This past week: Well it seems that Microsoft's tablet surface and new OS Windows 8 were not as well received as the company was expecting. The once mighty popular tech company is struggling to capture consumers imagination; this is a good example that the Internet is a constant evolving environment. More than ever businesses need to be ready to adapt to the new trends and major shifts that the emergence of new technologies bring into the market. On a more positive side of the news, there are strong rumours that Facebook is gearing up to extend their ad network outside of Facebook. That's right, pretty soon you are going to start seeing ads coming from Facebook in your favourite websites; and this is a good thing for all of us. Small businesses will have more to chose from when it comes to advertising online, and competition will bring more innovating ways to reach the right audience for the product/services the business is promoting. Having said that, this week's list of tweets are all about doing better business online.
It seems like a good idea-> B2B Marketing – Is it Worth it to Market during the Holidays?
As the articles mentions, a few leads are better than no leads. Also this is the time when everyone relaxes and slows their working pace and has more time to pay attention to thing they wouldn't have before.
Liking Gmail? Some tips to like it better-> Ten Tricks To Make Yourself a Gmail Master
Gmail has come a long way, now it is even better than some email clients. With the integration of other Goolge tools it makes it a very powerful communication system. This article shows you how to take advantage of some of Gmail's features.
Good points on what not to do-> 7 Ways to Screw Up a Content Marketing Plan
You should pay attention to these points, otherwise your blog posts and landing pages are just a waste of your time.
Buying followers not recommended-> How To Increase Your Social Media Following
Work on building your followers with people that are actually interested in what you have to share. It is better to have fewer followers if they are going to listen to you.
You own your website!-> Why A Website Is More Important Than Facebook & Twitter
Sometimes I get into the discussion of the importance of a business website when there are so many platforms where a business can have a presence. My argument is it is more important than ever, businesses can reach their customer base through many different channels today. But, it is their website that is the source of their information. You cannot get banned from your website, nor is your website going to disappear because other people's actions. You always have a place to host your website.
Great LiveBuild testimonial, Karen Popoff - The Transformationalist@TransformWithMe
As you might have noticed we are promoting LiveBuild (learn more about LiveBuild), we have had great feedback from people that have gone through it. Karen was so satisfied with the experience that she put it in an email and we decided to share it with you.
61% of ppl searching on mobile say they’ll move on if site not optimized-> A Quick Guide to SMB Success on #Mobile
And that number is only going to increase as more businesses get their mobile websites online and the public expectation completely shifts. Get you mobile website ready, it is so easy to do. See how we do it - YWD Mobile
Next Friday I'll have another round up, in the meantime you can follow me and YWD on the networks below:
Don't have a Your Web Department website? Get started now, don't pay until you go live. www.yourwebdepartment.com
Gustavo Jabbaz started his digital career as a designer and then became a developer and these days spends most of his time as a digital marketer. A founding partner of Your Web Department, he's responsible for day-to-day operations, marketing and development strategy. He is who you talk to when you need support with SEO and/or Social Media. Gustavo Jabbaz on Google+ | Twitter
Georgia Hardy Tours is a premium travel company that designs custom itineraries around the globe for discerning small groups, student travelers and educational institutions. What began as a company focused on school travel and March Break trips has grown to include student summer courses, AQ teacher courses abroad, museum tours and custom journeys to many of the world’s most exciting and exotic destinations.
They update their nicely-designed Your Web Department website regularly by themselves, including image galleries and videos. The excellent photographic material conveys the kind of unique experience that Georgia Hardy can provide.
Flavio Mester is a graphic designer as well as a systems analyst (in a distant life he was an architect). A founding partner of Your Web Department, he's responsible for the design and development of all the YWD website management platform interfaces. Flavio Mester on Google+ | Twitter | LinkedIn
Let's face it there are those of us who are connected, those that are not, and in between there are many shades of grey (sorry couldn't help myself). I wonder if we are now at a sufficiently developed Internet/smart phone/tablet/Netflix/high speed juncture to say that 'we get it' and pretty much all that's going to change is that things will just get faster and bigger, much like video games.
Have we reached a point in our Digital Age to be able to divine what percentage of people will always get what is going on, how many people will get it with some help and how many won't participate under any circumstances?
The reason I'm bringing this up is because we tend to divide the above along age-lines. The young get it, the middle-aged sort of get it and the Boomers and up are just plain lost. I'm pretty sure that as the pre-Interneters die off a larger percentage of people will have a higher interactivity rate, but there is a big difference between being online and being tech-savvy. I encounter an awful lot of young people who have no idea of the full potential of their word processor, or how hook up a router. Youth is not a bulwark against technical ignorance. There are young geeks and old geeks.
There will always be a percentage of people who will use to a greater or to a lesser extent the technology available to them. What I want to know is when do we reach the point where we will know how these percentages break down and when will it make sense to measure it? Do we need all the Boomers to die off before we do this? Do we have enough people between school age and mature business users to confidently say that the majority of the people are not just reachable online but available? Google and Facebook have very large communities but you can't reach everyone with them. Not everyone with a Facebook account is on it all the time.
I know in our business the majority still find us through word of mouth even though we have a good online presence. This has always been a curious stat because we're an online product. You can't go and buy Your Web Department at a mall. Small business owners, young and old tend to find us through talking with others they trust. How do we reach this group without spending crazy money on print ads or billboards, which we know don't work? Many small businesses have this same conundrum which is why we continue to do outbound advertising and have physical, visible locations.
Remember the predictions of the demise of bricks and mortal stores back at the dawn of the web browser? In fact the opposite has happened we have more physical shopping locations in addition to their web presences. I guess the brand is everything and if it's hitting you on line, on TV, in print and when you're walking in a mall, that's the ideal, but for a small business the costs would be prohibitive. That's why we want this Internet thing to work better.
Listen up all you laggards, get on line.
LiveBuild™ For the Business Owner - We design & build your website for free and ready in 1hour yourwebdepartment.com/LiveBuild
Paul Chato has been many things: a graphic designer, programmer, comedian, head of network TV comedy, game producer, 3D animator, playwright, event host, director and anything else that matches his fancy. Most of the time he is a managing partner at Your Web Department and is most excited about LiveBuild™. Check out LiveBuild
This past week: Short week for the US, and today's retail madness seems to have spilled over north of the border. In fact there is a general optimism amongst small businesses for the future economy. This is good news for everyone, we cannot forget that small business are the bulk of what fuels the economy in both Canada and the United States. Today's tweet list is e reflection of YWD's commitment to help small businesses succeed online, not only do we help SMBs do business online, but we also try to find the best tips and guidelines for making your business website the best it can be.
A big decline where face to face is not really needed-> Bank tellers disappearing soon?
This is one example of the new trend of virtual offices. Not only are bank tellers going to be a thing of the past, but there are other jobs and services that can be done over the internet as well. Hey! There is even talk of using body scanners to get your body measurements for online clothes shopping.
Go ahead check if is time for yours-> How To Gather Evidence To Determine If It’s Time For A Mobile Website
It is undeniable, mobile web is here to stay. Soon there will be more mobile devices than people. Not only that but now we are watching TV with our phone in hand, the second screen. Your website is bound to be visited by a smartphone, is it ready? Take a look at how YWD does mobile
Help to be more effective-> 10 workflow apps to enhance your productivity
Do you have a smartphone? If you do, you know how easy is to stay on top of thing with a smart phone. This post has a few apps that might make your life even easier.
Understand the shift-> The Takeover of the Mobile Web (Infographic)
See it for yourself, growth on the mobile web sector has been (and still is) unprecedented. Adoption is at a faster rate than the adoption rate of the internet back in the nineties. Shipment for smartphones and tablets are surpassing shipments for laptops and desktop computers in 2012. So, do you think is time to get your website mobile ready?
So iPad is king for now-> iPad To Dominate Tablet Downloads For Next 5 Years, Owning 56% In 2017: Analyst
Unfortunately this seems to be true, Microsoft's tablet, Surface, has not been well received by consumers, even though critics are raving about it. And Samsung's Galaxy 10 tablet doesn't come close to the iPad, I know I have one. That is it for competition, all other tablets in the market are not worth mentioning and we need competitors to the iPad.
Make yours active and be ahead of the 70%-> 70% of Facebook brand pages are inactive
With more than on billion active users, your audience is on Facebook. With only 30% of all business pages trying to reach out and engage their fans; it is very likely that you will have an advantage over your competitors by making your Facebook business page more active.
Our remote control to the world-> What does the future hold for the mobile industry?
And finally, a post about what mobile is about to become. Most likely it will become our remote to the world: appointments, banking, communicating, travel booking, cooking, weather report, home controls and the list goes on.
Next Friday I'll have another round up, in the meantime you can follow me and YWD on the networks below:
Don't have a Your Web Department website? Get started now, don't pay until you go live. www.yourwebdepartment.com
Gustavo Jabbaz started his digital career as a designer and then became a developer and these days spends most of his time as a digital marketer. A founding partner of Your Web Department, he's responsible for day-to-day operations, marketing and development strategy. He is who you talk to when you need support with SEO and/or Social Media. Gustavo Jabbaz on Google+ | Twitter
Your Web Department's Content Management System (CMS) includes a nifty Assets Manager so you can upload your images and place them anywhere on your website. But what if you’d like to insert images that reside elsewhere – on your (or somebody else’s) Facebook page, for instance? This way you can quickly add a picture without even having to download it to your computer and then upload to YWD.
It's quite easy to do it and you may already know it, but here it is just in case:
First, navigate to where the image is on Facebook. For this example I chose a photo of who's considered to be the most handsome member of the YWD team, that was posted on our Facebook page a while ago. Right-click directly on the photo and then choose ‘Copy Image Location’ (that’s in Firefox; other browsers will label that differently).
In Your Web Department, edit any Word Processor content block, Content Slider slide, News Manager news item – any type of content that uses our editor, really.
In the editor, click the ‘Insert/Edit Image’ icon and in the URL field paste the image location that you’ve copied. The image can be aligned, resized, etc. -- just like a “local” image i.e. one that you’ve uploaded to YWD’s Assets Manager.
That’s it! The image will be displayed on the page.
A couple of notes:
The Image Gallery tool can only use images in YWD's Assets Manager.
If the image is removed from Facebook, it'll also disappear from your page. That's because YWD is only using the image location, it didn't actually make a copy of the image file.
Flavio Mester is a graphic designer as well as a systems analyst (in a distant life he was an architect). A founding partner of Your Web Department, he's responsible for the design and development of all the YWD website management platform interfaces. Flavio Mester on Google+ | Twitter | LinkedIn
We work on a lot of small business and consultant websites, and one of the things we try to impress upon our customers is that it's a good idea to have a clear idea what you want your website to actually do for you. However, there is another reason for having a website and that is, as I like to call it, a Serendipity Engine. There are times when you just might be found by accident.
People search on Google and you need to have at least a rudimentary regime of optimization on your website, such as:
• H1 formatted headline that clearly 'tells' Google what you do for a living, who you do it to and sometimes where you do it.
• You need your title tags taken care of.
• You need to use a proper naming convention for your uploaded assets.
• You need relevant content on your home page. Of course you need to have a website to begin with.
If you don't know what the above means, contact us.
Oh, and often it helps that you've managed to keep your business around long enough that you have a nicely 'aged' URL. But I love the notion that we can all be found by accident. This is especially true for consultants who get most of their business through word-of-mouth. Many tell me, "Why do I need a website?" Well, because of the Serendipity Engine, I say. I ask them if their website got them one more customer a year would that be good? For many consultants that would be insanely awesome.
For the Serendipity Engine to work, you need to have a website that exhorts your great personality and expertise. How does that work? Well, think about that introduction you had at a party the other night. The two of you hit it off marvellously. The potential customer was thrilled to meet you, telling you that they will be contacting you for business. Inevitably the first thing they are going to do is check out your website. Does it match the energy and good will you conveyed at the face-to-face meeting? If the answer is no, then the Serendipity Engine won't work. You've probably lost this job and many more you don't know about.
And that's the thing. Sometimes it's not about measuring how many jobs your website got for you but trying to find out how many you lost because of a sub-optimal one. If your website is the kind that gets 50 views a month, you'll probably never know.
So, there you go. Make the Serendipity Engine work for you because you just never know.
And speaking of Facebook, why are the sponsored ads mostly about 'meeting mature women'? Is there something my profile that is attracting these ads?
LiveBuild™ For the Business Owner - We design & build your website for free and ready in 1hour yourwebdepartment.com/LiveBuild
Paul Chato has been many things: a graphic designer, programmer, comedian, head of network TV comedy, game producer, 3D animator, playwright, event host, director and anything else that matches his fancy. Most of the time he is a managing partner at Your Web Department and is most excited about LiveBuild™. Check out LiveBuild
Let's face it there are those of us who are connected, those that are not, and in between there are many shades of grey (sorry couldn't help myself). I wonder if we are now at a sufficiently developed Internet/smart phone/tablet/Netflix/high speed juncture to say that 'we get it' and pretty much all that's going to change is that things will just get faster and bigger, much like video games.
In the editor, click the ‘Insert/Edit Image’ icon and in the URL field paste the image location that you’ve copied. The image can be aligned, resized, etc. -- just like a “local” image i.e. one that you’ve uploaded to YWD’s Assets Manager.
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