If you abide by the belief that rules exist for a reason, then maybe you don’t need any explanation of why the AP (Associated Press) Style Guide matters. But for the writer who has ever rolled his eyes while reaching for their guidebook to look up the AP rule, or received an editor’s red pen note to “check AP,” then AP Style can feel more like a rulebook than a guide. First, if you intend to work as a journalist, then this book matters simply because your career matters. End of argument! However, a more detailed explanation shows that this book really exists for the sake of consistency in writing for the public. When everyone – or at least every writer – uses the same grammar, punctuation, abbreviations, numbers, etc., it ensures that messages are communicated in a consistent style. This consistency delivers conciseness, correctness and clarity. In a World Wide Web environment where more people than ever are becoming – Read the full article
When we look back at the present year events that affected the SEO world, we would realize that it has been more remarkable than we would have thought it would be. This year has actually marked a decisive point in the efforts made by Google to improve the quality of search engine results that are served to the Internet users. The focus with which Google went about its task of cleaning some of the damaging and poor quality sites from the search engine indexes is pretty well-known. Unlike the gentle avatar that a Panda is considered to be, Google’s ‘Panda’ update literally sniffed out thousands of sites in a matter of couple of weeks from the web’s most powerful search engine. While many analysts saw a sort of devastation in the making for some time now, the intensity of the impact left everyone guessing about the company’s motives. All sites that were built on duplicate or re-written content were penalized. – Read the full article
Raising funds online isn’t easy. Thank goodness there are useful social media marketing platforms like Kickstarter and Twitter. (Check out our tips for fundraising on Twitter and our coverage of some of the most successful social media fundraisers!) But if these tools aren’t flexible enough for your charity organization, political advocacy, or religious community – and if you think you’ll need a bigger Web presence, like a website or a blog – then you might as well create your own WordPress site. WordPress is Lakeshore Branding’s recommended content management system (CMS). Why? Because it’s focused on aesthetics. Because it’s built on evolving and upcoming Web standards. And because it’s so easy to use. To help rally your cause, we compiled this list of 15 WordPress themes sure to strike at the heart of your online audience. These WordPress themes are great for non-governmental institutions, public sector groups, charity organizations, environmental organizations, fundraising events and committees, advocacy groups, political aspirants, churches, – Read the full article
Twitter helps companies build their brand by introducing a new method of audience communication. Engaging, brief messages build interest and customer loyalty. In 140 characters or less, a company can inform their audience of their latest products or trivia knowledge. Any useful information will propel companies towards this goal. Tweeting and Marketing Companies can write Tweets that are automatically posted three to five times per day. Experts recommend frequency to keep customers interested. From a single article, companies can probably extract 10 or more tweets that represent the main points of the article. Only 25 to 30 minutes a week is required to generate daily Tweets for an entire week. Successful companies engage in a concept called mutual branding. This concept engages both employees and the company on a mutual page. The employee’s photograph and the corporate logo both exist on the page. The better the employee performs, the better the company looks. Feeds and Retweets Retweets and feeds will – Read the full article
While the traditional breadcrumbs are nothing but annoying, the term “breadcrumbs” in technology has a different reputation. For those who are unfamiliar, breadcrumbs are little words and phrases that some websites place at the top of a webpage to help the user follow where they are in the website. They work as little navigation tools to help someone stay organized when working through a website with many different webpages. Consider the example below: In general, only major companies use breadcrumbs because they seem so sophisticated. After all, a small business website can’t be that hard to navigate, right? Wrong. If you have more than one webpage, utilizing breadcrumbs has many benefits. Top 5 Reasons Your Webpage Should Be Using Breadcrumbs 1. Easier Usage – Visitors will likely have a much better experience on your website if they can get around easily. Sometimes users can get frustrated jumping from page to page because they get lost, but breadcrumbs help solve this – Read the full article
Web design is a fast-growing industry given today’s technology and Internet frenzy. To be a good Web designer / developer, one needs to possess a certain set of skills; while there is no written handbook that specifies exactly all the rules of Web design, a creative disposition and a strong sense of innovation are a must, as is a certain knowledge of computer programming languages. Traits of a Good Web Designer Creativity and innovation are essential for a Web designer / developer. No book can teach any individual about all the perfect color combinations for all types of design. These are certain things that come instinctively; Tampa web design, for example, is usually represented by a mixture of web designers with a remarkable sense of creativity and extremely high knowledge of the programming languages necessary for driving high traffic to the business, as well as for optimizing results. Functions of Web Development Maintaining your database is an important function of web – Read the full article
SEO copywriters can be placed into three broad categories: Those who write for users. Those who write for search engines. Those who try to blend the two. Copywriters who actually succeed in the third category are like blue diamonds: rare and extremely valuable. Search engines don’t care about grammar, punctuation, and sentence structure. They don’t care for eloquence. Instead, they care about keywords. Search engines are crows and keywords are bright, shiny objects that gleam amid reams of text. Search engines zero in on the keywords and proudly display them in search results. That’s why keyword research and matching keywords to specific website pages is so important. It’s why some copywriters are reluctant to stray too far away from keywords; some will even use the weird combinations that keyword tools provide – e.g. “recipe lasagnarome” – instead of boldly splitting them up into a coherent sentence. Unfortunately for these writers, people don’t care about keywords, but they do care – Read the full article
In light of the current recession and housing market downturn, real estate agents have to turn to new ways of creating and running their businesses. Social media marketing is one of the best, if not THE best way to do just that. The National Association of Realtors has a whole section of their website focused on social media for the real estate professional. The Field Guide to Social Networking for REALTORS® has eBooks, videos, and a ton of other resources to help you along the way. Facebook Ask around and you will be hard-pressed to find someone who hasn’t heard of Facebook. Even if they don’t use it, they probably saw the movie last year about it! And it’s likely that most people you know are using Facebook and have hundreds of friends. A word of caution on catapulting yourself into this too quickly: mixing personal and professional can be a very slippery road. Keep your personal Facebook profile and create a Fan Page – Read the full article
