We’re proud to announce the winners of our "Boost Your Juice 2" Contest, which set out to give health and/or wellness websites an opportunity to win $5,000 in internet marketing services. Not only that, but a second place winner had the chance to win $1,000 in internet marketing services too! We’re so happy to have had over 1,500 votes, thanks to all who participated. And without further adieu…the winners are:
1st Place: $5,000 in Internet Marketing Services
(#1) Natures Garden
With 53% of the votes (837)
2nd Place: $1,000 in Internet Marketing Services
(#4) Happy Tails
With 29% of the votes (461)
Thanks to everyone who entered and voted, we had a great response on this promotion. We look forward to working with both the winners, and hope to continue the "Boost Your Juice" Contest series again soon. Subscribe to our blog by entering your e-mail above and get ready for the next internet marketing services contest!
If you’ve been following our "Boost Your Juice 2" contest then you know today is the big announcement day! We received many submissions, but only five lucky entries were chosen by our staff as finalists. Now it’s up to you, our readers and visitors, to pick the winners of our "Boost Your Juice 2" contest! Make sure to scroll to the bottom and vote for your favorite. The 1st place winner will receive $5,000 in internet marketing services and the 2nd place winner will receive $1,000 in internet marketing services. A lot at stake here so please take the time and vote for the most deserving entry. Vote before November 11th, and check back to our blog on November 13th to see who won!
#1 Natures Garden
We are a web based farmer’s market operating year-round here in Arizona. Our service is a new outlet for the distribution of local food in a technologically advanced era. Local organic farmers and vendors enjoy the ability to sell products without the limitations associated with the conventional farmers market.
So much of our health is ultimately decided by what we eat. We think convenience plays a major part in everyone’s purchasing decisions. By making healthy local food easily assessable we increase the health and happiness of our community.
Our largest hurdle as a start-up web based business is simply letting consumers know we exist. Web presence is essential to our growth. We believe the local economy can benefit tremendously by JUICING UP our internet marketing. More customers mean more sales and exposure for the local farmer who can now concentrate on farming. Local vendors can benefit from the peace of mind that our market is always open. Consumers enjoy a greater sense of community by purchasing locally produced foods. Furthermore, nearly twice the amount of money spent on local goods is retained by the community when compared to buying from non local resources.
Help us strengthen our community by nominating us for the 5k in internet marking!
#2 S P A C E
I am writing this essay for the Boost Your Juice Contest presented by Vertical Measures.
This contest would be an unbelievable asset to the marketing campaign that I recently started for my business s p a c e. s p a c e is a massage studio that I created, designed and built (with a great carpenter friend) that is perfect for many people seeking a calm place in these chaotic times. The 300 sq. ft. space was created from a former workshop and completed in June 2009.
I would love to have assistance in marketing my home-based business that was created out of necessity. In March 2009, my spa at the Scottsdale Waterfront, Moss Wellness Spa, closed its doors for the last time. I put my heart and soul into the concept, design, installation and operation, only to have it go un-noticed due to the changing financial world. We did not have the time to stake a proper foundation and I am not about to have the same thing happen for my own creation, again.
My passion for the Health & Wellness lifestyle is simple for me; I practice it daily and share my insights with those around me. My tenacity and fervor to see this through again will not wane, but I would welcome the guidance and assistance of outside contributions. My budget has been on a shoestring and I am doing what I can personally to network, advertise and to get the word out efficiently and quickly. The location is fantastic (walking distance to LGO, Postino and radio MILANO) but zoning, financing and other constraints do limit my ability to move forward on a large scale.
The community and networks that I have created over the past 4 years in AZ, will definitely benefit from knowing more about me and s p a c e. I vow to continue sharing my life and stories, because it is part of my DNA. Visit my website and see for yourself – www.spacephx.com.
Thank you for the opportunity…
#3 Natural Health
Wellsource Naturopathic Medical Center, LLC is a wellness center focused on restoring health by finding and treating the underlying cause of
patients’ health problems, rather than treating symptoms. At this time, I am the CEO and sole practitioner of this organization. My vision for the future includes a group of practitioners working together to bring the patient to a state of optimal health.
I utilize naturopathic medicine to help patients by first listening deeply to their story of how they came to be out of balance in the area of physical, mental, emotional and or spiritual health. By listening well, the story unfolds to reveal the underlying cause or causes of imbalance. Next, I take a full medical history, physical exam and recommend lab work if needed. Then I create a treatment plan for the patient after which they understand how they came to be out of balance and how their health can be restored. My first visit, I spend an hour and a half with each patient. At the end of this first visit, what I hear most commonly is “thankyou.. I now have hope”. Sadly, most patients have been through the typical medical establishment and feel unsatisfied, unimportant and lost. Many have been told “there is nothing we can do” or given yet another prescription medication.
I feel extremely blessed to be the vehicle for restoring hope to my patients. Each patient’s basic needs are met – to be heard and understood. This turning point is often what inspires them to share their experience and refer their friends and family to my practice. The symptoms that are presented are simply clues that lead us, together, to the answers – the underlying cause of imbalance. Each day is exciting because I get to inspire others to listen to their body and hear its wisdom. This paradigm shift is what I personally experienced through my own healing and inspired me to enter the field of naturopathic medicine. My gift is sharing this with others.
“Barbara”, a 50 year old woman entered my clinic less than a year ago. For ten years, she suffered from aching painful weak muscles in her legs, moving into her arms. This physically fit woman could not squat without help to get up. Her energy level was nearly zilch. She had to stop working due to her pain. All the four physicians she visited tested scans and extensive blood work. They diagnosed her with chronic fatigue syndrome and she was given anti-depressants. As with many other patients, her symptoms worsened after stress. She is taking care of her 2 elderly parents, one with Alzheimer’s disease. After more probing however, a diagnosis of Lyme disease was discovered and sub-optimal thyroid and adrenal function. She is now in her last month of treatment with botanical and glandular medicines that restore her weakened body and immune system to full strength. She is feeling wonderful, able to garden, to squat, take long walks and help her father get in and out of his wheelchair. Her energy is now 9 out of 10.
I love to work with children. Their lives affect so many others. One 8 year old boy “Darryl” was diagnosed with attention deficit disorder and put on a stimulant called Ritalin, which did not help him. His mother was desperate for help, as her son was creating havoc in the family and at school. The underlying cause was an imbalance in brain chemistry due to poor diet and food intolerances. By removing dairy from his diet, and giving him a homeopathic remedy and the amino acids that he was missing, he no longer had attention issues. His teacher said “he’s a different child now”.
These stories and others are why I would like to have an internet marketing campaign. I want to reach more people. I want to reach those that are hopeless and need a doctor who will listen. I want to share what I have learned about the wisdom our bodies, how they can heal themselves when given the right tools and environment. I want to empower others to listen to their body, love themselves, and sustain a healthy happy life.
#4 Happy Tails
Happy Tails Service Dogs is a 501(c )(3) organization that teaches persons with a physical disability or who are deaf/hard of hearing how to train their dog to become a service dog as recognized by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
The ADA was passed in 1990 and states businesses and organizations that serve the public must allow people with disabilities to bring their service animals into all areas of the facility where customers are normally allowed to go.
Prior to 2005, the Arizona Law addressing service animal accessibility was not consistent with the ADA. Happy Tails created a coalition consisting of all service dog programs in Arizona, the Arizona ADA, Center for Disability Law and several service dog users. The coalition submitted a proposal to the legislature which would bring the Arizona Law into compliance. The proposal was approved and went into effect in 2005 (ARS 11-1024).
Now, nineteen years after the signing of the ADA, we still hear stories of individuals who use service animals being denied access to public areas. Examples of two of our most recent inquiries regarding accessibility are: 1) Happy Tails was contacted by a person who had a service dog. He said he was told to leave a grocery store. We contacted the manager as well as the corporate office. The corporate office was eager to have Happy Tails provide training so they could learn what their rights were as a business. 2) Happy Tails took a class of five students and their dogs to a mall. The security guard questioned some of the students. He was given a copy of the Arizona law. The following week he came over to us and thanked us for the information. He said it made him aware of issues he did not know the law covered.
Happy Tails received an email on June 16, 2009 regarding Arizona State Bill 1377 which Senator Gray sponsored. The proposed changes stated “THE COUNTY SHALL DESIGN UNIFORM IDENTIFICATION TAGS OR VESTS TO BE WORN BY SERVICE ANIMALS”. Many complaints from the community stated that the changes would once again make ARS 11-1024 noncompliant with the Federal Law, so the Bill died.
Published scientific research shows that having an animal companion improves both emotional and physical well-being. Studies have connected pet ownership with favorable health effects ranging from lower blood pressure to reduced anxiety levels. Besides benefitting emotionally and physically, a person who uses a service animal also achieves a higher level of independence and socialization.
When a person with a disability chooses to use a service dog to improve their level of independence or quality of life, they rarely anticipate some of the problems they may face when being denied public access. People using service animals have shared experiences of being humiliated, frustrated, treated like second class citizens or even being made to feel like a criminal when their access rights are challenged due to a lack of the establishment’s knowledge of the law.
Happy Tails is requesting consideration for the Boost Your Juice contest so that we may receive assistance in marketing and revising our web site.
Receiving professional input from Vertical Measures will benefit businesses as well as the disabled. It is our goal for businesses to have a greater opportunity to be directed to our site when searching for appropriate information on accessibility issues. Having accurate information will allow businesses to interact with disabled individuals using service animals in a less stressful manner.
By having a more pleasant experience, people with disabilities will be more apt to increase their level of community integration and socialization.
#5 Take A Hike
Take A Hike Arizona, LLC is a small, women owned company with a great mission and great potential! Starting off as volunteer stewards with the McDowell Sonoran Conservancy, we found that many people wanted to get out and enjoy the local scenery but weren’t sure how. So we started our hiking company to get them off the couch and out into the desert! We love to take our guests (families, individuals, groups, children) out into the Sonoran Desert where they enjoy a “get away from it all” day of exercise, beautiful scenery, healthy food and education.
As a newer company (going into our second year), we need to strengthen our internet presence and get our internet marketing campaign off on the right foot to help us get the word out about the great programs we offer. For example, how many school district employees are aware that their health and wellness benefits will help pay for a guided hiking program with our company? Well, the Glendale Elementary School District knows about the benefit of keeping their employees healthy and they have signed their staff on with us for a scheduled monthly hike and the employee benefit program helps to fund this! It’s difficult to get this message in front of the right people without an effective, targeted marketing campaign.
If we are fortunate enough to win the services being offered by Vertical Measures, we would love to have a campaign that helps us address the following:
· – Improve our SEO (we have a beautiful website, a fantastic photo gallery, a Twitter account, and some fun videos on You Tube that we need to get more traffic to)
· – Tweak our website to add more calls to action to improve our conversion rate (we know that even if we increase the traffic to our website it won’t matter if we are not converting it into sales)
· - Make our site more interactive by creating dialogue with our guests and potential customers
· - Create an email marketing campaign
· - Strengthen our brand
· - Identify other tactics that we should be using
Now as to why our company deserves to win this great opportunity…….that’s easy. We are still a small company with little capital competing in an industry of corporate giants with large marketing budgets. But, we have a fantastic line of services that no one else in our area offers and we know we need the investment in our internet presence to help spread the word more effectively. We are well connected in the tourism industry which works well for word of mouth advertising. However, many of our guests find us through their internet searches long before they arrive in our area. We just need more of them to find us! Our goal is to get more people out in our beautiful desert while they are here. We love to share our knowledge and experience with young and old alike and keep them safe while protecting our desert ecosystem at the same time. We provide a great experience for guests to our area, which in turn helps promote our area as a destination and helps the local economy.
Take a minute to see for yourself this great little company we have created and hope to continue to grow! Check out our website at (http://www.takeahikearizona.com) and see all the beautiful hikes we have done with our guests. With our small budget and large competition, we need all the help we can get!! Help us continue to grow our company and make it the success we know it can be!
Vote below before November 11th for your favorite Boost Your Juice 2 entry!
Seems like only yesterday we gave away $5,000 in link building and internet marketing services! Due to the great turnout for our first "Boost Your Juice", we’re kicking off "Boost Your Juice 2".
This time around we’re focusing the contest to those in the health and wellness field. Why? Well, we figure this is our healthcare reform plan that will actually work and cause very little, if any, confusion and outrage.
It’s so easy to enter, even Congress would pass it! Just tell us why you need your website juice to be boosted in a short video, 3 minutes or less, or in an essay less than 600 words with a few photos (at least 1, at max 5). How easy is that?
All entries will be evaluated by Vertical Measures employees and the top 5 submissions will be posted to this very blog to be voted on by you! You’ll determine the winner of $5,000 in internet marketing services, with a runner up prize of $1,000 in internet marketing services.
Check out our video below, and enter to win $5K in internet marketing services with "Boost Your Juice 2"!
Firstly, we’d like to thank everyone who entered our "Boost Your Juice" contest. We feel it was a great success, and are excited to work with the winners. Thank goodness for our judges, all of us here at Vertical Measures were having a hard time deciding who we wanted as our top 10 let alone a winner! Drum roll please….and the winners are:
Grand Prize Winner of $5,000 in Link Building Services:
The Humanitarian
Second Place Winner of $1,000 in Link Building Services:
The Pitch
Congratulations to our winners, and thanks to our judges for picking the winners. It was a very close call! We will be in contact soon to go over the details. It’s so great to see a non-profit win the grand prize. It’s nice to know that our hard work will not only help a great company, but will also help those that receive assistance from The Humanitarian’s work. Check back for our next link building contest, you might just win too!
As promised, our "Boost Your Juice" finalists have been picked. I have to admit it was harder than we originally thought, there were so many great submissions! I have no idea how our judging panel is going to make that final decision. Who are your favorites? Weigh in with your comments and let us know! The judges will actually be voting, but your comments below (in the case of a tie) could cast the deciding vote!
Essay Entries:
1. The Student Athlete Supporter
Hello Boost-Your-Juice Judges, I provide a 100% free service to aspiring college athletes. As a means to gain a broad exposure in the very competitive collegiate athletic scholarship award process, student athletes can visit my site and post their general, academic and most importantly, athletic profiles and pictures for viewing by college level coaches and recruiters. In today’s economy, students, and parents of students need all the help they can get when it comes to funding their ever increasing college expenses. As a parent of a collegiate student athlete myself, I have first hand knowledge of the financial burden a college education creates. However, I contend that the lack of a college education creates an even greater burden to the individual and society at large. Winning your services could help hundreds, maybe thousands, of student athletes realize their dreams and complete their education. Thanks for considering my entry.
2. The White Hat Evangelist
Judges, if you represent the "be good" google industry for white hat link building strategies. Then help us to fight against these aggressive competitors that are playing that fine seo grey hat space by buying massive amounts of text links. We are owned by a public billion dollar a year business that is trusted in are industry. We have solid customer service and maintain a 95% customer retention rate. So we have a clean, quality service that you could feel comfortable to ask for links on are behalf. But like other large companies, we have a tech & legal hurdle to approving content on the website, which sometimes limits some of are natural link building & seo efforts. But we would take your recommendations seriously to make these improvements needed. We have a global service that targets over 200 ethnic expat communities online. So there is plenty of places to source for links. We have a pretty strong conversion rate but can’t justify paying up to $6.00 a click for are keyword to make an average $15 new customer sale. So we need a natural ranking lift for are top terms that are stuck on page 2 & 3. We have two dedicated link builders that could use your advice to help with daily tasks to assign to them. Please help and pick us to save the day to provide $5k in quality link building support!
3. The Humanitarian
I am a humanitarian doctor; I went to naturopathic medical school, and the experience opened my heart to wanting to serve both my local and global community. It is difficult to be a doctor who works largely for free, or for very discounted fees but I do not know how to be anything else! Nor do I want to be. I am working on building community clinics, starting in Arizona, and creating volunteer outreach programs with abused woman and children, or anyone who has experienced trauma. My heart goes out to those suffering, and to those in other countries who do not have the opportunities we do here in the United States. I wish to spread naturopathic medicine around the world. I have several domestic violence programs that I am working diligently to fund, (in Nepal, Phoenix, Flagstaff and with the Navajo) and training a few physicians how to work with trauma. I have been seeking and praying for support, knowing the need our patients have but not certain where to go to find that help. Thank you
4. The Button Pusher
Ahh – Free Link Building. I can see it now the big RED EASY BUTTON is on my desk. But I sit here and cry because I am powerless. I can’t press the EASY BUTTON and shoot my website through the rankings. You possess this power and I am just a pawn in your media game.
You, the contest holder, have indeed realized a simple way to find quality leads. By holding the contest you are connecting with small companies that need your service and are at the same time building your list. I only hope you push the RED EASY BUTTON for me and build my links and list in the same manner.
If you do the trumpets will blow and the flags will be raised in spectacular glory. With the new earned revenue you give to me I will be indebted to you for all eternity. My three-year-old company will then have the Internet presence it deserves. We will sit among the leaders in our industry helping everyday people through these tough economic times.
5. The Programmer
We have developed a software application that is becoming popular in the financial sector. We feel we have a superior product but lack the budget and marketing skills to go after bigger clients. We are a small shop and devote most of our time to customer service and product enhancements rather than marketing. Our software is priced very low compared to our competitors. As a result of our customer service and low price point our current customers LOVE us. And by love I mean they are fanatical. We know we could charge more but we enjoy the ravenous feeding frenzy and buzz our prices create when somebody finds us. It creates great word of mouth which is really what drives a lot of our sales. We are confident that we could compete with some of the larger players in this space but we need help getting our name out there. Our site is four years old but has a PR of 2 and I think it’s because we are woefully lacking in links. We don’t have a lot of budget but are hard working and would be very appreciative of any help.
6. The Catalyst
My company is a unique provider of incremental behavioral modification rewards targeted exclusively at the business to business market. Like so many businesses, mine has seen a reduction in activity and new business in light of the recession. Now look back one more time and see what service we provide, “incremental behavior modification rewards.” In simpler terms, we provide a business rewards platform to increase business. The very essence of what is required by any business to IMPROVE THEIR SITUATION.
But like all things that are considered an expense, it’s easier to say “We’ll wait on that,” “Cut that back,” or “Isn’t this part of marketing?” Sound familiar? It’s the SEO/SEM situation for the last few years. Every company needs it, every company should be investing in it, yet it is way too often one of the first things to be cut back in hopes it delays a potential reduction in force, etc. The investment, timed correctly and implemented carefully would have prevented the RIF in the first place!
My organization deserves to win the VM assistance because we are the catalyst, effectively identical to VM’s programs, which can turn the economy back into battle ready mode and move this nation forward. We can change behaviors and focus participants on doing the right things, and with VM’s help, that’s the beginning of the end of a recession.
7. The Gossip
With a little JUICE to get my website ‘engine’ running, my site can be self sustaining, making money, and generating unique content to be valued highly by search engines. My website is geared towards the #1 topic searched (that isn’t ‘adult’) on the internet today – Celebrities! Love them or hate them people are interested in them, and searching for them CONSTANTLY. Only JUICE knows how to get me to the top of these searches – all while keeping it organic.
Celebrities evolve constantly – they come and go, and my website collects a lot of data that can help identify ‘up and coming’ celebrities. Putting JUICE to work writing articles with some of this inside knowledge gives me more bang for the JUICE!
My website is viral and spreads via word of mouth (electronically of course) by its nature. Once people are at my website, they WANT to share what they do with their friends via today’s social sites. While many people will be referred from their friends, others will only find me if JUICE is used to position social media marketing in my favor.
Only by applying JUICE to my website will my engine get kick-started. Show me the JUICE!
Firstly, we’d like to thank everyone who entered our "
