WordPress is arguably today’s most popular blogging platform – for reasons that the most brilliant Web programmers and developers or novice bloggers and startup business marketers can appreciate. Actually, WordPress is popular for reasons that even search engine giant Google can appreciate. Matt Cutts – the well-known SEO guru and Webmaster behind Google (which, by the way, has Blogger as its own blogging platform) – even went so far as to praise WordPress, saying that: “WordPress takes care of 80 to 90 percent of (the mechanics of) Search Engine Optimization (SEO).” But we’re getting ahead of ourselves – let’s go into more detail about SEO later. For now, let’s go through the list of highlights of WordPress as a blogging platform. Getting Started The process of signing up for WordPress is simple and easy enough. The most awesome part? It’s free. WordPress is open-source software, which means that you don’t have to pay any license fees to use the core – Read the full article
The landing page: the place where visitors are directed after clicking on an ad, a search result, a link, or an offer. It’s also the critical page that can convert mere visitors or readers into your customers, fans, or followers. What goes into building an effective landing page? Let’s check it out. Answers. It’s likely that visitors clicked on your ad or your offer because they want to get hold of a certain piece of information, or because they want answers to their questions. So give them just that. Answer their search queries. Tell them what your offer is. Explain how they can benefit from buying your product or service, from supporting your brand. Guide them on how to get started. Regardless of what your objectives are – to make a sale, to get people to sign up for a newsletter, to get a Facebook user to like your fan page – make sure that you craft your landing page – Read the full article
It’s pretty much understood that almost every business needs a website. Unfortunately, not every business owner has the expertise to set up one or the time to learn how. This is especially true for small, non-tech-oriented businesses that still need an online presence. Fortunately, there are a slew of services that can help businesses to get online in a fast, inexpensive and professional manner without having to learn coding. These point-and-click systems make it easy for a new webmaster to get a site set up quickly. They might not be the most robust solutions, but they might offer a quick start that can get a business online until something more permanent can be established. On that note, here are five code-free solutions for getting a business site online and running, often within a matter of minutes. Squarespace Squarespace offers a great deal of flexibility with its layouts and a slew of modules including blogs, forums, file storage and more. Users – Read the full article
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
Users of Tumblr don’t have to open their wallets to get a great selection of themes. Tumblr’s theme directory offers hundreds of interesting, attractive and and practical themes that you can choose from. Combine that with a powerful set of customization tools to create your own theme or customize the one you’re using, users get a virtually unlimited set of themes without paying a dime. However, Tumblr does offer a set of very compelling premium themes that add yet another dimension to the site’s already extensive library. But while it may seem odd to pay for a theme with so many great, free options available, there are many that are well worth the money. Consider these seven examples of premium Tumblr themes that, for many sites, may be well worth the cash. Snippet Magazine themes are becoming extremely popular on other blogging platforms and Snippet likely the best magazine-style theme for Tumblr. With great use of white space to make – Read the full article
As you’ll notice, we’ve been focusing recently on the “marriage” of search engine optimization and social media – and talking about things like how you can use social media sites for your SEO campaign, or how you can leverage Twitter for link building. We believe that social can have a tremendous impact on search. And by “social” we don’t mean just Twitter and Facebook. We take into account other websites, too, like Reddit. Reddit – a social bookmarking site – is one of the darlings that we’re keeping an eye on this 2011. It has been around, having been launched 5 years ago, but Reddit enjoyed its best year last 2010 when it experienced a 300 percent surge in traffic (thanks largely to the expense of faltering Digg) and record 829 million page views last December alone. The site markets itself as “the voice of the Internet – (with) news before it happens”. Being a social bookmarking site, Reddit delivers – Read the full article
Successful modern businesses know that the best way to cash in on an ever-decreasing post-credit crunch consumer market is to gain trade online. Any entrepreneur who has noted the decline in passing high street trade and dipped their toe into the web market will know that gaining a share of online business is a complex process. One extremely important piece of the Web marketing puzzle is pay-per-click (or PPC) advertising. What is PPC? PPC advertising offers businesses access to an intensely targeted range of online marketing services. Depending on their own needs and the perceived habits of their potential client base, websites can draw in customers using a number of clever targeting techniques. PPC advertising is offered by online giants, such as Google and Yahoo, and by social networking sites like Facebook. It also comes in bespoke form through professional PPC companies, who can place PPC anchor text links in web copy posted on third-party sites and blogs. Choosing a PPC – 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
