connection. The traffic actually goes across VPN connections to ensure reliability and security.

The VoFM (Voice over FastMetrics) solution works so well that clients don’t realize that they aren’t talking to someone in San Francisco.

Ted Weston

Fastmetrics ranks highly for another keyword. High organic SEO results!

Recent Google results show Fastmetrics has added another popular keyword to it’s list of high organic rankers.

As of today, ranked #5 out of 79,000,000 search results. A targeted keyword too, double bonus!

Image courtesy of infxsolutions.com

Ask me how; cody@fastmetrics.com

Or read more on how to achieve high organic SEO results here, with a keyword strategy.

Cody James Miller

Fastmetrics adds live chat to site: faster customer support & service.

Fastmetrics has recently added a live chat feature to fastmetrics.com.

Now customers and visitors can chat directly to a live Fastmetrics operator.
Any support or business inquiries can be answered directly, without having to wait for a return e-mail, or phone call.

The decision to add a live chat feature to the Fastmetrics site was an easy one; an effective way of engaging with Fastmetrics web traffic and existing clients.

Try it out today here on the Fastmetrics website.

Cody James Miller

YouNoodle.com: The start-up that can predict the fate of others’?

“Two former Oxford University students are getting attention (and seed money) in Silicon Valley, for developing new technology that automates aspects of the venture capital decision-making process”.

YouNoodle.com offers predictions on whether a start-up will succeed or fail, based on a range of information gathered. Ultimately, YouNoodle aims to take the guess work out of venture capitalist investment.

Image courtesy of techdigest.tv

“The model relies on four basic areas: the team, financial factors, the concept, and advisors. A startup company fills in a survey with detailed questions focused on these four areas, and out pops the valuation”.

YouNoodle is now featured on websites such as the SFGate Business News, in its own start-up index section.

Matt Richtel writes more here in his article from the New York times.

Cody James Miller

PPC Advertising Tips from Hamlet Batista – improve quality scores.

PPC tips and techniques from the expert himself, Hamlet Batista. Hamlet Batista has been at the forefront of SEO since its early stages and his SEM strategies are proven and well documented. Mr Batista is the CEO and founder of the RankSense software product.

Image courtesy of semwisdom.com

Plenty of common sense tips here that will help improve your quality score and optimize your pay-per-click campaign.

Get the most out of your PPC ads today!

Cody James Miller

Fastmetrics White Paper on Hosted IP & Converged Solutions

“The market for Hosted IP is tremendously growing because it offers businesses to benefit from the advantages of IP Communications without investing in the education of IT staff and investing in expensive hard and software infrastructure”.

Just one of the many benefits of a converged solution or Hosted IP.

Image courtesy of; www.ics-on.ca

What are the other benefits of IP Communications?

Read all about them in the Fastmetrics White Paper on Converged Communications.

Cody James Miller

Build a fan page on Facebook & get active on Twitter to promote your business.

Building a fan page on Facebook can be a great way to connect to one of the most popular social media sites in the world. It is very easy to do. Instantly add your existing friends and also promote your fan page with updates, messages and ads.

Become a fan of Fastmetrics on Facebook. Check it out;

Fastmetrics on Facebook

Image courtesy of www.icicom.up.pt

The popularity of Twitter is well documented. Even President Obama has a profile, one of the most popular on Twitter.

Follow people of interest and click to sites which are updated through Twitter. Of course, this is handy for promoting your own site, blog or just letting your followers know what you are up to.

Follow Fastmetrics Tweets here.

We look forward to becoming your new fan, or following you on Twitter!

Cody James Miller

Pronto! Better communications & much more from your inbox.

Pronto! provides you with all your internet communication needs and other great features from your inbox. IM, (instant messaging), a soft phone for VoIP calls, store videos, photos, upload blog entries, and of course e-mail, all from one dynamic interface.

Based on Adobe Flash / Flex 3 / Air technologies, Pronto! unifies all forms of internet communications in a very manageable interface, that you can access anywhere. “Whether users are in their office, at home, or on the road, they can access their e-mail, IM, telephony, or files with the click of a mouse”.

Other features include shared calendaring, call control – (conference calls, transfers, etc), and lots more. Additionally, Pronto! is secure, fast and < 2mb in size, with no heavy protocols attached. So, access all these features without delay, over a secure and safe interface.

Personally, I have found Pronto! to be a very productive tool. I can access my e-mail over the web in Outlook style, and IM with my work colleagues from anywhere. (You can easily add e-mail, phone or chat contacts). Also, the soft phone is very good. I can look up a contact and instantly dial their number. EVERYTHING from the inbox!

To read more about what Pronto! can offer you, the datasheet from CommuniGate can be downloaded here.

Fastmetrics is proud to announce that it now offers Pronto! to all e-mail clients, in addition to our webmail service. Clients have the option of using webmail, or the dynamic Pronto! interface.

Cody James Miller

Google Webmaster Tools – monitor your SEO progress & more.

I have been a user of Google Webmaster Tools since starting in SEO. It has gradually had features added to it and now has a new dynamic interface.

Image courtesy of quality-web-solutions.com

Not just a place for webmasters, but a great way to keep track of what keywords are being used to find your site, what keywords are bringing up your site and monitoring sitelinks and external links.

Google Webmaster Tools also provides an XML sitemap inclusion option, which it will crawl directly. (XML sitemaps allow search engines to crawl a list of URLs that are available on your website, from a single “page” or file).

In addition, find crawl errors and pages that might need a 404 redirect placed on them.

Overall, a very useful, free tool for monitoring SEO progress and your website performance, when it comes to Google. Described as; “your one-stop shop for webmaster resources that will help you with your crawling and indexing questions, introduce you to offerings that can enhance and increase traffic to your site, and connect you with your visitors”.

You will find all the major search engines, including Microsoft’s latest and greatest, Bing, have similar facilities. It will help your site if you submit an XML sitemap to these too!

Highly recommended. Check it out – Google Webmaster Tools.

Cody James Miller

Optimize your website with SEO – tricks & tips.

So you have a website. It’s neat and you’re pretty chuffed about it.

But will people find it? Will Google even list your site when someone searches for info or a product that you have on your site?

SEO can be the answer. With the right SEO planning and research, bring your site traffic. Targeted traffic.

Keyword research can make or break your website. Too broad, too difficult to rank. Too specific, no one will search using these terms. It’s a fine line, but it can be done. (Top 10 Google rankings and how Fastmetrics did it, here).

Image courtesy of superseoman.com

This week from entireweb newsletter, some tips and SEO knowledge that every website should implement.

If you take only one thing from the article, let it be this; take action! Do some SEO work on your website today. There is always room for improvement when it comes to SEO.

Cody James Miller