You ever heard of something called BuddyPress? If not, well – you should. Established in 2008, Buddypress is a publishing platform for connecting all your social media streams and networks together in one self-hosted and WordPress-powered site. You can use it as a social network for your family, your university, your school or college, or your class; as an internal communication medium for your company or organization; as a network for connecting people with the same interests as you have; or as a socially dynamic site centered around your new product or service. For more uses, check out this BuddyPress showcase. Like WordPress, BuddyPress is an extremely flexible and versatile solution, especially for those who are looking to grow their businesses and brands via social media marketing. Its features include: Global, personal, and group activity streams where you can view all your comments, status updates, mentions, favorites, and notifications, among many others; User groups that you can choose to be public, – Read the full article
SEO services have become essential to businesses acrossCanada. The days of traditional advertising are dead; phone books, radio, and even TV have proved to be expensive and difficult to measure. SEO, meanwhile, has allowed business owners to be more involved in the marketing of their firm and to measure effectiveness like never before. SEO services in Canadahave been around for over a decade now; however, business owners have just recently started to take advantage of these services. Search engine optimization services certainly are widely available, and this article is designed to help you pick the right SEO service for your business. What is SEO? SEO or search engine optimization is an activity that is carried out by an SEO expert or company to drive relevant traffic to your website so you can realize a benefit for your business. SEO services typically include: Creating engaging content for link building Social media marketing strategies Website analysis and competitor evaluation Keyword research to – Read the full article
The last couple of years, the world’s economy has seen a roller coaster ride, caused by recession and financial meltdown. Businesses have been badly hampered by these global recessions. People have lost their jobs. Right now, I believe, we are going through another recession; fortunately, the impact doesn’t seem to be as serious as the previous one. There are significant damages seen coming via this ongoing recession, but there are also ways to survive. Thanks to the World Wide Web, people have found a number of opportunities to sustain their careers and livelihoods despite the bad time. These include opportunities in the SEO or search engine optimization industry. Your expectations from an SEO career should be realistic. Your success may very well depend on the clients that you have: if they belong to recession-affected industries like that for financial services, real estate, and automobiles, don’t be surprised if you don’t get a lot of business or a big budget. Keep – Read the full article
You asked for it. Now we’re giving it to you: a list of the best WordPress themes of 2012. From designer WordPress themes to business WordPress themes – classic, elegant, simple and minimal, flashy and fancy, nice, naughty (or whatever adjective with which you want to describe them) – we’ve got the 2012 WordPress themes to suit your every need. The list is a result of our efforts to help users recognize the value of a content management system like WordPress, which, with its easy-to-use interface, rich SEO features, and excellent flexibility, is something we here at Lakeshore Branding have grown to love. And we hope you love it as much as we do, because we’ve got the best 2012 WordPress themes for your blog, company website, creative portfolio, wedding website, online magazine or news site, and online e-Commerce store. Let us know what your favorites are by tweeting about the post or leaving a comment below! U-Design WordPress Theme – Read the full article
In an October 2011 report by ComScore, it was found that smartphones and tablets drive nearly 7 percent of digital traffic in the US. The number is bound to increase, especially as increased Wi-Fi availability and mobile broadband adoption continue to drive connectivity. Other key findings in the report include: 116 million people in the US alone are users of mobile media. Nearly half of those who own tablets (such as the Apple iPad) made or completed a purchase using their tablet. Publishers are extending their reach to cross-platform audiences who own smartphones, tablets, and other Web-enabled mobile devices (such as the iPod Touch). What does this all mean? It means that if you’re a publisher, Internet marketer, online advertiser, SEO specialist, social media marketer, online retailer, e-Commerce store owner, blogger, developer, Web designer, etc. – if you, at the very least, have a website that’s meant to showcase your work or help you do business – then you now – Read the full article
If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you probably know that we’re crazy about Magento. But that doesn’t mean that we’re not willing to give other platforms their due – because we most certainly are. Shopify, for example, is an equally viable e-Commerce solution for anyone who has ever thought of building an online store, boosting sales, and enhancing Internet presence. The platform is growing very quickly, too, with over 16,000 Shopify stores to date. Like Magento, Shopify features an easy-to-use store builder, as well as a set of fully customizable store designs. (If you’re good with codes like HTML and CSS, you can create your own design from scratch.) It’s also integrated with a number of today’s most popular payment gateways, including PayPal, Authorize.Net, Google Checkout, QuickBooks Merchant Services, ePay, and more. Shopify caps off its rich feature set with unlimited e-Commerce hosting, which includes automatic updates and backups, Level 1 PCI compliance, unlimited bandwidth, and its own – Read the full article
Interested to write guest content for Lakeshore Branding and expand your readership? Do get in touch! We’re looking for high-quality blog articles on: Internet marketing, social media, search engine optimization / marketing, e-commerce, web design, and other Internet-based businesses, technologies, tools, and applications. Lakeshore Branding is a PR 4 blog, with thousands of backlinks (per Alexa and Majestic SEO). Published guest blog articles are also shared via the official Lakeshore Branding Twitter account. If you’ve written the article, just E-mail it along with links and images you’d like to accompany the text with. We’ll proofread and spell-check it then let you know immediately when the article is going to be up on the site. If you haven’t written the article, kindly consider the following guidelines we have for guest blog posts: Guest blog posts must be original and may not have been published elsewhere online already. All submissions will be verified before publication. The post must be grammatically correct and – Read the full article
Last week we published a guide on how to monitor Google Places reviews, Web updates, and content changes. It was well-received by our readers, so we’d like to build on the post and share info this time on tools for online reviews monitoring and management. Hopefully, this list will help you track online reviews of your brand, product, establishment, service, or business – and enhance your reputation as more customers talk about you on Google Places, Yelp, online directories, local business listings, and social media sites. Or, if you’ve used any of the online reputation management tools below, do let us know by leaving a comment below and sharing with us your experience. ReviewPush Texas-based ReviewPush markets itself as an “online review management tool for small to large businesses”. It offers a dashboard for monitoring / tracking reviews, protecting your brand and reputation, engaging with customers, and enhancing product offerings and promotions (such as coupons). ReviewPush features include: Continuous social – Read the full article
