I publish this to you guys because in the time I have spent working for Lakeshore Branding, I have learned a lot in what is SEO. As I will be taking a drastic turn in my life and begin working for the man, there are a few important lessons I have learned. First, a quick background. After graduating from the University of Iowa, I helped a colleague start up a webhosting company, Host Duplex. Afterwards, I joined Lakeshore Branding as an SEO Hero (self modified title ) to expand my technical knowledge in the SEO industry and further develop my web development skills. Here are the lessons I have learned as an SEO Hero. 1.) You Don’t Know Jack! One of the many lessons I have learned through life is that real life experience is king. From research and different books, I had thought that I knew my fair share of how to optimize a website. It wasn’t until I began – Read the full article
Happy February LSB readers! Well now it’s February and hopefully, you haven’t abandoned your 2011 resolutions. For us entrepreneurs, goals are important as ever on our road to global domination. Two of my goals: Be consistent in the gym, and grow the business. When I was in the gym last week, it occurred to me that most exercising tips directly relate to growing your business. Confused? Read on to see how these muscle growing or slenderizing (for you ladies) tips can strengthen your business. 1) Don’t Overexert Yourself What’s going to happen if you lift too much weight? Injury. This rule is the same for your business. Rack up too much debt, take on too many clients, you’re going to hurt your business. A rule in exercising is to ensure you master the lower weight before you move up. Be real with your company’s capabilities and realistically conduct your business. 2) Don’t Follow the Other Guys Just because the people at – Read the full article
Popular microblogging and social networking site Twitter is all the rage now – and for good reason, too. It’s a truly unique platform, one that allows social media and SEO (search engine optimization) – two of the hottest trends in Internet marketing today – to come together, and possibly even support each other. Yes, it is possible. Indeed, Twitter has far more useful qualities than the ability to broadcast what you had for breakfast today. Leverage the social media tool properly and, with best practices in “tweeting”, you might even be able to improve the performance of your link building campaign. That’s right: social media and SEO coming together. Let’s look at some of the many ways in which you can use Twitter for link building: Engage. Using Twitter’s search tool, find the people who matter to your business and start engaging with them. Give them @mentions, send them @replies, retweet their updates or links – all towards the goal – Read the full article
Online social gaming – or playing games on social networks – is about to go big this year. We’re talking one-billion-dollars big. New York research firm eMarketer reports that the social gaming market is expected to pass $1 billion this 2011 – a 28 percent rise from last year’s $856 million – and that close to 62 million US Internet users will play at least one game a month this year. The rapid rise of social gaming, according to eMarketer, will be driven by three main contributors: online advertising, online lead generation, and the implementation of branded virtual goods. Last year, 53 million Americans played at least one game on a social network, a staggering number that can be attributed to the rising popularity of social games like FarmVille, CityVille, Pet Society, and the Mafia Wars Game, among many others that one would find on Facebook or MySpace. The number is expected to grow this year, along with dollars that – Read the full article
No matter what Facebook says, E-mail is not going to go away. And neither will E-mail marketing: in fact, according to a recent survey, more dollars are expected to be spent by businesses and marketers this 2011 on E-mail campaigns. We certainly hope that some money goes toward studying the anatomy of a great E-mail newsletter. Why? Because E-mail is one way – is still one of the best ways – to effectively capture attention in the age of information overload and short attention spans. Oh, and because 94 percent of all Internet users read E-mail. That’s higher than the percentage of Internet users who turn to search engines to find information. Let’s check out the body parts of a sexy, irresistible E-mail newsletter – the kind that doesn’t go straight to a recipient’s trash folder. Your company name. One of the most common mistakes that E-mail marketers make is the assumption that people will remember who they are. Well, – Read the full article
In my experience with Internet Marketing and SEO, I have come across a multitude of Internet marketing and SEO terms. A lot of these terms usually have very vague or technical definitions that leave you confused and frustrated. I know how you feel, trust me, I have been there. Fear not, I have compiled a list of internet marketing and SEO keywords in layman’s terms for you people that are new to SEO and internet marketing. 1. Anchor text , anchor link – When you are reading content, and a word is clickable and contains a link. 2. Backlink, back-link – a link from an outside website (outside source) that points back to a website. (i.e. all the links that connect back to your blog) 3. Broken link – a link that fails to connect to it’s intended destination 4. Cloaking – When a website presents one version of itself to the user and another version to the search engine. – Read the full article
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
We all know that E-mail is one of the most potent tools for Internet marketing. And, thanks to the growth of mobile Web browsing, E-mail marketing is now bigger than ever. We’ve written about E-mail marketing before, focusing on things like: Starting your E-mail campaign How to write irresistible subject lines And E-mail marketing etiquette in the time of social media …but there’s something we haven’t yet touched on: video. That’s right. The Web has evolved well enough to more fully enable E-mails with videos – and we’re not just talking about 25 GB WMV attachments that take forever to download. There are a number of E-mail marketing-related products out there today that allow you, for example, to embed your YouTube videos so that recipients can watch it from inside the E-mail message. E-mails with videos significantly boost your click-through rates Not only does video E-mail marketing introduce new creative possibilities (no longer will marketers be limited to text and – Read the full article
