If they still seem somewhat of a mystery, I recommend the “How Internet Search Engines Work” article over at howStuffWorks.com. Although the engines deliberately keep some parts of their operation secret, the basics of how they work are public knowledge. And some of this information can be used to determine how search engine-friendly your website […]
Google is now allowing businesses who have registered with Google Places (formerly Google Local Business Center) to respond to negative reviews that appear with a business listed on Google Maps. This is good news as it allows for dialog enabling businesses to represent themselves. A business owner can now answer their detractor’s complaints (and hopefully […]
State Farm agents have been using and testing Facebook for over a year now. They’re gotten to where they now understand the most effective ways to engage their audience on that platform and rolled out Facebook training throughout their whole organization. What did they learn and are now asking all of their agents to apply? […]
Email marketing, a re-marketing tool, can be a very effective means to build loyalty and drive new business from existing clientele. Using it to generate new business from prospective customers who have no idea who you are, however, is a sketchy proposition. Purchased or rented lists typically do not provide as good a response or […]
Earlier this year we commented on an upcoming update to Google’s rules for ranking websites codenamed “Caffeine.” This update actually changes how Google analyzes web pages significantly but current rankings, for the most part, should remain stable per our tests in the Developer Preview. Google is now launching Caffeine starting with 1 data center by […]
With the mainstream media constantly name-dropping facebook and twitter, you’d think that it’d be a no-brainer for every business to get themselves setup on them and start seeing the dollars roll in. The trouble is, there isn’t often a direct approach to measuring success on these networks. Like what was promised to Kevin Costner long […]
One of my favorite blogs is Erin Doland’s www.unclutterer.com. Being very particular about cleanliness and neatness (more the latter than the former), I find great tips I can put to use keeping my work, personal and online lives nicely organized. It also helps me to feel a little more sane when I read about how […]
Let’s talk about Sitemaps. Not the pretty, user-friendly kind like this or that, but the ugly, albeit necessary “XML” kind. If you don’t know what an XML Sitemap is, then you better get someone who does. They’re not too difficult to create but have become increasingly important for getting all of a website’s pages into […]
Google, Yahoo and MSN yesterday unveiled a new way for website’s to specify which pages are your “main” or “original” ones. This goes a long way towards helping prevent the dilution of backlinks to a website. For example, if you work for the Tourism Board of Mars and have the following page on your website, […]
A possible new update to the way Google displays search results might break all of your website tracking software and statistics – are you prepared? There’s been a backlash in the last couple of weeks against a possible update to the way Google displays search results and Google has admitted to testing AJAX-formatted search results. […]