Signals from the Field

You know - it's all the rage...everyone is talking about social media. Everyone is getting caught up in social media - and I don't blame them because social media is bringing the world closer together. I can't tell you how many people have told me stories about how a long lost friend or school mate found them on Facebook or LinkedIn and now they are resurrecting their relationship. That's all good!

Here are 7 tips small business owners can consider when working on search engine optimization (seo) for their websites.

David McKillen WebStrategies Inc.

"Web analytics packages are sold as if it's an automatic coffee marker. In fact, it's more like buying a coffee plantation.

Does not being able to measure your ROI for a given investment make other, more accountable advertising options the smarter choice? You would think so, but there is a reason why businesses have been investing in traditional methods of advertising for decades (and still do). Maybe it’s because it was the only thing available years ago, but in today’s world understanding your own personal tolerance for risk is the greater issue.

Today, Google unveiled their new real-time search feature. It's still very new, even in internet terms, but what we see in the video below as well as in our own field tests is that results populate starting from when the search results page loads (so to take advantage of the new opportunity for visibility, it's a "right place at the right time" kind of thing). Most of these results are tweets or recently crawled articles/blogs on the topic. Our tests have shown tweets to show up with about a 10-20 second delay from when they were originally published. Not bad.

As data capturing tools advance and web analysts get smarter, the depth and breadth of search engine marketing becomes more complex while the potential for reward becomes greater. Website visits have long been regarded as the primary measure of website success, popularity, and influence. Likewise in the SEO world, keyword rankings have historically been a cornerstone for measuring search marketing success. Here are six reasons I believe this should no longer the case.

We go to great lengths to provide products that fulfill the needs of our clients, meeting with them to understand their business models and needs before we even propose building a website or providing other Internet Marketing solutions. In fact, we won't propose something unless we truly believe it will benefit their business. Over the years, this has resulted in a high degree of client loyalty and a large proportion of new business generated through referrals.

It’s certainly a joke that I personally could seriously consider myself the “numero uno” in the business in my own fair city. I imagine there are folks that have been involved in Web Design processes in one way or another since they were babies. Web Design is however a constant learning curve as things change so quickly, we all have to keep up with the latest and greatest. In our daily interactions with other developers and designers, one hears about how practices used by one particular designer differ from those of another. Although end clients seem satisfied by the site produced, some questions still remain about some of these differences in practices from a processes point of view: