About Malcom Chakery

Malcom Chakery President: Chakery Design Founder and President of Chakery Design, Malcom Chakery has extensive knowledge and experience in the workings of a web based business operation. Possessing great amounts of expertise in regard to marketing, web design and development, Malcom is extremely comfortable handling all details regarding the day-to-day operations as well as the sales and support of his many high profile clients. With a clear plan in place regarding operational procedures, all aspects of web design, marketing and promotional activities are managed and overseen by Malcom before they are completed. As a stickler for detail, Malcom believes in providing greater than expected support, superior customer service, and innovative programs, making sure to go above and beyond customer expectations. Previous to his experience as President of Chakery Design, Malcom was employed as an Account Executive for several Fortune 500 companies including Blue Cross Blue Shield of RI, Nordstrom Department Store, Sprint PCS Business/Government and IKON Office Solutions Business and Government. With an eye on the future, it was clear to Malcom that his expertise could be more fully utilized by developing his own web-based company, which he has successfully achieved. Initially, Malcom started out almost exclusively as a print-media and website development agency. Today, his thriving company has grown to include everything from database development, e-commerce, web marketing, sales promotion, market research, public relations, new media and corporate identity. As the Internet continues to grow, Malcom’s role as a web related consultant continues to grow and expand as well. Malcom attended Johnson & Wales University where he served as Freshman Class Senator. He also acted as DECA Chapter President. Malcom operates his business with his wife Lisa. They reside in the State of Texas.

Hide or Seek: 7 Steps to Ensuring People Find You On The Web

Posted on May 9, 2011 by Malcom Chakery

Having a website is one of the most important things you can do for your business, This is because it allows you tell people everywhere what you do, where you are and who you are. However, a website is only good if people can find it. So, how can you ensure your website is found and that it does not require an elaborate game of Internet Hide and Seek? Here are 7 Google approved guidelines as shared in Web Designer magazine.

Provide quality content and services so that PageRank represents good quality sites linking to you. Remember, PR analyzes how many human generated links connect to your site.
Actively promote your site through social media, non-competitive sites and link bait so that you are actively letting people know about your website.
Be sure you have page titles that are interesting and accurate. They should have a title tag that tells both users and the Google search engine what each page is about.
Make sure your Metatag descriptions show a clear summary of what the page is about so Google will be better able to rank it.
Have a domain name and page URLS that are structured to convey content information easily.
Have an HTML sitemap on your website and use an XML sitemap file so users and Google can find all the pages of your site.
Make sure that Google is aware of your mobile sites, as soon as you have them.

Don’t play Hide and Seek with your website. If your site is difficult to find (or navigate once it is found), then your potential clients will soon become someone else’s customers. Use these 7 principles to make sure your site is “it”.

About the author

Founder and President of Chakery Design, Malcom Chakery has extensive knowledge and experience in the workings of a web based business operations. Possessing great amounts of expertise in regard to marketing, seo, web design and development, Malcom is extremely comfortable handling all details regarding the day-to-day operations as well as the sales and support of his many high profile clients. With a clear plan in place regarding operational procedures, all aspects of web design, seo, and promotional activities are managed and overseen by Malcom before they are completed. As a stickler for detail, Malcom believes in providing greater than expected support, superior customer service, and innovative programs, making sure to go above and beyond customer expectations. To learn more about Malcom and his companies please visit www.chakery.comor www.chakeryseo.com.

Asking for an Online Recommendation

Posted on May 8, 2011 by Malcom Chakery

Whether you are looking for a new job, or simply want to improve your online work profile, it is important that you have solid recommendations. This is because work recommendations often tell much more about you than what you did on the job, it also tells about your work ethic. Social media sites such as LinkedIn, recognize the value of recommendations and make it easy to request them. However, before you ask someone for a recommendation, there are 6 things to keep in mind.

Plan a recommendation strategy- Be able to articulate why you need a recommendation, then approach those people who can help you with that element.
Have a balance- Get a mix of people to send/write recommendations-direct boss, peers, customer, vendors, organizations-as this will give future employers a well-rounded view of who you are.
Volunteerism demonstrates skills- Just because you are/weren’t paid for work you did, does not lesson the skill. If you had results for your volunteerism, don’t overlook the valuable recommendations. Volunteering lets people know you are willing to go the extra mile for something you believe in.
Choosing who to ask-Experts recommend that you wait at least 1 year after working somewhere/with someone before asking for a recommendation. In fact, you should know them well enough that you could write the recommendation yourself and they would sign it without any qualms. Also, if a person expects quid pro quo, ask someone else.
How many?-Ideally, 2 per job is great, especially if they highlight different aspects/ competency.
Curate your recommendations- When you ask for recommendations be sure to ask to review it before it is posted. One of the great things about sites like LinkedIn is that you can pick and choose which recommendations you want to be visible.

Whenever someone writes a recommendation for you, be sure to show your appreciation. Remember, they took timeout of their busy schedule to write something for you to help you better your resume. Be sure to say thanks. This element is as important as all the rest. So always do a good job, and then start collecting those important recommendations so you can improve your current work situation.

About the author

Time to Make the Doughnuts: Dunkin’ Donuts Goes Local

Posted on May 4, 2011 by Malcom Chakery

For several years, Dunkin’ Donuts had a rather generic website that served as the go to place for all information on Dunkin’ Donuts. And while the site had great information about Dunkin’ Donuts from a national viewpoint, there was little information regarding the local shops. However, not too long ago this lack of local focus changed.

The new site was inspired by feedback from Facebook fans who wanted to know more about what is going on at their local Dunkin’ Donuts store. The result is that Dunkin’ Donuts redesigned their site to meet this interest and made it available via Google Local to both the standard PC and their mobile devices. To learn what is happening at your local store, simply enter in your zip code or use the GPS function on your smartphone. This local feature also allows you to keep up with store openings, hours and ultimately, special promotions.

In addition, Dunkin’ Donuts has also added a blog and is streaming content from feeds on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. To make Dunkin Donuts more appealing to the health conscious consumer, the company has also added an “eating smart” menu along with an assortment of iced coffees around the holidays.

Dunkin Donut’s move to being a Google Local site is one that many businesses are making. After all, when your business is listed on Google Local you have an even larger customer base resulting in more consumer awareness and ultimately higher revenue. If you are interested in joining Dunkin Donuts and many other businesses by having a customized Goggle Local site, be sure to talk to the professionals at Chakery Design. We will be glad to talk to you and help you determine how to make the most of a Google Local site for your company.

About the author

Keeping Your Twitter Stream Exciting

Posted on May 2, 2011 by Malcom Chakery

The use of social media as a way to market your business has become common knowledge for most. After all, social media allows one to develop clientele all around the globe-even if you don’t have a passport. However, there is more to social media than simply having an account and posting the occasional comment. Plus, some sites are viewed as better than others for business use, so you want to be sure to do all you can to take advantage of this potential. As such, one of the best sites available for promoting your business is Twitter.

Given that Twitter has a global community with a billion tweets per week, you want to do all you can to post items that catch people’s attention and keep it focused on you. So, here are several things you can do to ensure that your Twitter account is being used to its full business potential.

Keep it Visual-A picture says a thousand words and since Twitter only allows 140 characters, using pictures on your Twitter stream adds a new level of interest and lets your followers have a glimpse into the world of your company.
Find inspiration-Follow tweets of other tweeters and when you have a day when the words just won’t come to you, retweet comments of others-especially those tweets that refer to your business. This retweeting will double as customer reviews and also empower followers by emphasizing their importance to you.
Get physical-Social media, for all its ability to connect people, can sometimes lack developing a real relationship, save that of the online persona. One of the best ways to use social media to connect with your clients is by responding to their tweets.
Get personal-Share stories about your company, lessons learned or even congratulatory comments when your customers share personal events or accomplishments.
Be smart- Be sure that in addition to pictures, retweets and stories that you post that you also give your followers a reason to follow. These incentives may be sneak peeks of new items, Twitter follower exclusives, special coupons, promos, contests or any other method that encourages followers.

Kick up your Twitter stream with these simple tips. You will be pleasantly pleased with how your business, as well as your number of Twitter followers, will grow.

About the author

Things You Need To Know About Flickr

Posted on April 28, 2011 by Malcom Chakery

I have had a Flickr pro account for about 5 years. The pro account is the paid version for $24.95 per month you get unlimited uploads and storage of your images and videos. Ad free browsing and sharing, and HD quality playback of your videos and a few other features that the free plan does not offer. Well say for example if you have uploaded two thousand photos and one thousand videos over the years and you have in that time also had a computer crash and thought ahh no worries you have flickr so everything is backed up in the Flickrverse yeah I just made that up.. “FlickrVerse”!! So where was I? Yes your computer crashes and you want to find that picture of the cute little kitten that you got for Christmas in 2009. So you log into your Flickr account using your Yahoo ID username and password since it is a Yahoo service only to find a message that appears stating that you can only see 200 pictures at the moment until you renew the service for the additional year for $24.99. Unfortunately you can not see the kitten until you pay the $24.99. So now at this point if you had decided that you were going to download all of your photos and videos from the past 5 years and wanted to stop paying yearly for the paid service and wanted to take advantage of the free service you can not do it. You can not access anything past those 200 images or videos whatever they decide to give you access to. You know when a person receive’s too many parking tickets they sometimes put a yellow boot on the car tire to stop that vehicle from moving. Essentially that is what Flickr is doing to your personal images that you uploaded on to their servers. Till you pay them the $24.99 those images stay locked up on their server. So you pay them the $24.99 They now have you for another year and most people are going to simply stay until it happens again, like I have for the past 3-4 years. I am telling you this because many people are unaware of this until it happens and many people can not afford to pay for these extra services but are forced to do so to get the photos that are very important to them. There was an incident where one user had 600 photos deleted without his knowledge because he claimed that he was not notified. Here is a link to his story http://goo.gl/GN1nX .

The moral of the story is if you are trusting an online site with your photos make sure that you have those images backed up somewhere. Not just on your computer because a hard drive can and will crash. Back them up on a CD/DVD or a Thumb Drive. Thumb Drives have come down in cost significantly. If you are internet savvy try to figure out a way to have your images hosted on your own server or your own network so that you don’t have to depend on someone else’s network availability and security. Also in this day and age Flickr is also known for Geo Tagging images…Geotagging is defined by adding your personal location information to things like a photo.
So here is an example. You take a picture of your family at your home during Christmas morning showing everyone the new iPad2 and the brand new Sony Big Screen TV that you got for Christmas and you upload it to Flickr. What you didn’t know is that it was Geo Tagged and that it gave the exact latitude and longitude and the time the picture was taken and the type of camera used of course. It might look something like this.

GPS Latitude                    : 57 deg 38' 56.83" N
GPS Longitude                   : 10 deg 24' 26.79" E
GPS Position                    : 57 deg 38' 56.83" N, 10 deg 24' 26.79" E

Just make sure you set your settings to have Geo Tagging off if of course you do not want to have your private information out there for the world to see. Because in the case I described above. A criminal with a computer no longer has to go door to door he simply has to go to flickr, facebook, or twitter and look for the right victim and look through the images and see what the data looks like in the images and see how far it might take him. Take a look at the image below where Flickr is asking me to renew. I have all of my images backed up of course so I have no need whatsoever to renew.

If it’s not Broken-Don’t Fix it! Does Your Website have Findability?

Posted on April 27, 2011 by Malcom Chakery

Have you ever decided that your webpage needed to updated/upgraded? Maybe you feel like you have been looking at the same graphics, colors, blog posts, etc. for months and it’s time for a change. Perhaps, you have been getting numerous site visits and sales are up, so you decide that if you make some changes this increase in revenue would be even higher.

Before, you call the website designer consider this: Does the website look old and boring because you look at it every day or do you really feel that some upgrades are a must? Remember, while you may think that the site lacks something it may simply be because you see it all the time.

However, if you look at your website and feel it needs to be improved or have more Findability, then take some time to note what elements of your site are working well, keeping in mind the following:

Take emotions out of the equation! When it comes to evaluating your website, be sure you look at “Just the facts.” Marketing guru Orvel Ray Wilson says, “Just about the time you are ready to throw up when you use your brand one more time, that is when your audience starts remembering and connecting to it.” If what you are doing is working and attracting customers, then it might be best to leave it alone!

When determining if a change to your webpage is necessary, don’t overlook the tools at your disposal. Run your site through tools such as Sitetuners.com’s Tuning Engine, the Google’s Website Optimizer or their Analytics tool and see how your site ranks. If everything is high, then leave your site alone. However, if there are a number of bounce-backs, a lessening of social media traffic, a decrease in time spent on site, then change may be in order.

If change is needed, create the new version of your homepage while saving a copy of the old one. Put the new one in active rotation and do a split test. Use analytics to see which page gives you more desirable results. Once the data shows which page is more effective make any other changes based on the information gleaned.

Not every website needs to be updated-especially if all is going well. You want your website to have Findability and if changes will not improve this, then don’t fix what isn’t broken.

About the author

Dealing with Disaster: When Your Website Gets Fired On

Posted on April 21, 2011 by Malcom Chakery

When it comes to show business, many would tell you that there is “no such thing, as bad media attention” because publicity is a good thing. However, in the world of the Internet, this is not always the case. Thanks to sites such as Yelp, RipOffReport.com and others, dissatisfied consumers, or perhaps former employees, are able to blast your business from the privacy of their homes. Before you know it, your business website may be at the top of a search list—just not for the reasons you would desire.

If this has happened to you, then you are likely looking for ways to overcome the problem. If you have not needed to deal with being blacklisted online, then count your blessings and file the following information away in case you should have to deal with a disgruntled former employee/customer later on.

If you have not already done this in building your brand, go to sites such as Yelp, Google Local, City Search and others and identify yourself as the official business owner. Be sure that the company profile, policies and resolution records are up to date. If possible, link to your BBB ranking or RatePoint status.
Be sure your profiles are current and that you have used keywords for your site in them. these keywords should be a part of your Title, Company Description and other elements listed.
Reach out to loyal customers, explain the situation and ask if they will help you by posting reviews on Yelp or Places.Google.com . You may even want to offer them a small gift or gift card in return for their support. You could even add a comment to your voice mail that says something like, “Post a review online and get a gift. Thanks for allowing us to serve you!”
Use social media sites to promote your product and to track what people are saying about it on Facebook, Twitter and others. There are many tools available to help you keep up with what is being said about your company.

As you begin to recapture your audience, you will soon find your company website ranking back where you were before the damage. In fact, it may even surpass its previous ranking, as now there have been so many additional reviews and comments left online.

About the author

Do You Know the Code?

Posted on April 15, 2011 by Malcom Chakery

If you have paid much attention to packages, magazines and even billboards these days, chances are you have seen a few QR codes. The QR code, standing for quick response, is a square shaped black and white symbol that in many ways is not much more than a kicked up barcode. However, thanks to their design, they can do more than simply identify what and how much and item is.

A QR code, unlike a barcode, can be used to encode information in a 2-dimensional space that can be read both horizontally and vertically in a tiny grid of squares. This difference offers a great deal of potential to anyone looking to market their business using a more advanced technology. Some of the ways you can a QR code are:

Contact info for an individual or company
Phone numbers that are embedded can be dialed automatically
URLs are immediately connected
View a calendar event with full details
Coupons
Sign-up forms
GPS/physical address
Product information
Customer Support information

This information is accessed when consumers use their mobile phone to decode the QRs. This ease of access makes the QR code one of the most beneficial tools available for promoting a business. But even better than the multiple uses of a QR code is that it is free. If you are considering a QR code for your business, then you can check sites like:

Once you have created a QR code for your business or event, then you will be able to include it on items such as invoices, event tickets, assorted signage, email signature lines, on your website and on virtually any item that can be printed. In addition, when you use a QR on your website you are showing search engines that your web pages have changed and they will index it accordingly.

So, if you are looking for a way to update your website as well as promote your business, check out one of the preceding sites and design a QR code of your own! With just a few minutes of your time, you can have a QR code that can promote your business anywhere you want.

About the author

Is Your Website Mobile?

Posted on April 4, 2011 by Malcom Chakery

Recently a friend shared an experience with me regarding internet use. She had wanted to download tickets for a local event. Unfortunately, the site was not compatible for mobile users, so she was unable to follow the link that was sent to her for printing the tickets. Happily, she was able to contact the person heading up the event and get her tickets that way, instead.

However, her frustration made me wonder how many sites there are that have not updated to suit the needs of today’s mobile consumer. After all, if you are trying to sell a product or service you don’t want to lose customers simply because your site cannot be navigated on a mobile device.

If you have yet to update your website for the mobile user, consider this. Cisco has predicted that worldwide mobile traffic will increase by 25 times between now and 2015, largely in part to the extensive amount of video consumption on today’s mobile devices. (Website Magazine, April 2011) So, if you have a company that is primarily a web-based business and have yet to make your website mobile-friendly, then you will ultimately loose a large percentage of new customers—and perhaps some of the existing ones.

In a day where money and budgeting is tighter than it has been decades, this is not the time to decide that upgrades are unnecessary. After all, you want your website to be user –friendly so your sales increase and your site guests can’t wait to come back and visit again. Make sure your website is on the move so your customers will not move on to someone else!

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3D Website Design and Motion Websites (Wii Like)

Posted on April 1, 2011 by Malcom Chakery

Today, Chakery Design is pleased to announce the introduction of 3D Website Design and Motion Websites. No more bland websites where you point and click your way from homepage to blogs. Now, your website can be the total interactive experience as your products are seen in 3D and site guests can test them out before they buy them.

The Motion Website works much like playing your Wii. Rather than just clicking the “Next” button to go the following page, now you can hop, skip, run or perhaps surf your way to the next page. You can even design the site so that you can go to the next page by moving hands like you would turn the pages of a book. The possibilities are endless!

The 3D feature allows you to make invitations and newsletter more personable. Site guests don 3D glasses (available at numerous locations) so that rather than getting a printed invitation on the computer, now they can have someone “in person” sharing the information. Do you want your customers to experience how your latest improvement to your skill saw works? Now they can try it out before purchasing without fear of damaging the product.

Basic requirements for the 3D and Motion Website designs are Wii controller and balance board or the Kinect game system and you are ready for a totally interactive experience on the Web. Contact us today for more information on how you can convert your website to a 3D or Motion website!

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Author Archives: Malcom Chakery

About Malcom Chakery

Hide or Seek: 7 Steps to Ensuring People Find You On The Web

Asking for an Online Recommendation

Time to Make the Doughnuts: Dunkin’ Donuts Goes Local

Things You Need To Know About Flickr

If it’s not Broken-Don’t Fix it! Does Your Website have Findability?

Is Your Website Mobile?

3D Website Design and Motion Websites (Wii Like)