According to a study by Forrester Research, 71 percent of online shoppers read customer reviews before making a purchase decision. That’s close to three out of every four! Enough for us to have to seriously take this insight, one that serves as yet another proof that, when it comes to winning new customers (and bringing in new business) a satisfied customer or a loyal fan just might be your most potent sales rep. Oh, and it’s also probably a good idea to start soliciting customer reviews and testimonials. Why? More than techniques to manage your online reputation, reviews and testimonials can act as the worms that bait the fish. (Worms: a funny word to describe that which persuades shoppers to buy and mere visitors to become customers.) Need advice on soliciting – and maximizing the potency of – customer reviews and testimonials? Here’s a quick guide: Soliciting Reviews Ask for it. Your customers may never know that you want their – Read the full article
Most businesses and websites that invest in Pay-per-Click (PPC) campaigns know the basics of running one. They’d also know that the most important element of any PPC campaign is keyword research: spending time on finding out what phrases will be the most useful for your website when set against the cost of the most commonly used phrases in your business sector. Keyword research and keyword selection make up the single most important job for any website, and finding the balance between the most commonly used phrases and value for money when competing with your rivals can often make or break the performance – and value – of your campaign. Once you have mastered the basics of keyword research, it is possible to dig deeper into the more sophisticated arts of Pay-per-Click and hone your PPC strategies and skills even more. One way of doing this is through Pay-per-Click tracking. PPC tracking allows you to evaluate the Pay-per-Click campaigns you have – Read the full article
Don’t think that scrapbooks will cut it. Not in today’s world. If you’re a photographer serious about marketing yourself and showcasing your talent to the world, you’ll have to establish your own online presence – with which you can create your portfolio, show your best shots, tell stories through images, and maximize every opportunity to render your professional services. That’s where WordPress comes in. It’s one of our favorite content management platforms here at Lakeshore Branding. It should be yours, too. We’ve already created the ultimate list of awesome small business WordPress themes for the biz owners; now it’s time to show some love to the photographers. In this post we have compiled 49 of today’s most stunning, flexible, and user-friendly photography WordPress themes that are out there right now. If you’re a designer, graphic artist, or illustrator, don’t hesitate to check the themes out, too. These WordPress themes are actually pretty versatile. Feel free to share, tweet, post on – Read the full article
Now that you are convinced that blogging can be useful for your business, you will sooner or later face a dilemma: How often should I blog? Indeed, blogging is not a one-off thing and you will certainly have to update your blog regularly. Should you perform this form of content creation daily, weekly, or monthly? In fairness, there isn’t a simple answer to this question. Ask 10 different bloggers and you will end up with 10 different answers. I do not pretend to own the answer to this question, but what I can do is provide you with some things that you need to consider when determining your blogging frequency, and I hope that you will find these useful when it comes to making your own decision. Search engines The search engines spiders do like fresh content and posting content frequently on your blog should allow your site to get indexed better. Best SEO practices include making sure that your – Read the full article
The search engine wars are heating up, and Microsoft has once again boosted its Bing search engine to compete with Google. In the latest series of enhancements to its own search experience, Microsoft is expanding the HTML5 version of its Bing search engine to include an “instant search” feature similar to Google Instant. The HTML5 version – which had been previewed at www.bing.com/peek before the site was pulled down in the wake of unwanted publicity – offered a peek of what else the new Bing might have in store, such as “search previews as you type,” smoother “animations that make search come alive,” better search history interaction, pop-over windows for easy in-site navigation, and slideshows that appear for certain kinds of search results. Bing’s HTML5 site is being timed to correspond with the launch of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 9, the upcoming version of its Web browser, designed to maximize the use of HTML5 browser technology. While Google remains at the – Read the full article
Google Analytics holds a wealth of information about your site. Within a few clicks you’ll have all of the metrics that are important to you: page views, visits, unique views, bounce rates, and conversions, etc. If you want to go a step further you can start to segment this information or create custom reports so you can look deeper into the data. Regardless of whether you are an e-commerce site owner, a marketer, a business owner, or a blogger, if you know how to interpret the data correctly, you will be able to make the right choices more often. The numbers don’t lie and if you can base your decision on what the numbers are telling you, you’ll be able to improve the performance of your website and increase the number of business opportunities you’ll get from it. Site Search: A hidden gold mine One of the most overlooked tools in your analytics arsenal is quite possibly the Internal Site – Read the full article
The Internet and smart phones are two modern inventions that most people cannot now live without, especially since the increased processing power of phones is being used to browse the mobile Web. Statistics reveal that more and more people are using their mobile phones to access the Internet. According to Bango, a mobile payments and analytics specialist, the number increased from 10.8 million in January 2008 to 22.4 in January 2009. These figures are hard to ignore and there are suggestions that these growth rates are set to continue for the foreseeable future. If you’re a business owner, a blogger, marketer, or brand manager, then check out your traffic stats and see for yourself the increase in the number of your mobile searchers. Unfortunately, not a lot of webmasters have begun to recognize the importance of optimizing their sites for mobile. After all, what works well on desktops won’t necessarily work – or look good – on a smart phone. – Read the full article
The landing page: the place where visitors are directed after clicking on an ad, a search result, a link, or an offer. It’s also the critical page that can convert mere visitors or readers into your customers, fans, or followers. What goes into building an effective landing page? Let’s check it out. Answers. It’s likely that visitors clicked on your ad or your offer because they want to get hold of a certain piece of information, or because they want answers to their questions. So give them just that. Answer their search queries. Tell them what your offer is. Explain how they can benefit from buying your product or service, from supporting your brand. Guide them on how to get started. Regardless of what your objectives are – to make a sale, to get people to sign up for a newsletter, to get a Facebook user to like your fan page – make sure that you craft your landing page – Read the full article
