The benefits of tapping experts and consultants to implement your SEO campaign are obvious. The prospects of online business have already boomed extensively, and search engine optimization (SEO) is a crucial – make that ‘necessary’ – part of drawing more customers to your website. But while every other Internet marketing agency and professional SEO vendor will be ready to take you up on the challenge of implementing an effective SEO campaign, the more important question is: are you? Here’s how you know you’re ready to tap and take professional SEO help: You know it’s not a short-term thing. People say everyone can do SEO – but that’s only true insofar as ten years ago, when you could just hide keywords in backgrounds of the same color, and pay for a thousand useless links, and leave comment spam everywhere as though you just swallowed the whole can of spam. Today, there are no shortcuts. You have to realize that, to successfully – Read the full article
YouTube recently introduced new features that give generations of video content creators new ways to connect with billions of viewers every day. The first is YouTube Direct, an open-source tool that lets users embed the upload functionality of YouTube directly into their own sites. YouTube Direct is designed to bridge closer connections between individual users and news, media, and business organizations. Image via Now Public “Almost any event that takes place today has a chance of being captured on camera,” a statement reads on the Google blog. “As YouTube has become a global platform for sharing the news, media organizations have been looking for a good way to connect directly with citizen reporters on our site….” That’s why YouTube direct lets users upload videos directly into the application, such that others can request, review, verify, and rebroadcast their clips. Of course, these videos stay live on YouTube, so that users can reach other viewers while getting a chance for broader – Read the full article
Bing is revving it up once again by adding new features to its search functionality. Among the latest additions to the search engine’s features is a new video portal called Bing Video which offers original programming as well as videos from a variety of sources. It combines content from MSN videos with Bing’s search technology, while also housing web-based videos from sites like YouTube, Daily Motion, Hulu, and MySpace, among others. Also included is content from sites like MSNBC, CBS, Fox Sports, National Geographic, and other providers and sites from which MSN offered original media programming. Bing Video may just be what Microsoft needs to help add to its current second-place video market share (next of course to YouTube). With videos organized into several categories like News, Sports, TV Shows, Music, as well as sections for viral clips, “Last Night on TV”, and “Best of Bing”, search on Bing Video is easy, with capabilities that enable faster viewing experience and – Read the full article
The following video contains really buff dudes dancing without their shirts on. If that’s not your cup of tea, please click away. Meet the Men of Lakeshore Branding As you can see, sometimes things get a little wild in our office, with our team of studs. In the video is Ryan, our Creative Director, Michael, who looks over the books, Brandon the social media marketing guy, Mark works as a consultant, and myself, who does Search Engine Marketing. We made this video not only to make you giggle, but to show you the power of a short video that was created in under an hour. Videos are a great way to communicate with your audience and convey your message. YouTube is now the #2 search engine above Yahoo, and it’s more important than ever to establish or grow your presence on this video search engine. Are you completely nuts? Yes, we are, but it’s this creativity that leads to innovative – 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
LinkedIn isn’t just for individuals looking to power their career and build their professional network. It’s also for companies and business organizations looking to establish and promote their professional identity. Creating a LinkedIn company profile page will go a long way in letting people know what your business is all about. First of all, you can use it as an opportunity to build an online reputation for your company. When created and managed strategically, it can also be a great branding tool. A LinkedIn company profile, moreover, is friendly to search engines: it’s public and can show up in search results, giving you an extra edge in exposure and helping your business attract potential new customers or employees. Create your company profile now on LinkedIn. The instructions are simple and easy to follow. We have even included a short Youtube video on how to create your profile. Below are a few tips to help you maximize the Linkedin company profile – Read the full article
LinkedIn is not Facebook. It’s not Twitter, either. You don’t use LinkedIn to post 140-character statuses about your business or to officially like someone’s new online video. What you can do, however, is use LinkedIn to grow your small business and make it more profitable. And isn’t that your priority? As a business-oriented social networking site with more than 50 million registered users spanning 170 industries, LinkedIn is an online real estate for professionals big and small. It is truly a business networking site with the average user having $109K in income and 41 years old. If you’re unsure how to use your LinkedIn profile to gain a business advantage, you can follow these tips below: Brand your profile: As a small business professional, you want to be easily found by the people who matter – as well as by the most frequently used search engines. Make sure that you customize your LinkedIn profile by changing the default link into – Read the full article
“Right now, your customers are writing about your products on blogs and recutting your commercials on YouTube. They’re defining you on Wikipendia and ganging up on you on social networking sites like Facebook. These are all elements of a social phenomenon- the groundswell- that has created a permanent shift in the way the world works.” This is written on the book jacket of the book Groundswell, a national bestseller. The social media revolutions is upon us. Several experts claim for it to be the biggest shift in business since the industrial revolution. The change in how we communicate with the public, potential and existing customers is evolving at a pace that has not been seen before with adoption of other technologies. Its a social media revolution. It used to take years to build new media platforms, for radio it was 38 years, television 13 years, the internet 4 years, and the iPod 3 years- each respectively to reach 50 million – Read the full article
