It has been a happy holiday season indeed – especially for online shoppers, retailers, and the rest of the e-Commerce industry. According to surveys by both MasterCard Advisors’ SpendingPulse and marketing research firm comScore, online sales in the United States jumped by as much as 15 percent this 2010, with the figures reaching as high as $36.4 billion in the three-month period of October 31 to December 22. This marks a significant increase from last year’s $31.5 billion. Daily online sales, moreover, reached $1 billion on six days this 2010, compared to only three days last year. SpendingPulse describes the surge as being spurred by aggressive online marketing by Web-based retailers. Gian Fulgoni, chairman of comScore, added: “After the past few years’ struggles, it is gratifying to see e-Commerce return to a state that can only be described as a very merry holiday shopping season.” The 2010 online holiday sales were also helped by a late surge in spending, with – Read the full article
It is impossible to actually scream through your content into your readers’ ears to try to sell them something – but that kind of effect is exactly what you want to try to accomplish every time you are writing a persuasive article for your website. This is the approach that television pitchmen like Billy Mays took, and even though you would always hear a lot of people talking about how they disliked the fact that all he ever did was scream through the TV, there were always still tons of people who picked up the phone and ordered the product he was selling. Billy Mays was one of the greatest TV pitchmen of all time, and there is much to learn from him. He was able to convince people to buy a product they never before heard of – all in a short two-minute video. Products that people probably didn’t need and products that, once they purchased it, they probably – Read the full article
As mentioned here last week, 2011 is about to bring lots of hotness on the World Wide Web. One of the things that we mentioned was the emergence of HTML5, a new markup revision of the HTML standard, and which is expected next year to extend its reach even wider. While HTML5 is still under development, developers, programmers, and tech companies are already adopting a number of its features. Even some of the world’s most popular websites are enabling support for HTML5. How fast it will replace Adobe Flash – if HTML5 will replace it at all – remains to be seen, but just in case you’re keen on checking out what the HTML5 buzz is all about, we’ve compiled a list of websites whose HTML5 features you can test-drive – right now. Dive into HTML5 Authored by Mark Pilgrim, this book explains and demonstrates HTML5 in a no-BS language that’s easy to understand. In the introduction, Pilgrim notes how – Read the full article
Cloud computing is one of the fastest-rising technologies on the Web today. There are a number of large businesses and corporations who have already adopted the “cloud” to replace their existing computing platforms – and small businesses aren’t far behind. What is cloud computing and what can it do for you? Simply put, cloud computing is a set of computing resources delivered online. It’s also an emerging model for delivering information technology services, one that offers scalable and virtual resources. (Geek speak alert! Don’t worry; we’ll break it down for you.) The term “cloud” is used as a metaphor for the Internet, which basically serves as a hosting environment for applications like E-mail, productivity, file backup and storage, and more. Previously, all the data and applications of a user were stored and hosted by a hard drive on a computer or a set of servers at the IT department; with cloud computing, there isn’t going to be any need for – Read the full article
Christmas is fast approaching. It’s time to start making those wish lists. Sure, family and friends will have their usual go at giving and receiving, but small business owners, Internet marketers, technology professionals, and entrepreneurs are entitled to have their own holiday fun, too. So, in lieu of technology and Internet marketing coming together in the most wonderful time of the year, Lakeshore Branding presents its Holiday Gift Guide 2010 – Small Business edition. An Android mobile device: If you’re tired of hearing how awesome the iPhone is, but still want to experience what it’s like to be part of the ongoing smartphone revolution, then an Android-powered mobile device is an equally viable alternative. The Android app marketplace has over 100,000 apps, so you’re not really going to miss out on a lot should you decide to shun Apple. Android phones, moreover, are available on most major U.S. carriers. Check out our top picks: HTC Droid Incredible: Launched last spring, – Read the full article
Google-Groupon Deal? Search giant Google is reported to be offering as much as $6 billion for leading e-Commerce coupon site, Groupon. According to a number of media sources, the deal’s initial payment will be worth about $5.3 billion, with the remaining $700 million to be used as an incentive for keeping Groupon’s employees. The deal, if it happens, is going to be Google’s largest acquisition yet, much bigger than its successful $3.1 billion bid for DoubleClick and the $1.65 billion price tag of the company’s YouTube deal. Launched in November 2008 and headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, Groupon is a social shopping network that delivers daily deals to users in cities across the U.S., Canada, and Europe. While the price of the rumoured acquisition seems high – Groupon only has an estimated $600 million in revenue – industry observers say that the coupon site is the clear leader in a rapidly growing new category on the Internet. Its overwhelming success in – Read the full article
It used to be that businesses concentrated their marketing efforts exclusively on traditional (offline) media – like print ads, TV commercials, radio, PR campaigns, events, billboards, direct mail, glossy brochures. And then the Internet happened. And then social media changed the Internet. A recent report by GrowBiz Media, a small business market research firm, and online survey company Zoomerang led to key insights on how much money small businesses are allocating for their Internet marketing efforts. Entitled “SMB Marketing Practices: Small to Midsized Business Survey Results, 2010”, the report gathers information from 751 completed surveys across the U.S., by businesses with less than 1,000 employees. Among the key takeaways: More than half of the businesses with less than $1000 marketing budget are adopting social media practices, most notably in social networks Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter (in that order). Around 39 percent of respondents are spending more than 20 percent of their marketing budgets on websites (design, development, content creation, marketing, – Read the full article
We have been working with a client who asked us to help him rebuild his e-commerce website that has not seen any major updates in over 15 years. The site has continued to expand with new products over the years, but his content management system was in need of a massive upgrade. Whenever we take on any new web projects, one of the first things we analyze is the SEO of the site. We ask ourselves, how do we keep the current rankings and how do we improve the rankings after the launch. This site defiantly had some unique challenges, today I am going to share how we are approaching the URL redirects for our client’s aged website. We had a few ideas, for this store with thousands of products. Our ideas started with the concept of ripping it off like a bandaid and just 301 everything. Then we thought maybe it would be better to launch the new site – Read the full article
