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Wednesday, March 28 2012
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Saturday, March 17 2012
 Who's Very Likely to Be Your Next Customer?
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Saturday, March 17 2012
 Pinterest is a virtual bulletin board that allows users to share images and links. It's getting noticed by online marketers because reportedly, unique visitors to Pinterest are skyrocketing and Pinterest is driving more referral traffic than Google+, LinkedIn, Reddit, and YouTube. 
Posted by: admin AT 03:01 pm   |  Permalink   |  Email
Thursday, March 15 2012
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Wednesday, February 15 2012
On February 1, Facebook filed for an initial public offering and expects to begin selling shares this spring. In 2011 Facebook had profits of $1 billion on sales of $3.7 billion. 85% of that revenue came from advertising and the rest from social gaming and other fees.

Facebook expects to raise at least 5 billion and hopes to raise as much as 10 billion when it begins selling stock in April or May. This is likely to be the biggest Internet or technology IPO ever.
 
For online marketers, the message is: social media must be embraced! Its impact is growing stronger every day. Facebook and other social media platforms will continue to be aggressive in finding ways to compete with search engines. In addition to having a presence on social media sites, many marketers are adding Facebook pay-per-click to their advertising plans.

From 2010 to 2011, the number of PPC ads delivered on Facebook grew 42% and the average price per ad grew 18%. Keep in mind that it's easy to make costly mistakes when you first venture into social media marketing. Call us if you want help with social media. 
 
Posted by: admin AT 01:20 pm   |  Permalink   |  Email
Saturday, February 04 2012
Starting March 1, 60 of the more than 70 Google privacy policies associated with its various properties (Google search engine, Gmail, Android operating system, You Tube, Google+, etc.) will be combined into one, simpler policy. In a company blog, Alma Whitten, director of privacy, product and engineering, wrote 'Our new Privacy Policy makes clear that, if you're signed in, we may combine information you've provided from one service with information from other services.

In short, we'll treat you as a single user across all our products, which will mean a simpler, more intuitive Google experience.' Google insists its privacy controls are unchanged. 
 
Google's announcement that it will create one comprehensive profile of each user and will share data across all of its platforms has been a public relations challenge. Many users are alarmed that Google has the ability to collect data on everywhere they go and everything they do.

But, is this really so different from what Google has been doing all along? Data is already shared across at least some of Google's platforms--consider that Adwords ads are served to Gmail users based on the content of private emails.

And last month, Google released Search Plus Your World, a search format that combines content that’s been privately shared with users in combination with public results. 
 
Posted by: admin AT 08:18 am   |  Permalink   |  Email
Tuesday, January 31 2012

Design

  • 20 new layouts added
  • New background textures
  • More color options for new designs
  • Larger design selection window
  • Adjust quicklinks bar font size
  • Enhanced design drop down menu for quicker access to design features
  • Default styles for blog and image galleries
  • CSS submenus now default to use menu slide animation
  • Default groupbox spacing/padding
  • New google fonts added

Header/banner

The header/banner settings area has been updated to let you use a content slider or custom HTML in the banner area. The system will now auto adjust to automatically use the width/height of upload banner images.


Design menu

The design options popup menu has been enhanced to provide direct links to more design areas (design library, design settings, design manager, web developer tools...). The menu is also available by clicking the right most design tab ("..."). This menu allows you to easily navigate between design areas.
 

Design manager - Design Explorer (coming soon)

The design manager explorer allows you to edit and customize your design before making the changes live on your site.


Content slider

The content slider has been updated with direct links to edit the slider text.
 

Photo gallery

The photo gallery has been adjusted to allow you to upload photos directly from the page editor. Edit a page with a photo gallery on it and click the upload button above the gallery display.
 

Google maps

The system has been updated to use the new Google maps API/service. You are no longer required to use a developer key when setting up your map.
 

QuickEdit bar

A new QuickEdit bar option is available. The QuickEdit bar is positioned at the top right of your website. It allows to you easily scroll up and down the page as well as toggle between edit/view modes.
 

Misc updates

  • Page properties : advanced settings - set the page url (page name)
  • Design manager enhancements
 
Posted by: admin AT 02:23 pm   |  Permalink   |  Email
Friday, January 27 2012

QR code means Quick Response (QR) code. Their main purpose? To take people from the physical (offline) world to the online world... fast.

Although initially used to track parts in vehicle manufacturing, QR codes are now (as of 2012) used over a much wider range of applications, including commercial tracking, entertainment and transport ticketing, product/loyalty marketing (examples: mobile couponing where a company's discounted and percent discount can be captured using a QR code decoder which is a mobile app, or storing a company's information such as address and related information alongside its alpha-numeric text data as can be seen in Yellow Pages directory), band in-store product labelling. 

At this stage in the QR game? Curiosity baby!

Folks are fascinated by the notion that they can use their smartphones to scan these codes and then "something" happens. They are curious what that "something" is - so they scan it! Could be a website they land at, a contest, a giveaway, a landing page, a promo of some kind, the list goes on.

How many times have you booked a flight, left for the airport (usually late?) and thought... "Oh my gosh! Do I have my ticket?"

Well, worry no more! Airlines are now using QR Codes as your airline boarding pass. A simple code scanner and your smartphone are all you need to get on your flight. It's easy to forget a plane ticket. How often do we forget our phones? Especially when leaving for a trip? Not often. Without a doubt, brilliant use by the airlines.

Have you been to an event lately? Any public event. An air show? A car show? Seen someone wearing a T-Shirt that just has the words "Scan Me" and a QR Code on it? Who doesn't want to scan that?!

So what's the problem?

Unfortunately, lot's of folks aren't using them properly. For instance; have you visited a website that had a QR Code on it, taken out your smartphone to scan it only to wind up at the same website you are already on? Poor use of a really great tool.

Instead of using a QR Code to send the viewer to your website, consider sending them to a specific landing page catered to the marketing material they found the code on to begin with. A great example of this comes from BestBuy. The QR Codes on the shelf stickers beneath the printer you are looking at, take you to THAT specific model printer, rather than just the manufacturer's main website, where you can read reviews and get a full feature list to view.

QR Codes can be useful, but only when used properly. And if you’re going to create QR Codes, it’s best to create a vector version for maximum flexibility.

Offer below valid for current clients.

Need a QR Code? Want a QR Code? Let us know ~ we'll be happy to create one for you. No charge! It's totally free!

 

Posted by: admin AT 12:47 am   |  Permalink   |  Email
Friday, January 20 2012
The Google Panda (aka Farmer) updates were designed to knock content farms out of the top spots in the search results. Apparently, they've succeeded. A study by New Science Magazine shows strong evidence that Google has gained the upper hand against those unruly sites that scrape content from legitimate sites. The study was run by computer scientist Richard McCreadie at the University of Glasgow. He ran 50 search queries prior to the Panda updates and found that content farms were present in the top search results. Following the Panda updates, content farms were no longer in the top search results. High-quality websites are now far more likely to be found at the top of the search results. 
 
This is very good news for all of us who work hard to publish high quality content. The update eliminated many of the sites that don’t deserve a high ranking so now there's more room for the rest of us at the top. Most sites that achieve top rankings use Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategies. If you have questions about SEO services give us a call! 
 
Posted by: admin AT 01:45 pm   |  Permalink   |  Email
Thursday, January 19 2012
Blogging on your website is a great way to add fresh content but more importantly, blogs can be a search engine traffic magnet! Your long-tail keyword-rich blog has potential to rank highly for any number of long-tail keyword phrases that are relevant to your industry. 
 
Many marketers are inclined to target head terms, which are high volume keywords consisting of one or two words. Example 'lawyer' or 'tax lawyer.' But head terms are very competitive and there's little chance they'll improve your search rankings. The smarter strategy is to use long-tail keywords. Example, 'tax lawyer specializing in small business.' Yes, there are far fewer searches on long-tail keywords BUT, a recent industry study demonstrated that using long-tail keywords can help a website move up in the search rankings far more rapidly than head terms. And, long-tail terms converted two and a half times more than head terms. Long-tail keywords may bring smaller traffic volume to your site but chances are, it will be the profitable kind of traffic! 
 
Need even more evidence that targeting long-tail keywords can be good for your search results? Last month, Google announced that it would be doing more comprehensive indexing, making long-tail documents available in its index. That means that your blog that contains long-tail keywords is now more likely to rank for relevant queries! 
 
Many people throw a blog post up every day without much thought to keywords or quality. Our advice: concentrate on using long-tail keywords in your blog and make sure the content is useful to your readers. 
 
Posted by: admin AT 01:47 pm   |  Permalink   |  Email

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