These days more and more people are accessing the Web through their mobile phones. They’re checking their E-mails, surfing, reading the news, and even shopping – literally “on the go”. Wouldn’t you like to make your website “pops” for mobile? Don’t think it’s an impossible task. Today tools that format your website or blog for mobile phones and smartphones are aplenty. Most of them don’t even require web design or HTML expertise! Let’s take a look at some of them. Really Sweet Tools Mippin: This is a fast and free service that can “mobilize” your website or blog, so long as it has an Atom or RSS feed. It also offers built-in content variety through a list of sites delivered in simple format for the mobile audience. While there aren’t lots of features on Mippin, you’ll still have full control of your logo and branding efforts, as well as access to your traffic and reporting stats. And, to make sure – Read the full article
Looking to stretch your advertising dollars? Try implementing a PPC (pay per click) campaign. It’s cheap. It’s ideal for small businesses. It’s not as costly as producing a full-blown advertising or Internet marketing campaign. It’s also can be very effective if executed correctly. Getting your money’s worth on PPC advertising means coming up first with a good strategy. A lot of people think that a PPC campaign can be hastily thrown together – “okay, I’ve chosen my keywords – I’m done!” – and they are the ones who are most prone to making costly mistakes. So, before you go about launching your own PPC campaign, take a look first at these helpful tips. They won’t just help you save money; it will also maximize your money and, subsequently, your sales potential. Keyword Selection Choose keywords wisely, and cast your net broadly. Of course you want a high PPC ranking. But that doesn’t mean you have to get the most popular – Read the full article
Do you know that 54% of CIOs ban the use of social media in the workplace? “Wow” was our first reaction, too. A bunch of Web 2.0 marketers are of course prone to advocate the merits of using blogs and sites like Facebook, Twitter, Plurk, and YouTube in efforts to help businesses grow. But like with many things, social media can be a double-edged sword. A secretary will tweet about the laughable fashion sense of her boss. An employee will write an eloquent blog about how the routine Monday meetings are a total waste of time. And then another staffer will post status updates about how nothing here – certainly not promotion up the corporate ladder – is based on meritocracy. Don’t think social media can be stopped, though. While this new digital sandpit is highly interactive and engaging, it can also be extremely hard to control. There are varying approaches taken by companies to either ban or limit it, – Read the full article
So it’s no longer just 60s-era advertising or crime scene investigations where TV is getting material from. The good old tube is also picking up concepts from new avenues and technologies: social media. After landing a book deal, the popular and witty Twitter serial @ShitMyDadSays was recently picked up by CBS, which intends to produce a half-hour family comedy series based on the content of the phenomenally successful social media meme. The Twitter account is authored by Justin Halpern, who quotes his own 73-year-old father’s sometimes profane, sometimes cranky, and always funny quips and off-the-cuffs. David Kohan and Max Mutchnick – creators of Will & Grace – are reported to be executive producing the show, which Halpern will co-write with Patrick Schumacker. Internet and social media marketers will have a thing or two to learn from Halpern – and it’s not necessarily that comedy sells better than promotions speak. It is Halpern’s creation of focused, in-demand, and consistently creative content – Read the full article
Many Internet marketing experts have said that “content is king”. If so, Lakeshore Branding is your army and navy. And we’re here to help you conquer the competitive battlefield: that is, the online marketplace. We have an array of content creation services designed to help you make a powerful impact on the web and trigger your business success. Our strategy isn’t purely linguistic – we are driven not only to write with accuracy, clarity, and creativity, but also with awareness of what works for your target online audience. We develop original, informative, and attention-catching content that serve as an extension of your brand, and we optimize these in a way that brings in qualified traffic to your website, either from search engines or from other authority sites related to your industry. Our areas of expertise include SEO writing, social media communications, online advertising copy, online press releases, and website content. Our content creation services include: Website Content Development Blog Development – Read the full article
This week we received an email from a DePaul student (Go Blue Demons!), who was looking to interview a web design company about usability. I spent some time thinking about it and developing some answers and I thought I would share it on our blog- Enjoy! (1) Describe the company. Briefly describe the products they build and/or the services they provide Here are some quotes from our website but basically we are a web design company that focuses on Search Engine Optimization and Conversions by using the latest W3C complaint coding (xHTML and CSS) and also using the latest usability compliance. “Web design is more than just creativity, it’s usability. Understanding your visitors and how they use your website will lead to increased conversions. For each new website, our team of graphic designers, SEO consultants and marketing specialists work together on strategy, design, usability, and goals.” Lakeshore Branding, what started as a small marketing firm in 2007 has evolved into – Read the full article
We’re moving beyond the tradition of consulting the yellow pages. With 80 percent of people turning to search engines to find local information, Google last week launched its Local Listing Ads service, which makes fixed-fee advertising placements available in Google’s local search results as well as in Google Maps. The new service demonstrates once again how the Internet – and Google in particular – is changing how local business listings are done – and searched. Available initially in San Diego and San Fransisco in limited beta, Local Listing Ads is different from Google AdWords in that it requires no creative or keyword management and no bidding. The monthly fee is flat, determined by Google with the goal of ensuring that businesses’ ads are seen by the highest number of people looking for relevant local information. Business owners who purchase the ad select the location and business category to ensure local targeting, and from there, Google takes care of the creating – Read the full article
The search wars have just been taken to a whole new level. The catalyst? Social media. With the phenomenal popularity of social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook, both Google and Microsoft will now be integrating real-time updates into their respective search engines. In separate announcements made yesterday, October 21, Google said it has reached an agreement with Twitter to include real-time updates – “Tweets” – in a new Google feature called Social Search; meanwhile, Microsoft has signed deals to get full feeds from both Twitter and Facebook. Google cited the fact that “an entirely new type of data has emerged… not only as a way for people to communicate their thoughts and feelings, but also as an interesting source of data about what is happening right now in regard to a particular topic.” The agreement with Twitter means search results will now include up-to-the-minute data and real-time observation from a stream of Tweets, so that users “will find tweets from – Read the full article
