Looking to get ahead of the social media marketing game? Sure, Facebook and Twitter are still the king and queen of this kingdom – just as reported in a recent StrongMail survey of online marketing budgets in 2011 – but the New Year also heralds a number of new social media darlings that are certainly worth keeping an eye on. Last year, it was Foursquare and Posterous leading the pack. This year is just as promising – if not more promising, thanks in large part to the continued expansion of social media and to the crazy range of new sites, apps, and startups out there. Here are our picks for social media websites to watch in 2011. Quora Last March 2010, Quora reportedly received $86 million in funding from Benchmark Capital (also a Twitter investor). It didn’t make any million-dollar noise the rest of the year, but this 2011 just might be the year Quora really makes waves. As a – Read the full article
SEO isn’t just an additional step to perform when you are launching a website. It is a process that needs to be implemented throughout the entire website manufacturing process. Whether you are hiring a SEO professional or optimizing your website yourself, there are certain crucial steps that you cannot neglect in order to fully optimize your website. SEO can be a very confusing concept to grasp; and while new websites must optimize their page rank, they may have no idea where to start optimizing. Luckily, Danny Dover over at SEOmoz created a checklist that clears the fog on what a thorough SEO process entails. The Checklist: CRUCIAL 1. Targeting- Is each page focusing on one optimal keyword? This will make it very easy to figure out what each page is relevant for. Choose a ranking keyword phrase to distinguish each page. Each following step will need to remain relevant to this keyword phrase. 2. Content- One of the biggest phrases in SEO is – Read the full article
Let’s face it, online marketing is more than just advertising your company on the internet. Google has evolved into a verb for searching, and your page rank is essential. Be it your personal blog, or your online business, search engine optimization is crucial for securing the top position on a search. Many people underestimate page rank because they do not understand just how important it is to be the top rank. In some cases, the 1st position is clicked 90% more than the 2nd position. With an average click difference of 50-70%, page rank and SEO is not to be taken lightly. There is no perfect formula for SEO. There are literally hundreds of factors that determine your page rank on Google with some factors that weigh heavier than others. Here are 5 plugins for your WordPress that can boost your website in a search engine. 1. Super Cache One big factor is how long your website takes to load. – Read the full article
Receiving organic traffic via the search engines is a wonderful thing – especially given that it’s free. However, problems can arise if you rely solely on search engine traffic. Your website may rank well today, but what happens if you wake up tomorrow and your site’s rankings have suddenly dropped? What if you suddenly can’t seem to get new visitors? Will you be able to communicate with most of the people who’d previously visited your online business? Stay Connected You would be very wise to diversify your traffic sources for your website and, more importantly, find a way to keep in touch with the visitors that you have attracted in the first place. One way to do that is by offering a free product, such as a report or an exclusive E-newsletter to anyone who visits your site in exchange for his or her E-mail address. Be mindful, though, that a freebie that has little value will only encourage people – Read the full article
Did you know that 20 percent of all searches on the Internet are for specific locations or businesses? Search giant Google did, and that’s why they changed Google Local to Google Places and began to display – for every search query that may be locally or geographically influenced – the local information for businesses, maps, and directions in the search engine results pages (SERPs). Right now, Google displays seven Places results for every search, as well as a map on the right side of the SERP that shows exactly where these seven places are. Obviously, Google Places pages help customers search these maps for local information while finding businesses within their area that are relevant to their search. Meanwhile, for small businesses, mom-and-pops, stores, offices, and other organizations with a physical address, Google Places is a unique local search tool that can drive and direct those who are searching to those who have something to offer or sell. Leverage this – Read the full article
Are you ready for 2011? As the Internet transforms, so should you. The rate at which technology evolves only means that, no matter how far along you’ve come with your Internet marketing program, there will always be something new to explore. There’ll always be something new to add to the mix. It is in this light that Lakeshore Branding takes a look at a number of online marketing trends expected to take off next year. We present this hoping that you’ll turn these expectations into opportunities – and the opportunities into tools to drive your business. HTML5: As the next major revision of the HTML standard, HTML5 is expected to emerge next year – and beyond – as that which will change the chemistry of the World Wide Web. Under development for much of the last few years, HTML5 will nonetheless continue to usher in the next generation of web development and programming. It will be supported by more browsers, – Read the full article
If you run and manage your own website or blog, chances are you probably already know what a sitemap is. And what it looks like. But do you know exactly what it’s for? A sitemap is essentially a list of your website’s pages – often organized in hierarchical order, showing how each of these pages are linked or related. It can be in the form of a document, or an actual web page, with a general top-down view of the overall contents of your website – much like, say, a “table of contents” would list and describe the pages of a book. A sitemap will typically also identify the URLs of each web page, and the data under each section, so that arriving at any one of your website’s pages is just a click away. Okay, that’s cool and all, but why do you need to create your own sitemap? How will it affect your website content, if it’s nothing – 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
