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
Rising along with the popularity of Twitter as well as other instant messaging services with character limits are services for URL shortening. There are hundreds of services on the Web for this, letting people use the smallest space possible for sharing and linking to content. Some of them generate shorter links; some come with bars at the top of the application; some are content to let their links expire. Standing out among all these URL shorteners, however, is Bit.ly, created by John Borthwick of Betaworks. After serving as the default URL shortener for Twitter during the most part of last year, Bit.ly grew to become a web-wide tool. In December, Twitter stopped using Bit.ly, but this breaking of ties hasn’t stopped the URL shortening service from continuing to scale and serving as a useful tool for users, publishers, Internet marketers and eCommerce providers. Still need convincing that Bit.ly is the URL shortener for you? Here are the top 6 reasons – Read the full article
As a small business owner you may be on a job that is usually reserved for two people or more – and you may be running around more than you ought to. (Doesn’t everyone feel that way?) If only you can split yourself in two! Well, spare yourself with these helpful apps. If you have a mobile smartphone like the iPhone or the Android, you can make use of the tools and applications to improve your workflow. After all, these phones are made for more than checking your E-mail, you know. To-Do Lists Outlook Mobile has a nice, task-syncing feature for your smartphone that lets you send meeting requests, track attendance, received detailed responses, and much more. If you’re using an iPhone, there’s the very flexible Toodledo, which synchronizes your tasks without requiring Internet connection. For Android users, use Astrid, a simple task recording dashboard for mobile that lists and tracks your To-Do list. Like the two previous tools, it’s – 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
Website analytics is the collection, analysis, and reporting of your website data. There are plenty of methods and technologies to help you do this, but you don’t have to know all the nuances of the language of the Web in order to obtain the most important information. Why us? The answer is simple. We don’t just give you the information, no. We help you incorporate analytics into your marketing strategy, content creation, and business plans. More than figuring your website stats – like hits, clicks, frequencies, session durations, bounce rates – we help you manage information to drive the decisions that make a business impact on your organization. Our team of web analytics consultants analyzes the data collected to identify issues and potential growth opportunities in your website. Our team has had extensive training, with various certifications in Google Analytics, Omniture, AW Stats, and GetClicky. You don’t have to do this by yourself. With Lakeshore Branding’s web analytics solutions, you – Read the full article
This week we received an email from a DePaul student (Go Blue Demons!), who was looking to interview a web design company about usability. I spent some time thinking about it and developing some answers and I thought I would share it on our blog- Enjoy! (1) Describe the company. Briefly describe the products they build and/or the services they provide Here are some quotes from our website but basically we are a web design company that focuses on Search Engine Optimization and Conversions by using the latest W3C complaint coding (xHTML and CSS) and also using the latest usability compliance. “Web design is more than just creativity, it’s usability. Understanding your visitors and how they use your website will lead to increased conversions. For each new website, our team of graphic designers, SEO consultants and marketing specialists work together on strategy, design, usability, and goals.” Lakeshore Branding, what started as a small marketing firm in 2007 has evolved into – Read the full article
“Chris is a brilliant and innovative marketer. He understands the industry on a strategic level and yet has the acumen to grasp technical tactics. Chris has developed key relationships in the industry and has an impressive network. He has the business savvy to identify new market opportunities and the discipline to deliver results. I highly recommend Chris without reservation.” – Ryan Evans, President, Rand Media Group “Chris Campbell has generously volunteered his marketing expertise for our not-for-profit organization for the last four years. He has been willing to share his skill in online marketing with both our organization and with the high school students we serve as a workshop presenter and as a consultant to new businesses. I am always impressed with his willingness to share his knowledge with our state wide organization and with other businesses. He is energetic, creative, fast on his feet, thoughtful, a great net worker and he follows through on his commitments. We love having – Read the full article
As a small business we are always looking for ways to collaborate with our team, clients and other developers on open source project. Today Google unveiled its newest tool to its growing arsenal of web based tools. Some people are calling this the replacement of Gmail! We are looking forward to testing these new product once it is released to developers (which should be soon!) Here’s how it works: In Google Wave you create a wave and add people to it. Everyone on your wave can use richly formatted text, photos, gadgets, and even feeds from other sources on the web. They can insert a reply or edit the wave directly. It’s concurrent rich-text editing, where you see on your screen nearly instantly what your fellow collaborators are typing in your wave. That means Google Wave is just as well suited for quick messages as for persistent content — it allows for both collaboration and communication. You can also use “playback” to – Read the full article
