Establishing – or enhancing – the presence of your business online will require a lot of text. Let’s see: website copy (with multiple pages), product and service descriptions, blog entries, tweets, Facebook wall posts, E-mail newsletters, pay-per-click ads, etc. So who’s going to do all that writing? Hire a web content writer. That’s the simplest solution, right? It’s also one of the most efficient. You hire the writer for a specific content creation project, maybe even an outsourced writer from offshore. It’s cost-effective, and you’re also able to free up a lot of time for yourself – time that you can spend focusing on running and growing your business, as opposed to playing the role of a copywriter or communication agency. Before you handpick a writer, though, you have to make sure that he or she is your best candidate. An interview may even be necessary. The most important thing, of course, is that the writer has what it takes – Read the full article
Link building is often said to be the hardest part of an search engine marketing campaign by many industry leading experts – but it doesn’t necessarily have to be so difficult. If you’re working on an SEO campaign for a client, or are a business owner looking to improve the number of back links you have, it may be better to focus your efforts closer to home, as opposed to actively hunting for links. The links you attract naturally are often the most high quality, and can help improve your search engine rankings more so than other link building techniques. Here are some tips to make your website naturally “linkable”: Great Content is Delicious! Although “content is king” is an adage that is so overused in the SEO industry it is beginning to lose it’s true meaning – it is actually still completely true. Creating good quality, relevant and engaging content is much more likely to attract visitors, links, and – Read the full article
It can be tough to measure in tangible terms the impact of the Internet on the environment, but this doesn’t mean there isn’t any. As we continue to enhance our presence online and live and work towards the digital, it’s important to note that the environmental costs of using the Web will inevitably rise, too. The heavier the burden will get. If you have a website or blog, you can be sure that it takes plenty of energy to keep that up and running. The infrastructure needed, the electricity used, the data servers and power plants required to keep all the information online 24/7 are only some of the things through which our online goings-on can affect the environment. Start “greening” your own little place on the Web and minimize the Internet’s environment footprint in your own way. Here’s a list of great tips to help you do just that. Go for green web hosting These days there are plenty – Read the full article
A Content Management System (CMS) is a Web-based tool that makes it easy to change and manage the web copy, imagery, and layout of your website using a Web-based backend. Easy – meaning you no longer have to worry about managing multiple versions of HTML/ Dreamweaver templates (remember those?), since everything’s stored online. Lakeshore Branding leverages the power of two open-source content management systems that have been designed to create, edit, manage, control, and store all the materials you’ll be using for your website. Our recommended systems make the complex a lot simpler and the Internet a lot friendlier. Why open-source? It’s all a matter of opportunity: for lower costs, greater flexibility, better reliability, improved security, smoother collaboration, and more innovation. Because more developers and more programmers can work on open-source projects – compared to the limited few who create proprietary software – the possibilities become limitless. With open-source, Lakeshore Branding continues to develop unique, sophisticated website, the kind you – 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
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
As we’ve mentioned in an earlier post, keyword selection is one of the most important factors in creating a successful PPC campaign. In the world of pay-per-click advertising where you simply have to get the most of your advertising dollars, it pays to be choosy – and to be smart and savvy, instead of reckless, in making decisions about keywords. Of course, this doesn’t mean choosing the most popular – and therefore most expensive – keywords. You have to take the time to research which ones are fit for your needs and budget, and which, when taken as a group, will still bring you high-volume traffic. Keyword research will require a set of tools that you can use to bring in the data, which can make you spend even more than you ought to. That’s why we’ve come up with this list of free keyword research tools that can potentially help you drive more traffic to your site and increase – Read the full article
Online advertising has evolved – and continues to evolve – so rapidly that secrets, tips, advice are coming from all corners. Just Google “PPC tips” and you’ll see what we mean. Businesses and marketers are keen on increasing their pay-per-click conversion rates and ROI, and they wouldn’t hesitate to try out this new piece of software, that new eBook, this new complex paid-for PPC management tool that should serve as current Shiny Object in the world of Internet marketing. We’re talking, in other words, about a lot of effort, time, and money. Sometimes, though, you can get the job done with something as simple as a Shiny Button. What are we talking about? Well, we’ve written in the past about “call to action” being one of the tips for a successful PPC campaign. Call to action: encouraging your visitors to make a decision about your product, your service, your brand. Writing persuasive ad copy that makes it hard for your – Read the full article
