Unless you’ve been living under a rock or haven’t touched a computer at all for two years, you would know by now that Microsoft has rebranded their MSN search engine to a product called Bing. It’s the company’s answer to Google, the search giant that owns a large part of the market share and which continues to lead over Bing, Yahoo, and its other search competitors. Microsoft has shown, however, that it is willing to invest and make Bing a better search product for its users. It has also spent a huge amount of money in heavy marketing spending in order to gain a bit of Google’s portion of the search space – a move that has helped Bing consistently inch upward every month. While comScore recently reported that Google still has 64.4 percent share of core searches, Bing continued to gain in April 2010 and upped its search share to 11.8 percent. Which leads to the question: should search – Read the full article
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
We all know that the Apple iPad has set the world abuzz. Fans have praised the tablet computer as a revolutionary, game-changing device, while critics have pointed out that it’s no more than a giant iPod Touch. In any event, the impact of the Apple iPad on how we share, consume, and publish online content can no longer be doubted. It will change, if it hasn’t already, the way we use the Internet – especially if the iPad becomes widely adopted. That’s why – if you run a small business or work as an Internet marketer or web developer – it’s important to think about optimizing your website or blog for the iPad. After all, more and more people are using Apple devices to surf the Web: part of engaging with and reaching out to these users is providing them with a smoother, glitch-free experience of your website or blog. Forget Flash Apple emphasizes HTML5, CSS, and Javascript – but – Read the full article
The impact of many About Us pages has pretty much been underestimated throughout the growth of the Internet. If you own a small business or run an e-Commerce site, chances are that you haven’t paid as much attention to your About Us page as to your product catalog or company blog. But make no mistake: About Us pages are one of the most visited pages in a site or domain. It’s also the page visitors go to when they want to find out more about the people, the faces, the team members, behind the website or the company. That’s why you shouldn’t pass up on writing and creating a killer About Us page. Here are a number of tips: Be brief: Sure, it’s important to be able to tell a story, but don’t make your About Us page sound like a long-winded literary novel or some such sort. Be brief. If possible, keep the whole text above the fold (the – Read the full article
One of the more interesting trends in Internet marketing today is the idea of outsourcing content creation and copywriting. Here’s how it works: you run a small business, you become too busy with work, and on top of that – as though your calendar wasn’t crazy enough, as though you actually had time – you find yourself having to refresh your website or company blog with new, engaging content. You have to meet the demand for new, diverse information about your product, your brand, your industry. And you’re not even a writer by profession. One can only do so much, right? If only you can leave the writing to those who do it for a living. Enter your team of freelance writers, eager to develop content and copy for your site. They may be regular readers of your blog, looking to contribute their own content; they may be freelancing neighbors from just around the corner; or they may come from – Read the full article
It’s one thing to get a lot of followers on Twitter; it’s another to be able to retain them and keep them engaged and interested. To be followed is not enough, especially if you’re a small business owner looking to maximize the long-term value of the social microblogging site for your company or brand. You’ll want people to eagerly await your tweets, and to have them “retweet” whatever you have to say. You’ll want them to keep asking you for more. Of course, this doesn’t mean you should suffer from tiny little panic attacks whenever someone decides to un-follow you. But retaining followers on Twitter can be one of the most crucial parts of your social media strategy. So here are the top 7 tips on how to keep them once you have them: 1. Quality over quantity Twitter users follow you not because they want their home page cluttered with meaningless minute-by-minute updates, but because they assume they’re going – Read the full article
The social networking / microblogging site, Twitter, is so popular right now that it’s not a bad move to think you should use it for your business – as part of your social media strategy. In fact, you may go so far as to say it’s a necessary move. Sure, it’s cool to be able to follow the tweets of Ashton Kutcher and Stephen Fry on a daily basis and join in on casual conversations. But it’s so much cooler that Twitter offers you, through these conversations, new opportunities to expand your business and your brand. Before you dive in and start twittering, make sure you consider a few important things first. You don’t want to start out on a bad note, after all. Ask yourself how you want to use your Twitter Sure, you can’t use Twitter yet as a direct revenue channel, but you can use it as a way to continue to enhance your brand and image. – Read the full article
It’s great to have your own blog to support your main website: you can keep updating it with new content and engage with a community of readers. But what if that community isn’t growing or responding as you had hoped, no matter how great and fresh your content is? Don’t worry: an increase in engagement is not impossible. Facebook Connect is one of the most popular ways to reach out to members of the social media community through your blog. This Facebook API (or application programming interface) is currently being used by all kinds of third parties: from websites like the Huffington Post and Mashable, to gaming consoles like Xbox Live and Sony PS3, and even mobile applications on the Apple iPhone. Basically, what this tool does is integrate Facebook into your blog, so that you can tap into the social networking site’s 400 million active users worldwide. Facebook Connect also allows you to help your blog readers connect with – Read the full article
