Web stuffMatt Cutts is a head of spam prevention at Google. He has a blog that keeps me up to date with tools for search optimization (SEO and SEM) and whats up at Google. He also has some videos on you tube, that are great for understanding certain elements on search.Google webmaster and official Google blog are great additions to the list.Searchengineland is all about the internet business to hear what is going on around town as well as best accepted practices and constant updates to current search engine strategies for SEO and SEM.Google has the official blog and the webmasters blog. EnvironmentA fresh squeeze is a great blog about being Green in chicago. Only a few posts a month. Green Bean is about green buildings in Chicago.Tree Hugger is a great blog about the environment. They usually have 20 posts a day.
I was first introduced to ZipCar about a year ago. It was a novel idea, rent cars by the hour for an affordable rate. Most cars start at $9 an hour (ie a Honda element, Toyota matrix etc.) The hourly fee covers insurance, gas and the parking spot you found it in. The cars are conveniently located around Chicago and tons of other cities around the globe. They actually just merged with Flexcar to offer the service in even more cities. If you do not drive much this is the perfect solution. I sold my car this summer and have used ZipCar ever since. I save hundreds a month, before I had a truck that was $275 note, $100 Insurance, $200-350 in gas a month. Compared to ZipCar I rent a car a few time a month, usually not more than $150 a month. The thing that I like the most is the different cars you can choose from. If – Read the full article
In today’s world, the Internet is being increasingly used for all kinds of business ventures. However, there is one industry – the health and fitness industry (fitness clubs and fitness professionals) – that doesn’t often make use of the Internet due to the mistaken belief that this kind of business can only be conducted face to face. As a result, they end up missing out on the enormous benefits that online marketing offers. Quite a number of fitness clubs, fitness specialists, and personal trainers promote their businesses mainly through word-of-mouth advertising. Some of them shy away from the Internet because they imagine it will be very costly to venture into online marketing, SEO, or social media marketing. This is the wrong mindset. Here to convince you (hopefully) is a list of ways you can immediately enhance your online presence. Blogging There are many free and easy-to-use tools available which can be used to create a business blog. For instance, – Read the full article
Have you ever asked yourself what happens when you write a query in the search engine of Google? “Uncle Google”, as you see it now, is far more different from the one that is born in 1998. The search process is constantly being upgraded, throughout the tube for the past 14 years there are more than 7000 major algorithm changes. Do you remember the first time when you were typing something in Google and he gave you suggestions for your query? Don’t you think it is even cooler that now he gives you not only suggestions for the landing page but also the option to preview it without actually visiting it? At first sight these commands seem simple to you but actually they are parts from the huge and complicated maze of tubes behind the curtains. With those and many other interesting and important changes in Google’s algorithm you can get familiar in the following infographic. (Just click this link – Read the full article
There is a multitude of WordPress plugins that can make your site more SEO friendly and the same ones are repeatedly recommended with little variation. If you have not installed WordPress’s All-in-One SEO Pack, W3 Total Cache, Google XML Sitemaps, SEO Slugs, Trackable Social Share, or similar SEO plugins, go do that right now. If you have already addressed your SEO needs with these handy dandy helpers, then you might want to think about installing these less frequently lauded but still awesome plugins. After all, good SEO is about solid, engaging content, and these plugins will provide the opportunity to connect with your users in different ways. BuddyPress BuddyPress elevates your site by enabling you to construct your own social network on your WordPress site. When installed, it will make your site more interactive and encourage users to build upon what you have started. This powerful plugin provides a whole host of social networking components including activity streams, fully editable extended profiles, and extensible groups – Read the full article
If you’re going to ask us here at Lakeshore Branding which e-commerce platform we would recommend, there’s one answer: Magento. Why? Because it’s loaded with powerful features to help you drive sales: features like product browsing, analytics and reporting, catalog and order management, secure checkout, international support, and an array of marketing promotions and tools. (You can find out more about the platform here.) We’ll understand, though, if you choose to go with something else. Hey, to each his own, right? And there are loads of e-commerce solutions and shopping cart systems to choose from. One of these is OpenCart, an open-source e-commerce platform that’s as feature-rich, easy-to-use, and search-engine-friendly as Magento. Frankly, you won’t go wrong with either. We’ll even help you out developing your online store if you like. Anyway, like Magento, OpenCart also enables you to customize the way your online store looks and works. Because it’s an “out-of-the-box” solution, you can just install it, choose your – Read the full article
If you are the proud owner of a new website, then you know how confusing and downright difficult the process of designing and building a website can be. It’s not uncommon to go through the trouble of finding a hosting service and choosing a domain name, only to get stuck when it comes to actually putting a site together and making it presentable for viewers. Fortunately, there are some very basic things, even for newbies, that can make the process much easier. Here are some simple web design tips for new website owners: Templates. One of the fastest and easiest ways to design an effective website is to choose a customizable template. Customizable templates are easy to find. Simply search online, load them to your site, and make whatever changes you want to make the design your own. If you use a blog hosting service like WordPress to build your website, you will be pleased to find that you automatically have – Read the full article
For your site to be noticed and to get traffic, it should have a good position in search, so that it will always land on the first page of popular search results at search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing. Achieving this is no miracle and is not something that can be done overnight: it takes an effective SEO strategy to move your website to the top of search engine results. In order for an SEO strategy to be successful, a website owner should monitor the different metrics of their site on a daily or weekly basis to gauge if the strategy that they are implementing is working. Here are a few metrics that any website owner should watch out for, to know if they are on the right track and if the strategy that they are implementing is improving their website’s ranking: SEO Metrics Traffic Metrics. Web traffic is the number of visitors that your site is getting. This – Read the full article
