For those of you who are Google addicts like myself, you should find this piece choc-a-bloc full of Chrome apps for you to gorge yourself on. Whether it’s gaming you are looking for or an app to help your business run more smoothly, you should find something here to satisfy your taste buds. The Google Chrome Store makes me feel like a kid in a sweet shop at the best of times, and if you haven’t checked it out already you will find it hard not to after reading below. Bear in mind that you need to be using the Google Chrome browser (to enjoy these apps), so download it now and start browsing in the shop and on the Internet. Google Chrome apps for small business One of the best apps I have found on the Google Chrome Web store is the ZOHO Invoice app, which I now use religiously to process all my invoices and keep track of – Read the full article
These days, you can’t call yourself an entrepreneur or a marketer without any knowledge of how to use the Internet to drive your business. That’s why we here at Lakeshore Branding keep pushing WordPress – because it’s an awesome tool for anyone wanting to establish themselves online. It’s a semantic personal publishing platform with focus on aesthetics, Web standards, and usability. So, whatever your title is – small business owner, online retailer, Internet startup founder, online marketer, social media guru, new media advertiser, affiliate marketer – you’ll find something valuable and unique in the way WordPress works. But to change the way WordPress looks? That’s what this list of WordPress themes is for. We picked out a number of the best business and marketing WordPress themes so that you won’t have to. With this list, we also hope you’ll be able to enhance the ease and efficiency of your WordPress experience. If you find a favorite business or marketing WordPress – Read the full article
Last week we published a guide on how to monitor Google Places reviews, Web updates, and content changes. It was well-received by our readers, so we’d like to build on the post and share info this time on tools for online reviews monitoring and management. Hopefully, this list will help you track online reviews of your brand, product, establishment, service, or business – and enhance your reputation as more customers talk about you on Google Places, Yelp, online directories, local business listings, and social media sites. Or, if you’ve used any of the online reputation management tools below, do let us know by leaving a comment below and sharing with us your experience. ReviewPush Texas-based ReviewPush markets itself as an “online review management tool for small to large businesses”. It offers a dashboard for monitoring / tracking reviews, protecting your brand and reputation, engaging with customers, and enhancing product offerings and promotions (such as coupons). ReviewPush features include: Continuous social – Read the full article
Thanks to our good friends over at the social media networks, individuals can create personal brands better than ever. Though you may not know it, your actions on social media accounts give the public a certain image of you. This is probably most true for those who are very fluent in social media—continually connecting and commenting with others on the web who enjoy similar websites and articles. However, a personal brand works just like anything else in life: having one can be very beneficial; not having one can be damaging, and vice versa. A good way to think about a personal brand is like a resume. In a sense, a resume is a document that explains why you are one way and not another—you’re good at math because you studied it in college; you’re a loyal employee because you stay at your jobs for over one year, etc. In other words, creating a personal brand through social media is becoming – Read the full article
You saw the money tree analogy coming—after all, money is usually the end goal of a startup company. This got me to thinking about the many ways a company can try to yield a profit. I found that people are constantly discussing the importance of content on a company website, but what people are not constantly discussing is the idea that this content does not always equal revenue. I will admit that I frequent many company websites simply to read their blog, yet I have no intention of ever buying their product. The point is, you first want to drive traffic to your webpage, but you cannot stop there. There are many things you can do to make sure that when people are visiting your website, they are tempted to buy. Consider a few of the things your startup company can do to make sure you are attracting the right kinds of visitors and keeping them interested: How to Bring – Read the full article
Protecting your identity involves protecting anything that contains your personal information. And your cell phone or smart phone contains more data about you than you may even realize. Smart phones today are basically small computers, except they often do not have anti-virus protection on them. We use these devices for surfing the internet, checking bank accounts, and even making monetary transactions. The secret service has been trying to fight against identity theft and is recommending a cell phone firewall for all cell phone users to help guard against this kind of electronic hacking. People are spending more time on their phones as they are capable of doing more things. One of the most vulnerable aspects of using your cell phone is online banking. These connections are supposed to be secure, but if you are able to access your bank account by just pressing a button on your phone, then a thief who steals your phone can do the same thing. – Read the full article
From humble, open source beginnings, WordPress now powers over 61 million sites worldwide. The extent to which it has grown in popularity not just for bloggers but professional designers and developers is evidenced by Smashing Magazine recently launching an extended, dedicated WordPress section. I’m currently one of these working in web design in Chicago. The Project I recently had a very simple project of launching a blog with a small shopping cart installed in time for the 2011 Rugby World Cup held in New Zealand. Wait-of-Nation.com went live a little over two months ago. The Client With a background in PR/Advertising my client was well versed in getting himself out there, which in a country of 4.5 million people really isn’t that hard to do. He had a good product (sports blog of the most popular sport in NZ), with a niche message/ slant (“Home of New Zealand’s crushing expectation” – that the All Blacks – the National team – – Read the full article
It’s easier than ever to make promotional videos. A few years ago, if you wanted to have an advert made, then you would have had to search for an affordable company offering video production in Nottingham or another major city near where your company was based. The production process would require regular meetings, intense discussion, several edits, and quite a large bill at the end. Now that even personal computers are capable of video editing, it’s starting to make more sense to do the work in house. A short video production training course may not bring your work up to the standard of a professional outfit doing video production, but if you’re producing short advertisements or viral videos then you most likely won’t need the sophisticated equipment of a professional video lab. What can you learn from video production training? One mistake that many people make is to get carried away playing with fancy settings and effects with their video – Read the full article
