The Internet should be fast. At least that’s what Google says. In line with an announcement the search engine made last year, the speed of a website is now officially a ranking factor in Google’s search algorithm. While the new ranking factor impacts very few queries, the change is still a significant development. We here at Lakeshore Branding are all for it. Indeed, the Internet should be fast. It should snap, show, and respond quickly. Whether you’re a small business owner, an Internet marketer, or an e-Commerce retailer, it’s important to understand that the speed at which your site loads can affect the level of engagement that you will have with your audience. Create a page that loads at a snail’s pace, and chances are that you’re shooing visitors and potential clients away. After all, no one wants to wait for a website or a page to load forever. So here’s a list of simple formatting tips to keep your – Read the full article
At the recent PubCon in Las Vegas, Matt Cutts from Google delivered a presentation on what to expect in the year 2010. One of the bullet points discussed how, over at Google, there has been strong lobbying to introduce a new ranking factor into the algorithm: site speed. Soon, Cutt said, site or page speed may be a factor in the organic ranking algorithm. It can happen as early as next year, although we believe Google has been testing this as part of the algorithm for some time. This is a new insight to how Google determines page rankings. How fast a page loads is already a factor in the AdWords quality score; making it matter in the organic ranking algorithm should reward sites with fast load times, and which use fast servers. Right now there are over 200 ranking factors in the algorithm, each of them weighted differently. And while adding page loading speed to the mix won’t dramatically – 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
In an October 2011 report by ComScore, it was found that smartphones and tablets drive nearly 7 percent of digital traffic in the US. The number is bound to increase, especially as increased Wi-Fi availability and mobile broadband adoption continue to drive connectivity. Other key findings in the report include: 116 million people in the US alone are users of mobile media. Nearly half of those who own tablets (such as the Apple iPad) made or completed a purchase using their tablet. Publishers are extending their reach to cross-platform audiences who own smartphones, tablets, and other Web-enabled mobile devices (such as the iPod Touch). What does this all mean? It means that if you’re a publisher, Internet marketer, online advertiser, SEO specialist, social media marketer, online retailer, e-Commerce store owner, blogger, developer, Web designer, etc. – if you, at the very least, have a website that’s meant to showcase your work or help you do business – then you now – Read the full article
Yesterday Yahoo! Site Explorer decided to retire from business. It has left many amateur SEOs, and some professional SEOs too, at a bit of a loss. Many SEOs and agencies have been using the back link service in Yahoo! Site Explorer to monitor, analyse, and generally try to copy the link building actions of their competitors. As someone who has been involved in SEO for over 5 years (not so much by choice but by necessity) I have used Yahoo! extensively, and seen my competitors use it against me, too! I manage several sites across various niches, and some of my sites do interlink with each other, wherever a connection really does benefit a reader. I have seen people leave comments on all my blogs, and doing so in the order of Yahoo! backlinks for my main website. SEO Stalkers are gonna have a harder time I have also seen the same people leave comments on other blogs where I – Read the full article
Every business shares a common goal – to survive, grow and prosper. In today’s fast-track competitive world, businesses large and small must turn to new measures in order to evolve, grow or simply stay afloat. Ecommerce website development can offer growth opportunities of enormous proportion for businesses from all sectors. This is mostly due to the advent of highly improved and user friendly web services (Ed’s note: services like our favorite, Magento) available across the web that have literally carved a place in the hearts of online users. As an online business owner, the employment of technological advances in e-Commerce website design can mean the difference between the success and failure of your business objectives. Accordingly, it is important to understand exactly what an ecommerce website is and how to get started with one. Basically, an ecommerce website is a virtual representation of your physical business. Interestingly, most business owners grow to learn that the biggest difference between an ecommerce – Read the full article
Technology constantly affects the way that we are doing business. Without technology, our business is slower, less efficient, and if we chose to ignore the changes, our business could suffer dramatically. One of the best business tools that has revolutionized the way we do business is the Mac by Apple. With the Mac (iMac, iPad, MacBook, iPhone), connecting business deals, emails, and even live conferences, can happen with simplicity. The innovative design offers so many benefits to business users around the world. With a large interactive screen you can be networking, staying on task, and most importantly making money for your business with the click of a mouse. Developers know the advantages of using an iMac as a business tool, and have made some great apps to match, many of which are free. Here are the top ten FREE business apps as ranked on iTunes for your Mac! 10. Chimport Chimport is a business tool that allows you to – Read the full article
Every website owner engaged in e-commerce knows how critical it is to get more visitors to become customers. Getting the visitors to come to the site is one thing, but persuading them to convert to customers is another. E-commerce is a rapidly growing sector of the business world, projected to overtake traditional retail outlets sooner rather than later. Running a business website is a lot like running a store, with several obvious differences, one being that visitors arrive virtually instead of in person. An e-commerce website has to monitor and track its visitors very carefully to generate key statistics. One of these key statistics is the conversion rate, which is generated by dividing the number of customers by the number of visitors. It tells the website owner how many visitors are being persuaded to become customers. The conversion rate spells the difference between success and failure for a website. Websites can take advantage of several tools to improve the conversion – Read the full article
