21 posts tagged “gift cards”

Saving $25 is quite a bit of money.  If you purchase Visa gift cards from GiftCards.com and spend $100 or more you will receive a $25 rebate.  All you have to do is use eBillme to checkout.  If you have a graduation party to attend this year, you will surely need a grad gift and what better way to say congratulations than giving a Visa gift card with the recipient's name and a personal message right on the card.  Maybe you are having a hard time thinking of a great wedding gift, why not a personalized gift card from GiftCards.com.  Gift cards are perfect gifts and saving $25 is pretty perfect too.  Hope you take advantage of this great deal. 

Today is Earth Day and National Arbor Day is on Friday.  This week is the time to reflect on what you can do to help the environment.  Helping the Earth should be done year-round and thanks to nonprofit and education organizations like The Arbor Day Foundation, more and more citizens are becoming aware of what they can to do chip in.  Take the time to think about how you can take small steps to help reduce, reuse, and recycle.  Start by recycling more around the house, even at the office.  Make the effort to turn off lights when you are not in a room and unplug electronics when they are not in use.  For instance, when you are not charging your cell phone, unplug the charger from the wall.  The charger is still being used even when your phone is not connected.  Small environmental steps will not only help the world around us, but also help save you money.  There are plenty of small, convenient ways to reduce your carbon footprint and help preserve the environment. 

Visit GiftCards.com today and all week to donate to The Arbor Day Foundation and learn more about how you can help protect our Earth. 

I just wanted to post a release I sent out this morning.   

Put Your Tax Refund to Good Use at GiftCards.com

Pittsburgh, PA –March 18, 2008 – March Madness starts this week and it really is a good description of how busy this time of year can get.   Before sitting down to watch Duke, Memphis, or Pitt battle for the NCAA Basketball Championship, keep in mind that tax day is right around the corner.  With April 15^th looming, GiftCards.com wants to offer an idea for putting tax refunds to good use.

Spring arrives this week and kicks off another busy time for gift-giving.  Warm thoughts will be sent for Mother’s Day, caps will be flying for graduation, and love will be in the air as wedding season approaches.  

Using your tax refund to purchase gift cards online will help you get ahead before you become too busy to shop.   These thoughtful gifts are accepted everywhere that Visa is and provides your recipient the same flexibility as cash.

President of GiftCards.com, Jeff Lininger, knows how crazy this time of year can be for millions of Americans rushing to file their taxes.  Lininger was a former executive for Jackson Hewitt Tax Service, one of the largest tax preparation services companies, and has seen the incredible number of individuals who file their taxes in the last few weeks before they are due.  “Getting ahead is not always an option.  This time of year can be extremely hectic for many.”      

GiftCards.com wants to help in making your shopping experience quick and easy with personalized Visa gift cards.  Start planning and shopping now with your tax return for gifts you know you will need this coming spring and summer.  Shopping at GiftCards.com is convenient and will save you time.   Whether you need a gift for graduation, a birthday, or an end of the year gift for a teacher, GiftCards.com offers many different styles of gift cards that can all be personalized to ensure the recipient will think of the gift giver every time they spend their gift card.   

I have been working with optimizing Web sites for a while now.  I fully understand as much as one can in terms of how search engines work.  There is always the opportunity to learn more, reach out to the people who are more experienced, and study and test what entails making a site rank higher in search results.  However, lately, MSN is not making any sense to me at all.  I know that I have read that others have had similar issues with MSN, but it doesn't make sense to me that their results fluctuate so often.  For instance, when I was searching for one of my main keywords, gift cards, the results were varying on a daily basis.  Not to mention the site that was number one for a few short hours was not optimized at all.  Then, all of a sudden the results completely flipped and there GiftCards.com was back in the first natural position...unbelievable.  Many agree that MSN's is very different than Google's and Yahoo's, but I just don't understand the results fluctuating so frequently.  

I have to blog about the Super Bowl.  I am sure that so many people hit the Web last night to rant about the Giants winning!  I do apologize if you are a Patriots fan, I know what it feels like way worse than that because I am a Buffalo Bills fan.  So my heart does go out to all of the fans that are crushed, but you have S.B. titles, we don't.  Anyways, what a great game for a football fan to watch.  Many folks exclaimed to me today that it was so boring to watch.  I couldn't agree less.  I thought that it kept me on the edge of my seat the whole game because I was waiting for Brady to put the game away with a huge play or Manning to put the game away with a big mistake.  It didn't happen though.  I was glad that it stayed close the whole game and the ending couldn't have been more exciting. 

The ads however were rather boring.  I enjoyed the FedEx commercial with the pigeons and of course thought that Will Ferrell was hilarious, but other than that I was rather disappointed.  There definitely were not any bank or gift card commercials, which I was interested in seeing.  Not because they would have been exciting, but I wanted to see what GiftCards.com wasn't doing compared to the other big names in our industry.  I would have expected at least a Visa commercial with all of the money they have. 

Overall, it was a rather fun night of television, one because of the game, and two because I am a big Tom Petty fan and despite the fact that the reviews said he played it safe, I thought it was great and I am pumped to see him on the road this year with Stevie Winwood! 

Valentine's Day is only a few short weeks away.  Do you normally buy gifts for your loved ones, children, sisters?  I have purchased an array of gifts for my wife over the years, but I am still not sure what we are going to be doing this year.  I usually cook her dinner, which isn't much different than every night, but make it more special, maybe some candles on the table, definitely flowers, and specifically cook her favorite meal with favorite dessert as well.  But what about for other family members?  Do you feel the need to support a holiday like this?  I feel like it is one of those holidays where you should not feel like you have to spend a ton of money, but apparently I am not in the norm.  The National Retail Federation expects over $17 billion to spent on Valentine's Day this year with the average person spending over $120.00.  Certainly, most gifts cost money, even simple gifts like flowers, candles, dinner.

What about gift cards?  Does anyone give gift cards for Valentine's Day?  It might not sound too romantic, but what if your husband really wants to buy something that you are just not comfortable buying, like stereo equipment or outdoors gear.  Now please don't get me wrong, my wife can pick out my camping gear without a problem and she even goes along with us when we camp, she probably starts a fire better than all of my friends.  I just wanted to clarify.  I don't think a giving a gift card for Valentine's Day is a bad idea at all.

The holidays are over, but that doesn't mean you have to stop rewarding your employees or clients.  Maybe you had a great year or your team pulled together and worked extra hard during November and December.  I hope you at least gave them an extra day off or maybe a little bit of money.  However, now is the time for you to get your company off to a great 2008 and what better way of doing that than with the help of your staff.  Your employees come to work everyday to make money as well as make the company money so they have a place to come to everyday.  Keeping company moral up is key to a successful business and using rewards are great way of doing that.  I'm not saying you should throw money in every direction, but you can set-up goals or "games" to offer incentives to your employees.  This creates another reason for your employees to stick their nose to the grindstone, work hard for you, and benefit themselves.       

I have spent the last three weeks changing every destination url for all of the keywords I have in Yahoo, MSN, Ask, and Business.com.  WOW!  I have over 25,000 keywords related to gift cards and I have to individually create them in a Google builder and then place them in a spreadsheet and upload them accordingly.  Sound like fun?  I am doing this because I want to be able to track all of my statistics in Google Analytics.  GA is one of the best analytical programs going in my opinion and it is free as well.  Therefore, the payoff will be great for me, but for now, it is making my eyes go numb.  I don't spend all day doing this or I wouldn't be able to get the rest of my work done, but I try to do more than a thousand a day.  I am almost finished with Ask and I finished Business.com's keywords.  Wish me luck with the rest.  

Maybe you just blog here, but if you have other blogs or a Web site you could become a GiftCards.com affiliate.  Becoming an affiliate at GiftCards.com can help you make some money without doing much of anything.  It also does not cost anything to join.  If you think that you could encourage the visitors to your site to purchase Visa brand gift cards with a simple banner link or text link, then I suggest looking into the GiftCards.com affiliate program.  Feel free to comment to this post with any questions you may have and I would be more than happy to speak with you about the details and explain the program in more depth. 

Does anyone else belong to a network on Ning.com?  Ning is a community of communities if you have never visited the site.  There are communities that suit just about anyone.  I encourage everyone to check it out and maybe create a page of their own or if you are ambitious, start your own community.  I am thinking about starting one for GiftCards.com, but having the community be much more broad and talk about corporate rewards and incentive programs.  More and more companies are choosing gift cards to reward their employees around the holidays as well as throughout the year.  More than 25% of the Fortune 1000 choose GiftCards.com to give their employees or clients a gift that is not only appreciated, but can work as a marketing tool for the company as well.  The way it works as a marketing tool is either through a Co-brand card or just putting the company name on the card.  Just wanted to share my thoughts about Ning.com and I will keep you posted when I create a Ning community.