Lakeshore Branding Blog
From humble, open source beginnings, WordPress now powers over 61 million sites worldwide. The extent to which it has grown in popularity not just for bloggers but professional designers and developers is evidenced by Smashing Magazine recently launching an extended, dedicated WordPress section. I’m currently one of these working in web design in Chicago. The Project I recently had a very simple project of launching a blog with a small shopping cart installed in time for the 2011 Rugby World Cup held in New Zealand. Wait-of-Nation.com went live a little over two months ago. The Client With a background in PR/Advertising my client was well versed in getting himself out there, which in a country of 4.5 million people really isn’t that hard to do. He had a good product (sports blog of the most popular sport in NZ), with a niche message/ slant (“Home of New Zealand’s crushing expectation” – that the All Blacks – the National team – – Read the full article
It’s easier than ever to make promotional videos. A few years ago, if you wanted to have an advert made, then you would have had to search for an affordable company offering video production in Nottingham or another major city near where your company was based. The production process would require regular meetings, intense discussion, several edits, and quite a large bill at the end. Now that even personal computers are capable of video editing, it’s starting to make more sense to do the work in house. A short video production training course may not bring your work up to the standard of a professional outfit doing video production, but if you’re producing short advertisements or viral videos then you most likely won’t need the sophisticated equipment of a professional video lab. What can you learn from video production training? One mistake that many people make is to get carried away playing with fancy settings and effects with their video – Read the full article
It seems that competition for valuable branded keywords is reaching an all time high, with a recent report by eMarketer, “Brands Go Head-to-Head in Competition for Search Terms,” estimating that US marketers will spend a massive $14.4 billion USD this year on search advertising. Why should you care? Because it’s your brand’s keywords that they’re bidding on. The Battle of Branded Keywords We all know that search engine optimization is based on attempting to reach a top ranking position on a search engine for a given keyword or keyword phrase. We also know that the introduction of Google’s Adwords and Bing’s adCenter offered companies a major opportunity to feature on page one results for a search term without bothering with all this; they could bid on a term and grab traffic without engaging in the arduous process of link building and on and off site optimization. Recently, however, things have developed one step further and brand managers have started to – Read the full article
We believe that there is a WordPress theme for everyone, no matter if you’re using the platform as a tool for managing your creative portfolio, your personal blog, your e-Commerce site, your online magazine, or your business / corporate website. Today we have handpicked a bunch of WordPress themes, with a variety that’s wide enough to meet your needs. (You’ll even find that there are themes here for mobile users – of smartphones, iPads, and other tablets and devices.) They do, however, stand out for a common quality: it’s a list of 52 easy-to-use, elegant, and simple WordPress themes. Yes, usability is the name of the game this time around, and we hope you’ll be able to find the theme that’ll make your WordPress experience a breeze. Love this post? Found a favorite? Don’t hesitate to let us know by leaving a comment below. And do feel free to spread the love by tweeting the list, sharing it on Facebook, – Read the full article
Social media is buzzing, QR codes are all the hype, and e-mail marketing is trendy, but where does that leave good old-fashioned referrals? Unfortunately for many startup companies, taking the time to consider the importance of referrals is the last thing on the “to do” list. After all, if you do a good job and someone wants to refer you, they can—it is out of your hands, right? Wrong. Believe it or not, it is not enough to simply hope someone refers your business to others. Someone may work with your business and say it is the best experience they have ever had, yet this does not guarantee that they will refer your business to someone else. In many cases, your clients and customers will have to seek out someone they know looking for your particular services. This takes some work, so you have to give your customers and clients a reason to do this work. According to activerain.com, a – Read the full article
Search engine optimization is not a new idea in online marketing. It has changed and evolved a great deal, especially over the past five years. Those in the market for a new SEO company as well as any business that hopes to continue running its own in-house SEO should understand the same thing that every successful SEO marketing company does: that failing to keep up with changes in SEO means being unable to conduct successful SEO. Two changes in the past year, Google+1 and Panda, demonstrate the pace at which search engine marketing evolves and the dramatic nature of changes that can take place. Google+1 Although it may have lost some steam since its initial wave of success, the Google +1 feature continues to have a powerful impact on the company’s search rankings. More than one search advertising expert has claimed that “search will never be the same.” Beyond using saved cookies and search history to tailor search results, with – Read the full article
There have been changes to the services being offered by Google and, more notably, Facebook in the recent days, each trying to amalgamate the service they offer with one similar to Twitter, in that you can subscribe to individuals status updates and posts, regardless of being their friend or not. Facebook Facebook’s introduction of the subscribe feature allows users to follow celebrities and people they have an interest in, introducing a whole new range of settings allowing control over who can see your posts and whose posts you are exposed to on your own news feed. Twitter found itself introducing accessibility to the lives of celebrities when it started in 2006 and had many celebrity endorsements, most notably Stephen Fry. This is the kind of publicity that Facebook and Google can’t possibly replicate. So far, the celebrities I’m suggested to subscribe to consist of Mark Hoppus and Jared Leto, probably due to the lack of take-up from the celebrity world. – Read the full article
YouTube as a free hosting site offers a wide array of handy tools for marketing Internet video content. What YouTube also offers is a quick route to Page 1 placement in the Google search engine rankings. The following article explores the six essentials ways to use YouTube’s features to benefit your Internet marketing and search engine ranking efforts. 1. Put Keywords and Phrases In To Your Video Titles & Tags The titles and tags on your video are perhaps the most influential pieces of information for search engines. Search engines frequently use titles and tags to find videos and bring up videos of a similar nature. By optimizing these fields and filling them in with appropriate keywords and phrases relevant to your brand, business, or niche you can help Google pick up your Internet video content in its regular search results. 2. Use Your Video Description Field To Your Advantage Descriptions are there to give information about your video. Use – Read the full article
