Web Ascender

File Ascender

Stephanie — Fri, 10 May 2013 20:33:00 GMT

We are always sending files to clients who are sending files to us, but we never had a process for organizing them all in one place. Our latest project, File Ascender, is a file sending and receiving application designed to solve the problem.

Post Kudos

Stephanie — Fri, 10 May 2013 19:50:00 GMT

Post Kudos is a mobile application that we designed to solve a problem that many of our clients have faced - collecting customer testimonials. Customers upload testimonials from their phones for you to easily showcase on your website.

What is Social Proof?

Stephanie — Thu, 02 May 2013 17:00:00 GMT

Have you ever found yourself browsing a website for a product or service in the midst of making a purchase decision when all of a sudden a friend’s Facebook photo pops up on your screen? If so, how did that encounter change your opinion of the website you were on? If not, scroll down to the footer of this page and consider how our Facebook plugin makes you feel.

Social proof refers to the psychological influence that the behaviors of others have on our decisions and directly relates to the idea of conformity. This phenomenon is not exactly new, but its evolution and its role in internet marketing has grown significantly with the huge push for social media marketing in recent years.

This post will examine the effectiveness of different forms of social proof, ways to implement social proof on your website, and where social proof technologies are headed in the future.

Degrees of Social Proof

Social proof can be be a powerful marketing tactic no matter what form it takes, but some forms of social proof are more effective than others. A general rule of thumb is that the more specific your social proof, the more successful it tends to be.

For example, saying “5,000 people Like us on Facebook” offers a fair degree of social proof, but those 5,000 people are hardly convincing if I don’t know any of them. What’s more convincing is to include my friends in that count of 5,000 people by saying “Sally, Joe and 4,998 others Like us on Facebook.”

Another way to go about social proof on your website is to forego the “friends” aspect of it and target people locally. Something like “300 people in Lansing follow us on Twitter” also has the ability to connect with site visitors on a more personal level.

Implementing Social Proof

When implementing social proof on your website you first need to determine what social platforms best represent your audience as well as how you want your social proof to appear.

Facebook offers a number of social plugins for displaying social proof on your site. The Like button allows users to Like your page directly from your site while displaying photos of people who already like it. You can also allow users to create an account on your site using their Facebook login or write recommendations and see who has recommended you.

There are also a number of social plugins for Google+ that allow for similar functionality. You can add a +1 button, a Google+ badge, or a share button that allows users to see who of in their circles has +1ed, followed or shared your content.

Pinterest, Twitter, and LinkedIn also offer options for implementing social proof.

Future of Social Proof

The plugins available for implementing social proof on your website have evolved significantly in recent years, and they continue to do so as we speak. Google announced just days ago that they are beginning to roll out the ability to display on-site and in-app activity in search results. For example, a search for Flixter might display movie trailors that people in your circles have recently watched using the app.

With social proof, the possibilities are only limited by what is possible with social media. Just as Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and the like constantly being updated, so should the use of social proof when it comes to your website.

5 Google Search Tricks You Might Not Know About

Stephanie — Wed, 01 May 2013 21:03:00 GMT

Google’s search engine is constantly changing, so sometimes it can be difficult to keep up with all the ways to find what you are looking for. Here are five lesser known tricks for searching with Google that might make your life a little easier.

1. Search by File Type

Maybe you are looking for an education PDF or Powerpoint on social media or maybe you are looking for PSD templates for wireframing websites and mobile apps. No matter the type of file you are looking for, you can type your search phrase into Google followed by filetype:PDF, where PDF can be replaced with the file type of your choice. File types to try include doc, docx, ppt, xls, txt, jpg, png, etc.

2. Find Related Pages

Google offers a way to search related websites using related:webascender.com where webascender.com can be replaced with any URL. This can be a valuable tool for businesses and marketers looking to do competitor research as well as for consumers who are shopping around for the best price.

3. Search Ranges & Price Points

Another handy feature is the ability to search ranges of either dollars or specs. For example, if you were looking for a laptop with a screen size of between 13 and 15 inches, you could search laptop ‘13..15 in’ and your results would only display laptops having 13, 14 or 15 inch screens. Similarly, if the budget for your new laptop is under $1,200, you could search laptop $0..$1200.

4. Easy Conversions & Calculations

You may know that your Google search bar makes and excellent calculator, both basic and scientific. But it can also calculate much more than a math problem. Convert Dollars to Pesos by simply searching dollars to pesos or convert cups to quarts with a similar search.

5. Include Synonyms

Sometimes just one keyword is not enough to return the search results you are looking for. You can actually opt to include synonyms of a word or phrase in your results with a ~ symbol. For example, I might be looking for some good summer recipes, but just the word “recipe” does not really get my point across. By searching for summer ~recipes I will see anything that includes summer and a synonym of recipe in my search results. This includes meals, menu and cooking to name a few.

In addition to these five tips, there are far more Google tips worth a look, including package and flight tracking, public domain books, and more.

3 Ways to Integrate Social Media into Your Website

Stephanie — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 17:30:00 GMT

Social media can be a great way of keeping consumers informed about events, promotions, and news related to your business or your industry, but in order to take full advantage of the access to these consumers offered by social media, providing seamless transitions across each digital platform that you occupy, including your website, is essential.

Integrating social media into your website can provide value in a number of different ways. It can provide a funnel for first-time website visitors to subscribe to and engage with your brand, it can encourage social sharing by website visitors through their own social media accounts, and it can have a significant positive impact when it comes to your website’s rankings in search results.

But what are the most effective ways of integrating social media into your website, and how can you get started? By the time you are done reading this post, you will have all the tools you need to add Facebook comments to your website, add social media share buttons to your blog posts, and add Google authorship to your website contributors.

Adding Social Share Buttons to Your Blog

Encouraging social sharing on your website with social share buttons can increase the number of times people post your content across social media. This means more exposure for your social media accounts, your website, and your brand. Also, as Google and other search engines continue to evolve, the importance of establishing your website’s credibility is beginning to play a bigger and bigger role in search engine rankings. The more social media shares your website has received, the more perceived value it has for users and the higher it will appear in search results.

Most social networks offer instructions for adding their specific share buttons to your website, but there are also some third-party plugins that will allow you to add all of your share buttons in one step rather than separately. One of the easiest plugins to use is AddThis, a free option that allows you to customize your plugin and track social sharing over time.

Use the AddThis code generator to add the buttons you need and create the look you want. Then follow the instructions for copying and pasting the code on your website.

Adding Facebook Comments to Your Website

Adding Facebook comments to your website can reduce spam by requiring commenters to login with their Facebook account in order to comment on a blog post or news article, and it can also help your pages to get more exposure by encouraging users to post an update to their own Facebook whenever a comment is submitted. Facebook offers a Facebook comments box code generator for creating a short snippet of code that you can copy and paste into your website, or you can follow our step-by-step instructions for adding Facebook comments to your website.

Through Facebook Open Graph, you can integrate other aspects of the social media platform as well, including a Like button or a feed of your most recent Facebook posts. For more on the possibilities that Open Graph affords, check out Facebook’s Open Graph documentation.

Adding Google Authorship to Website Contributors

Buzz around Google+ has been sporadic since its launch in 2011, but that doesn’t mean that Google+ doesn’t have an influence when it comes to search results. There are a number of ways to improve your SEO with Google+ as well as ways to integrate Google+ with your website, including verifying your website with your Google+ page and adding Google +1 buttons, but one website integration feature that allows Google+ to stand out from other social networks is the ability to verify the Google+ profiles of individuals with the content each posts on your website.

Google+ authorship allows you to associate an author on your website with that author’s Google+ profile. Then, when an article appears in search results, the author’s photo will appear alongside the result, giving searchers an option to add the author to his or her circles and view other articles written by the author.

To add Google+ authorship to your website, your blog posts must have a byline that is the same as the name on your personal Google+ profile and a recognizable headshot or profile photo. You will also need an email address on the same domain as your website. You will then need to verify yourself as an author with Google.

Additional Social Media and Website Integration Ideas

The ideas for social media and website integration discussed here are are just the beginning. There are countless possibilites for the social networks discussed above and even more with the features of social networks such as Twitter, Pinterest, and LinkedIn. How have you integrated your website with social media and what are you looking to do in the future? Let us know in the comments below.

Co-Occurrence and SEO

Stephanie — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 13:50:00 GMT

If there is one reason why business owners, website managers, and internet marketers should make an attempt to keep up with what is happening in the world of search engines, it is the fact that SEO best practices and what is acceptable in the eyes of search engines are constantly changing.

The evolution of search engine algorithms in recent years has resulted in once standard SEO practices causing entire websites to disappear from search results, and with the competition that many industries face when it comes to search rankings, failure to keep up with the latest SEO tactics can cause your website to fall behind in the blink of an eye.

Google has been known to make more than 40 or 50 updates to its algorithm in a single month, some minor and some major. Recently, one of the most significant transformations of Google’s algorithm is seen in the decreasing importance of link text as a determining SEO factor and the increasing importance of what is being referred to as co-occurrence.

What is co-occurrence?

Co-occurrence, sometimes referred to as co-citation, is when a brand or website name is associated with some keyword or phrase within the content of a different website. When enough outside websites mention a brand in conjunction with the same keyword, Google takes note of the relationship that is being established through each of the mentioning websites and integrates that information into its ranking factors. As a result, a website that does not appear to implement any standard SEO tactics for the co-cited keyword starts to rank for that keyword in search results.

For example, a Google search for the phrase “interactive mockups”, a fairly competitive search term, turns up www.invisionapp.com as the top result.

But when visiting the Invison website, there is no evidence of any SEO practices targeting that phrase. “Interactive” is not mentioned anywhere and “mockups” is only mentioned a handful of times. How can this happen?

The answer to your question may lie within another Google search, this time for "invision" + "interactive mockups".

The search turns up a list of all 3,320 web pages mentioning both “invision” and “interactive mockups.” From here we can see that based on the volume of websites that are establishing a relationship between the brand, Invision, and the keyword phrase, interactive mockups, Google has determined the Invision website must provide some value to users searching for interactive mockups, resulting in the website ranking in the position it does for the phrase that it does.

Why does co-occurrence matter?

Now that you know what co-occurrence is, you are probably wondering what it means in terms of your website’s SEO. To understand this there are a few things about SEO that you should be aware of. First, the four main ranking factors that Google’s algorithm attempts to measure in determining search engine rankings are uniqueness, freshness, popularity, and relevance. While uniqueness and freshness relate directly to the content on your page, the popularity of your content and its relevance to a certain keyword are largely influenced by off-site factors.

For years, Google has determined popularity based on the popularity of websites linking to yours and considered link text, along with page content, as a way of determining the relevance of your web page to a given keyword. For this reason, it is a standard practice to link from an outside website to your own using the keyword that you are trying to rank for.

But as search engines become smarter and continue cracking down on spam more than ever before, their ability to associate brands with websites with keywords regardless of links and anchor text appears to have the potential to change the ways we go about SEO in a big way.

Co-occurrence matters not because it will make or break your SEO efforts in the short term, but because it appears to be where SEO is going in the future. And in such a rapidly changing industry, failing to keep the future on your radar is the last place you want to be.

Optimize Your Facebook Page for Graph Search

Stephanie — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 18:37:00 GMT

Facebook Graph Search has a lot of potential in terms of allowing users to better find people and businesses that are relevant to them, but in order to make the most out of this as a business, optimizing your Facebook brand page is essential. According to Facebook, the best ways to ensure your brand page appears in search results include updating your profile information and attracting engaged followers. Based on these recommendations, we have come up with three ways you can improve your business’s appearance in Graph Search listings.

1. Update your “About” Content

Because Facebook content is highly time sensitive due to newsfeeds and timelines, you cannot always bank on your posts being relevant enough to get you noticed in Facebook’s search results. What does remain constant over time, however, is the content in the About section of your business page. Make sure that your About section is complete and up-to-date in terms of your business name, vanity URL, and general business description. Your About content is where you want to mention keywords and calls to action in order to improve visibility in Facebook Graph Search results.

2. Check Your Business Address for Accuracy

Because Graph Search is highly influenced by location, having an accurate address associated with your Facebook business page is essential to appearing on the results pages of searches that are relevant to potential followers and your business. Local search has been gaining a lot of momentum in recent years with Google and Bing as well as with Facebook, but one thing Graph Search offers that isn’t seen much elsewhere is the increased influence of others near your geographic location.

3. Post Regularly & Connect to Users

Updating and optimizing your Facebook Business page is just the beginning. Once you are happy with your updated business page, work on sharing engaging posts and interacting with your followers often. Facebook has indicated that Graph Search is influenced by how relevant your business is to the person searching in terms of how relevant your business is to that user’s friends. What this means is that in order for your business to rank well in the search results of potential customers and followers, you need to be engaging the friends of your potential customers and followers. Simply put, the more engaged fans your business page can claim, the bigger your reach will be in search results.

What is Facebook Graph Search?

Stephanie — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 18:33:00 GMT

Earlier this month, Facebook introduced Graph Search, its latest attempt at search that allows user’s to query Facebook’s Social Graph to find friends and acquaintances with interests similar to their own. Although there is no question that Google maintains an overwhelming share of the search market, Facebook still holds something that Google has yet to tap into--its massive pool of social data. And this is where Graph Search has the potential to make its mark.

To this point, Google has attempted social search by combining Google search with it’s own social network, Google+, in creating Search Plus Your World, which integrates search results with the likes and interest of a user’s connections in hopes of displaying more relevant information. The issue that Google has run into, however, is a lack of social data.

Facebook finds itself on the opposite end of the spectrum with more social data than Google could dream of having combined with a mediocre search engine. This is what Graph Search is intended to correct.

According to Mark Zuckerburg, Facebook’s founder, Graph Search allows users to find the answers to specific questions that relate to restaurants in a specific city, TV shows watched by their friends, or music that their co-workers listen to. Rather than providing broad, impersonal search results, Graph Search is designed to offer users insights into people and places that are relevant to themselves.

The implications that these personalized search results can have on businesses are huge. For starters, the number of people who Like your Facebook page is now directly related to the number of people who will see your page in search results - the more popular your page, the more relevant it is to a larger audience, resulting in a wider reach. Also, Graph Search allows users to find you based on relevance, without directly searching for your brand.

We couldn’t cover everything all in one post, so if you are wondering what exactly you can do to ensure your Facebook Page is fully optimized for Graph Search, check out our post on Optimizing Your Facebook Business Page for Graph Search.

Graph Search is currently in beta and available only in English. To learn more about Facebook Graph Search or to join the waiting list, visit the Graph Search page on Facebook.

How to Write Blog Titles for SEO

root — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 05:54:00 GMT

When it comes to SEO, blogs can serve a number of purposes. As a source of new content on a regular (or not so regular, for many of us) basis, your blog are often what keep your website fresh and ultimately what drives Google back to index more pages on your site. Additionally, with every blog post, another page is added to your site. More pages on your site means more pages for Google to index, which means more pages your website can rank for in search engines. And finally, blogs allow you to implement highly-targeted cross-linking, something that is so necessary to building strong internal linking structures within your site. But in order to get the most out of all three of these benefits, it is important to properly set the tone for each and every post with an effective, SEO-friendly blog title. Here are two tips to help you learn how to write blog titles for SEO.

Know your keywords

The first step in writing effective blog titles for SEO is knowing the keywords that you wish to rank for. This means not only identifying the phrases that are most relevant to your topic, but also doing your research to determine what your audience is actually searching for. Using Google’s Keyword Tool can help you to get a better idea of how many people are searching for your keywords as well as how stiff your competition is. Finding the proper balance between relevance and uniqueness is essential to seeing the traffic results you desire from your blog posts.

TIP: You want the titles of your blog posts to be relevant enough to other pages on your site that linking from one to the other makes sense in the eyes of Google and your readers, but be sure to avoid targeting the same keywords in a blog post that you are targeting on other pages within your site. When you target the same keyword or phrase on different pages, you end up competing with yourself in Google results--something you definitely want to avoid in order to achieve the highest possible rankings.

Format, format, format

When it comes to blog post titles, format means everything. It affects what you show up for in search engines, it determines whether or not searchers even click on your link, and it influences the overall effectiveness of your post. Action-oriented, concise, and compelling are all characteristics of effective blog post titles, and chances are good that the next blog post you click from a Google search result will employ one of these tactics.

So how do you format blog posts in ways that intrigue readers and drive them to action? Tell them that you are going to answer their questions, define the goals of your article, and be brief in doing so. An example of a blog post title that answers a question might be “How to Install a Wordpress Plugin” while an actionable title might be something like “Writing Better Blog Post Titles.” Lists, such as “5 Social Networks for Small Business” or “10 Google Search Tricks and Tips” are concise and compelling. But above all, each of these examples include phrases that you could envision yourself typing into Google. Formatting blog post titles in ways that make them compelling to click on and relevant to the goals of searchers can go a long way in providing your blog posts with more search traffic.

To Blog or not to Blog

root — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 05:53:00 GMT

Google “Is blogging dead?” and you’ll see hundreds of links to articles on why blogging might be on the decline. While we’ll ignore that all of these are written on, well, blogs, there definitely seems to be some validity here. Facebook and Twitter seem to be the main opponents, taking what used to be multi-paragraph posts and shrinking them into bite-size nuggets of knowledge…or simply posts about bite-sized nuggets. When looking at that type of personal, journal-esque blog, it does indeed seem to be on the outs.

However, there are still several reasons that an individual, or more importantly, a business, should keep on bloggin’. We have outlined a few of these below.

A blog is a great tool for SEO.

Google loves when you blog, or at least the Penguin algorithm does… the people at Google probably aren’t hanging on your every word. However, that fresh content chock full of keywords is one of the easiest ways to increase your page ranking. Since the beginning of 2012, Google has been penalizing sites that use spammy methods (such as loading a ton of keywords in a hidden area on your site), and a lot of sites saw a huge drop in page rankings. Blogging can help bring your site back from the grave.

It helps to boost your credibility, as a site and a company

Start-ups are popping up left and right these days, and it can be difficult to differentiate between a real site and a scam. Blogs help people to realize that you are a real person/company, and that they can actually speak to a human being if they call. Answering comments and responding to feedback is important as well, although that doesn’t mean you have to acknowledge every troll who writes “Bieber sucks!” on your post about how to maintain your furnace.

People might actually want to know what you are up to

Your current or potential client might actually be interested in the things your company has done/accomplished over the course of the year. A new hire, an awesome project or new product that you’ve been working on, or the opening of a new office might not seem like exciting news, but it again helps to personalize your business. And people like dealing with real people.

Feel free to respond below with some additional reasons to blog, and make sure you leave at least one “Bieber sucks!” post behind to keep things fresh and relevant.

On that note, Happy Holidays from everyone here at Web Ascender, and be sure to have a safe and happy new year as well!

3 Tools for Improving Your Social Media Strategy

root — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 21:14:00 GMT

Monitoring social media is about more than remaining active on your own social media account. Developing an engaged following requires reaching out to industry influencers and listening and responding to your target audience. There are quite a few social media monitoring tools that exist, but many of them are costly and don’t make sense for small to mid-sized businesses or non-profit organizations. Here are three free tools to help you better monitor your brand in social spaces.

Hootsuite

Social media is time consuming, and unfortunately, if you are looking to get the most out of social media, there is no real substitute for investing time. But some social media management tools, such as Hootsuite, can help you manage the time you are spending more efficiently and help you to see and focus on what’s working for you, rather than grasping at anything and everything, hoping to find some social media miracle.

Hootsuite has a lot of features that you can play around with and implement for yourself, but there are three main tools that stick out when it comes to saving time. First, Hootsuite allows you to access all of your social media accounts in one place. This means no jumping around from Facebook to Twitter to LinkedIn and back - simply log into your Hootsuite account to interact with all of them. The second beneficial feature relates to scheduling your social media posts. While a great time saving feature, you have to be careful not to just set it and forget it, because social media still requires so aspects of sociability. And finally, Hootsuite allows you to set up monitoring based on specific keywords as they are being used throughout social media platforms. This can help you to manage your brand’s reputation and give you a good glimpse at what people are talking about in your industry, all without a whole lot of effort.

Social Mention

Social Mention is a search tool that crawls a wide range of social platforms across the web and returns a list of post and comments that contain your keyword. While this can be a good way to discover what people are talking about in your industry, it is not the feature that makes Social Mention stand out when it comes to social media monitoring. Rather, the way Social Mention has made its mark is by providing a detailed analysis of the following:

Strength: the likelihood that a search phrase is being discussed in social media
Passion: the engagement level of a search phrase or how likely it is that a given person will engage in discussion repeatedly
Sentiment: a ratio of positive comments versus negative comments
Reach: a measurement of a range of influence based on the number of authors divided by the total number of mentions

Use Social Mention to quickly monitor your brand’s social media presence or the social media presence of your industry on the whole. Using the metrics above, you can get a good idea of what you are doing well when it comes to your social media strategy and where you could use some improvement.

Google Alerts

With Google Alerts, you can monitor broad keywords to find content worth integrating into your social media campaigns and sharing with followers or you can implement highly targeted searches for specific social media sites. For example, if I wanted to share useful blog posts about web development with my followers, I might set up a Google Alert for “web development” and opt only to see content from blogs. I could then receive an alert with a list of all of the articles referencing web development from the past day or week. You could also use Google Alerts to receive email notifications of conversations about your brand or industry from specific social media platforms, but it is typically more effective to use other tools such as Hootsuite for this.

There is no foolproof social media plan that will work for every business, but utilizing some simple tools can improve your workflow and help you to determine the best course of action for your brand. If you have a favorite tool to supplement your social media strategy, we would love to hear about it in the comments below.

When is it time for a website re-design?

root — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 21:10:00 GMT

Its 2005, and you’ve just wrapped up a sweet website redesign. Business is booming, the flash animations on your homepage are killing it, and you’ve got the freshest design of any of your competitors. As they say, life is good.

Now its 2012, and you’re website isn’t what it used to be. Flash is dying, Comic Sans is the laughing stock of the design industry, and your color scheme evokes memories of a simpler time, a time before users access your site because of the Flash animations. Simply put, your site has not aged well, and it could be affecting your business.

Research has shown that a website design has a shelf life of around three years, give or take. This means that at the very least, you should start looking at a new design every 2-2.5 years.

Things to Consider

Think about your website as the face of your company, and every face needs some work every once in a while to stay fresh, right? A new haircut, shaving off the beard, trying a new lipstick (because the old color only worked with the beard), and so on. The trick is to make the change before anyone realizes it needs to be done. You don’t want to wait until you’re scheduling a full facelift or some Botox to bring your site back to life, as it may be too late at that point.

To help you navigate these changes, here are some things to consider when working on a re-design:

Do research your competition. See what they are doing right and wrong, keep track of what you like and don’t like, and try to find something missing that you could take advantage of. It even helps to look at sites outside of your industry for inspiration.
Don’t rip off a competitor’s design. At best, you might get business that wasn’t supposed to be yours. At worst, and the more likely scenario, your site will be viewed as a hack version of your competitor’s, and ultimately, your business will be viewed in the same light.
Do create fresh content, and update content often. Keeping your site up-to-date doesn’t necessarily have to mean making changes to the design. New, relevant content, usually best created through a blog, can keep people coming back to your site.
Don’t copy and paste content from another site. Google can actually recognize when your copy is included in another location, and will penalize your site in their search results.
Do try and differentiate yourself from your competitors. Highlight the features that make your company unique.
Don’t try to reinvent the wheel. You want to stand out, but not for the wrong reasons. If a past user shows up to your new site and has no idea how to find anything, they will most likely get frustrated.
Do put some time into the creative process to ensure that the site is not only progressive, but more importantly that it is helping you to accomplish your goals. Test it out on your co-workers, family and friends (but make sure you take their suggestions in stride).
Don’t rush into a new design. A poor design isn’t going to do you any good, so give yourself plenty of time to plan your next design. Also, make sure that you’ve got your content prepared for any new sections of the site, as there is nothing worse than the old “Under Construction” icon sitting on a page… especially if he is there for a long time.

Hopefully these tips will help you to better prepare yourself for you next website re-design. Of course, the most important thing to remember is that you should just hire Web Ascender for your re-design, and we’ll do all of this work for you!

The Importance of Website Conventions

root — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 18:31:00 GMT

Lately it seems like people are trying extremely hard to avoid words like “conventional” and “logical” when it comes to building a marketing website, and while standing out might be your goal, you don’t want to do so for the wrong reasons. There is a reason why things become conventional; they produce results. While you are trying desperately to get a leg up on your competition by put together a “unique” user experience, your competition’s “standard” or “traditional” website may be why they have a leg up on you.

User-friendliness

Most would agree that it is usually not a good idea to needlessly frustrate potential customers. You wouldn’t send in-store customers through a maze or on a scavenger hunt before they can purchase their items. This holds true on the web as well. You want to provide visitors an easy-to-navigate route that has some familiarity. Logo location? Top left-hand corner, links back to the homepage. Contact us? Right-hand side of navigation, with a phone number close by if applicable. Main site navigation? Top of the page, to the right of the logo. These are all very basic steps to ensure that your site visitors will know what to do without having to think twice.

It is important to remember that you don’t need fancy animations, explosions, or crazy colors and navigation to build an attractive, aesthetically-pleasing website. The goal of a marketing website is not to entertain your visitors, so that should not be the focus of your site’s design. You want your users to trust and feel comfortable with your brand, not frustrated, lost and irritated. If you get calls from people who gave up trying to find information on your site, that probably means that many more didn’t even bother calling. Save yourself the hassle and stick with what works.

Goal Achievement

Generally, the most important purpose of an internet marketing site is to get a visitor to do something. That could be picking up the phone and calling you, filling out a contact form, purchasing an item from your store, and so on. Unconventional site designs often do just the opposite, requiring the user to hunt and peck to find this information. This is simply counterproductive. It should take less than a second for a site visitor to find the logo, and it should be just as easy to figure out what it is you would like them to do. Obvious callout buttons, generally in colors that stand out from the navigation, are an easy and effective way to help the user along, as is a rotator, which can take advantage of dynamic images with a text overlay.

Professionalism

When it is a choice between being unique and being professional, professionalism always wins. Your brand needs to build trust, to show the visitor that this is a real company that takes itself seriously. This relates mostly to color scheme and site features and functions. Yes, you may own a dance studio, and your logo may be pink and purple; that doesn’t mean that your entire site needs to look like a 5-year-old girl’s fantasy. Get creative with the content, and use dynamic and exciting images instead of crazy colors and animations. Your current and future customers will thank you.

To learn more about website conventions, feel free to download the Executive's Guide to Web Development, written by Web Ascender President Ryan Doom.

Effective Uses for Google Alerts

root — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 18:29:00 GMT

Google Alerts is a service offered by Google that allows you to monitor internet content and receive updates based on a set of keywords that you determine. When you opt into Google Alerts, Google takes the search phrases that you would like to monitor and remains on the lookout for them when indexing pages across the internet. When Google finds a new page with your keyword, it will notify you according to your preset preferences. You can opt to monitor news sources, blogs, video, discussion threads, or everything on the web. You can also decide to receive the updates through an RSS feed or via email as they happen, once per day, or once per week. There are some huge possibilities that come with having access to the type of information that Google Alerts provides, but here we will discuss just two of the options: reputation management and link building.

Reputation Management

Reputation management refers to monitoring discussion around your brand or business. With the number of active bloggers and avid social media participants that exist today, chances are good that someone is out there on the internet trying to get their point across about your company. And whether their opinion could benefit you, harm you, or fall somewhere in the middle, knowing how your customers feel should be a priority.

Setting up Google Alerts for your brand name, slogans, and marketing campaigns can help you to stay on top of public opinion surrounding your business. You might also consider setting up alerts for your competition to see how you compare throughout your industry. When using Google Alerts for reputation management, it is a good idea to monitor misspellings as well, especially if your brand isn’t a commonly spelled word.

Link Building

One of the biggest aspects of Search Engine Optimization (SEO), is obtaining high quality and relevant links to your website. Unfortunately, this is also one of the most difficult tasks to take on. One way to speed up the process of finding industry related websites is by setting up Google Alerts for the keywords that you would like to rank for. This serves two purposes: (1) It introduces you to a large number of potential linking opportunities for your keywords, and (2) it allows you to actively monitor your competition for those keywords.

The types of searches that you would want to execute for identifying link building opportunities depends on your link building strategy. SayI have some web design resources on my website that I want to optimize for search engines. I could set up an alert for “web design resources” to find websites talking about that topic and linking to that type of content. If I were looking to publish content or articles on other websites about web design, setting up alerts for search phrases such as “website design+guest post” or “website design+contribute to” would help me to find websites accepting guest blog posts.

Hopefully by now you have some pretty good ideas of how Google Alerts can work for your business. Set up your own Google alerts, and let us know what ideas you come up with in the comments below.

How to Improve Your SEO with Google+

root — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 20:15:00 GMT

The influence that social media in general has on your search engine rankings has increased significantly over the past year, and in all likelihood will continue to do so for years to come. Currently, the way the most popular social media outlets, including Facebook, Twitter, and some social bookmarking sites, influence search results relates primarily to the number of shares a given web page has received. But when it comes to the influence of Google’s own social network, Google+, it appears that Google is making some huge strides in the direction of integrating social media into its search platform. But what Google+ features have the biggest potential to influence search rankings?

Direct Connection to Websites

The connection of your website with social networks is nothing new, but there are some distinct differences between something like Facebook Open Graph and Google+ website integration. While connecting your website with your Facebook page may allow someone to Like your page from your website or see the comment their friend left on your website in their newsfeed, the connection itself carries little weight when it comes to your Google rankings. Connecting your website and your Google+ page, however, can give your website significantly more exposure on rankings pages by including links to your Google+ profile and recent posts in the right sidebar.

Articles & Authorship

One unique feature of Google+ that integrates easily into Google search results allows you to identify your personal Google+ profile as the author of a blog. When an article you have written shows up in search results, searchers then have the options of seeing other articles you have written and adding you to their Google+ Circles. This can be particularly effective in terms of SEO if your blog is on your business website, as it can help draw more attention to your articles, resulting in more links to your site.

Followers & +1s

+1 is Google’s version of Facebook’s Like. It’s a button that appears on Google’s social network and on many websites that allows users to subscribe to the posts of a business page. The main difference between Likes and +1s in terms of SEO is that users who are logged into Google+ will see personalized search results based on who they have +1ed. This means that if you rank on page three of Google for a certain keyword to a user that is not logged in, users who are logged in and have you in their circles would likely see your website on the first page of the search results. When it comes to +1s, the more the better, as the more people subscribe to you, the wider the spread of your bump in the search results will be.

Google+ Local

The importance of optimizing your website for local audiences continues to become more and more important as smartphone usage continues to increase. One of the easiest ways to make yourself visible to a local audience is by optimizing your Google+ Local listing because of the benefits that the listings provide when it comes to search results. There are two major incentives for optimizing your Google+ Local listing. The first is that being included in Google+ Local allows your business to appear as a pin on a Google map within the search results, and the second is that your search rankings will be improved based on the location from which people are searching. If you aren’t already listed in Google+ Local, it’s a quick and easy way to significantly improve your SEO and your mobile visibility.

4 Ways to Improve Your AdWords Strategy

root — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 20:10:00 GMT

Google AdWords can provide a relatively low cost, high return advertising method if you know how to leverage it properly. But developing a comprehensive strategy and learning to optimize it for success is something that can take a lot of time and energy, even for the most seasoned search engine marketing consultants. Fortunately, there are a few simple things you can do to easily improve your return on investment.

Highly Targeted AdGroups & Keywords

The more specific you are when it comes to your AdGroups and your keywords, the better. One of the major factors in where your ads rank on the search results pages relates to how relevant your keywords are in terms of your ads. If your keywords are too broad to be included in your ad text, your ads won’t rank as high and you will end up paying more per click.

Multiple Ads Per AdGroup

A lot of people who are new to AdWords make the mistake of only creating one ad per AdGroup. What they aren’t aware of is that if you create multiple ads for the same AdGroup, Google will automatically display the best performing ad more often. This takes a lot of the weight off of you in terms of testing and researching your ad performance.

Landing Page Optimization

A landing page is the page on your website that a user is taken to when they click on your ad. Landing page optimization is huge because even if users are clicking on your ads, if your website content doesn’t hold their attention, they are a lost cause. A best practice s to take the user to the page on your website that is most relevant to the ad that was clicked. You might also consider creating custom landing pages with prominent contact information or a contact form to encourage conversions.

Location & Device Based Targeting

Mobile search has been gaining momentum for quite some time, but few have really began to take full advantage of this in terms of marketing and advertising. There are many differences between a mobile searcher and a desktop searcher, including their motives and their search phrases. The typical search on a mobile device is around 2 to 3 words whereas someone searching on a desktop or laptop tends to search for 4 to 6 word phrases. Additionally, a typical desktop landing page would be very difficult to navigate on a mobile device. Accounting for these differences in your AdWords campaigns can help to significantly improve your ROI.

3 Lessons to Learn from the Olympics About Social Media Marketing

root — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 20:38:00 GMT

Four years ago in Beijing, there was no question that social media had its place. But in just four years time, the number of Facebook users has skyrocketed from 100 million to more than 800 million and the number of Twitter users has seen an increased from 6 million to 140 million. These statistics alone should be enough to make you raise an eyebrow at the thought of the role social media will be playing in this year’s games, but they don’t even begin to to tell the story of how. Keep reading for a glimpse at the driving forces behind social media and the Olympics and what we can take away from them.

People matter, not brands.

What matters when it comes to social media is exactly what it sounds like--being social. While you can try to make some big entity like the Olympic Games a social being in itself, it would never have the momentum that it does without the people that surround it. From the athletes competing to the youngsters who dream of the day they will bear their nation’s flag and from the fans in the stands to those of us who watch the games from the comfort of our own homes, we all have something to say about the occasion.

What makes the Olympics such a socially charged event is ultimately the fact that it brings the people of the world together for a unified cause. So often in social media, we hide behind our brand, hoping it will make a name for itself. But the Olympics are here to teach us that if you want to create a brand that people are genuinely interested in connecting with, it’s up to you to be the face of it, not the other way around.

The importance of geo-targeting & local marketing.

When it comes to the Olympic Games, it’s true that the world becomes one in a global event. However, each of us belong to a distinct piece of that pie, a team that we will stand by through triumph and defeat--our nation. And leave it to the big brands and Olympic partners such as Visa and Proctor & Gamble to take advantage of us for it. Log onto Facebook and checkout the Visa page. You might see a post about Michael Phelps or some news on the USA’s beach volleyball team. If you take a hike to Canada and visit that same page, you’d see a completely different set of posts, this time highlighting the Canadian Olympic team.

All of this is possible through Facebook’s new geo-targeting feature. Did you know you can tell Facebook to show certain posts to specific groups of people? Try adding a post to your brand’s Facebook page, but before you hit submit, click on the button that says “Public.” You will then see a dropdown where you can opt to target your post by language or location. As social media continues to expand, your clients and customers are coming to expect personalized experiences with your brand. The resources to deliver that are here; it’s up to you to leverage their power.

Mobile is the future

We used to be satisfied with a wrap-up of the day’s events courtesy of the evening news headlines, but that was before the days of the to-the-minute news discussions that have made Twitter famous. When it comes to the Olympics, it only takes a second for goals to be realized or dreams to be crushed. In a social media world, we have come to demand that news from the moment it happens, no matter where we are. Fortunately, NBC has responded to these demands with a set of media tailored specifically to mobile devices. From mobile formatted web pages to live streaming mobile and tablet applications, NBC has created the channels through which we will be consuming, sharing, and discussing all that happens at the games.

This emphasis on mobile technologies highlights the importance of accessing customers and prospects where they are and making your brand available to them. Not only has NBC provided immediate access to what’s happening in London, but they have also made themselves an integral piece in the distribution of that content across the social media outlets that we occupy.

6 Tips for Marketing with YouTube

root — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 20:32:00 GMT

How do you get your brand noticed on YouTube when thousands of videos are uploaded every second? Unfortunately, there is no foolproof recipe for success. But a bit of creativity and a lot of hard work will go a long way in increasing the chances of your video going viral. Here are some tips to lead you off on the right foot.

Make your titles catchy.

With YouTube, it’s all about catching the user’s attention. Social media in general makes it really easy to become engrossed in content for hours on end, but when the clip you came to see comes to an end, where will you go next? That’s where the catchy titles come in handy.

Optimize for search.

In order for your video to make it in the YouTube game, it has to findable. Your title should be descriptive and easy to spell, your description should provide specific details about your video, and your tags should be popular enough to get you noticed.

Upload all your videos at once.

This is one thing a lot of people get wrong. You think, why would I give my viewers everything at once when I could save a stockpile of content to keep them coming back? In all reality, the majority of YouTube users aren’t even registered, and even if your viewers are, the chances of them coming back are very slim. If you want people to watch your videos, give them all you’ve got.

Integrate your campaign with other marketing efforts

With the enormous number of videos uploaded to YouTube in just a minute’s time, thinking that your video will gain popularity without any promotion is absurd. Post about it, tweet about, send out an email newsletter about it then tell your fans and followers to do the same.

Know your why’s.

When you create your marketing clips, create them with a purpose. Why would someone watch this? Why would someone share this? If you can’t answer these two questions, chances are your viewers can’t either.

Review your insights.

As with any form of internet marketing, there is a lot that can be learned from the past. Don’t be afraid to dive into those reports, analyze them, and use them to improve your success in the future.

Google+ Local: The New Google Places

root — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 14:58:00 GMT

Have you ever googled a company or business and seen a map of its location pop up in your search results? Up until last month, this feature was a benefit of verifying your place of business on Google Places. But with Google’s attempt over the past year to infiltrate the social web through Google+, these Places listings have now been moved to the Local segment of Google’s social network. There’s a long list of reasons why creating a Google+ Local listing should be a priority for small businesses including its accessibility to mobile users and its rating and review features. If you’re at all interested in growing the online presence of your company, here are some Google+ Local features you should be aware of:

Mobile Accessibility

Along with the announcement of Google+ Local came the inevitable update to the Google+ mobile app. The new Local tab features categories for restaurants, cafes, bars, and attractions that are near your current location. By simply clicking on the category of interest, users have instant access to reviews of local businesses by those they are connected to as well as the general public.

Zagat Integration

Acquired by Google in late 2011, Zagat has made a name for itself as a premier business review application offering ratings and opinions of local restaurants and places of interest. The launch of Google+ Local introduced the replacement of Google Places’ 5-star rating system with Zagat’s 30-point scale. Google+ users can now rate rate businesses on a scale of 0 to 3. Results are then averaged and multiplied by 10 to determine overall ratings.

SEO Implications

Because the new Google+ Local pages will all be indexed by search engines, there are a lot of benefits to be reaped by optimizing your Local listing. Not only will Local pages give small businesses more of a chance to rank well in Google, but they will also allow businesses to reach a highly targeted, local audience and encourage clients and customers to get involved in their social presence.

If you aren’t already listed on Google Places, you will have to create a Google+ account to get started with your Local listing. As for now, all Local listings can still be updated through Google Places, but in order to manage your Local listing directly, you must claim it as a Google+ user.

4 Ways to Create More Engaging Email Marketing Campaigns

root — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 14:57:00 GMT

The benefits of email marketing campaigns are numerous--you can segment your recipients into highly targeted audiences, you know the people on the receiving end are actually interested in your product or service, and you have access to endless amounts of actionable data and metrics. But how do you pile all of your resources together to implement an unstoppable email strategy? Here are some tips for getting started.

Don’t play all your cards at once.

Hopefully each email you send out to your subscribers has a specific goal in mind. Maybe it’s to buy a product, contact you about a service, or enter a sweepstakes. Whatever the case, that action should not be something that can be completed through your email itself. If you want your readers to do something, you need to give them a reason to do it. By including a brief teaser in your email with a link to the full content on your website, you give readers more of a reason to click through to your site, making them one step closer to converting.

Avoid subject lines that trigger spam filters.

Often times, your subject line can make or break the success of an email campaign. A subject that sounds boring or spammy can cause subscribers to glance over it in their inbox or immediately hit delete. But did you realize that your subject line could also stop subscribers from seeing your emails altogether? Today’s spam filters are comprehensive and robust, and they are always on the lookout for emails that seem a bit off. Hubspot compiled a great list of words that have been shown to tip off spam filters and keep emails from ever being seen.

Design campaigns that are trackable.

Goal setting and campaign analysis play a huge role in any marketing strategy, and your email newsletters should be no exception. Make it a point to set goals for what you hope to achieve and review these goals to determine where you are succeeding and where you fall short. Metrics such as open rates, click throughs, and social media shares are all numbers that you should be familiar with. How do they change from campaign to campaign? What possible factors have an impact on these changes? Being able to answer these questions will allow you to continually improve your email campaigns and ultimately see the results you are looking for. What's great is that many of today’s popular email newsletter management systems provide you with all the data you need, and some even integrate with Google Analytics.

Don’t stop with the send button.

A typical email campaign will see a spike in opens on the day it’s sent, which gradually falls off over the next day or so and eventually disappears. If you are investing a good amount of time and energy into creating your email campaigns, does a one-day traffic spike make it worth your while?

There are a number of ways to distribute an email newsletter that don’t involve spamming someone’s inbox. Sharing your campaign via social media is one way to increase awareness about your newsletter while reminding subscribers who may have passed it by that it actually exists. Distributing your email campaigns via social media a few days or a week after you first send it out allows for a lot more exposure and a better response.

Another way to market email campaigns is directly through your website. Featuring your most recent newsletter on your site while offering an archive of past emails for visitors to browse can increase the reach of your campaign and spark interest in your company by those who stumble across your site. A nice complement to this might be including a form for visitors to subscribe to your emails directly.

Optimizing Blog Posts for SEO

Stephanie — Thu, 24 May 2012 21:01:00 GMT

Your blog can be a powerful tool for improving your website’s search engine visibility when leveraged properly, but if you aren’t familiar with search engine optimization, getting the most out of your blog can be a challenge. This step by step guide is will give you the information you need to use your website’s blog as SEO machine.

Choosing a Topic

Deciding what to blog about can sometimes be the hardest part. When considering your options for your next blog post, think about who your intended audience is and what they are likely to be searching for. Some of the most successful blog posts in terms of SEO answer questions, address address current events, or give readers actionable content to work with. If you aren’t writing on a topic that your audience cares about or you aren’t providing them with information that they can do something with, chances that they will stumble upon it in their search results are slim.

Crafting Your Title

The title of a blog post is often just as important as the post itself. Not only will your blog post’s title dictate what search phrases it ranks for, but it will also determine whether or not searchers click on your link in search results and whether or not they actually read your post. When crafting a title for your blog post, think about what you might search for in relation to the topic. Successful blog post titles might ask a question, offer a “how-to,” or include a specific keyword that the article is targeting. Read How to Write Blog Titles for SEO to learn more.

Optimizing Your Content

Writing for the web is a lot different than academic writing. When people read web content, they tend to scan a page quickly and then move on. You want to be sure to cater to the needs of your audience when writing blog posts, so writing scannable content is essential. Breaking up your content with headings and bulleted lists not only makes things easier on your readers, but it also helps search engines to better identify what your blog post is about and what keywords you should be ranking for.

Linking Between Content

One of the most important aspects of SEO relates to the links that point from one page to another or across different websites. Blogging encourages outside websites to link back to yours, and it also allows you to link between content within your own site. When writing about a topic that is discussed on main content pages, it is an SEO best-practice to include keyword phrases from your main content in your blog post and link back to the appropriate page from it. Having a good linking structure within your site as well as from external sites to yours helps develop the credibility that your website needs to rank well in search engines.

Optimizing Meta Information

Once your blog post has been written and your content has been optimized, there are some final measures you can take to make your post more accessible to search engines. Your meta page title is arguably the most influential item when it comes to the keywords than any webpage ranks for. The page title is what will appear in the browser bar as the title of the webpage when a user is visiting the page that your blog post is on. Updating the page title of your blog post to include the keywords that you are targeting will help ensure that Google knows what keywords you are targeting with your post. In addition to the meta page title, you can also update the meta description and meta keywords to further optimize your post.

There is no one recipe for success when it comes to blogging and SEO, but choosing a relevant topic, crafting a searchable title, optimizing your posts content, linking throughout your site, and setting your meta data, you will put you well on your way to owning Google results pages with your website.

How to Track Social Media ROI with Google Analytics

Stephanie — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 17:28:00 GMT

The popularity of established social networks such as Facebook and LinkedIn as well as the rapid growth of newer platforms such as Pinterest and Google+ makes it hard for businesses to find a reason not to get involved in the ever expanding social media scene. However, the issue of determining the return on investment (ROI) when it comes to social strategies is one that has clouded the decisions marketing departments for some time.

In an attempt to combat the social media ROI problem, Google recently introduced a new line of reports into Google Analytics. These new Social Reports were designed to help users capture the value of social media by tracking goal conversions that result from the social media interactions of their visitors. Found under the Traffic Sources menu, the new Social Menu features conversion, engagement and social shares tracking to help place monetary values on your social media marketing strategy.

Tracking Conversions

Before you can effectively measure ROI using Google’s social tracking, you will need to set up some goals. If you already have goals set up for your website, they will follow through to the Social menu. However, if you have separate goals for your social media strategy than you do for your website, you will need to set them up before you start tracking your ROI. You can do this in the setting menu of Google Analytics.

Once your goals are set up, you can use the Conversions view to observe both assisted conversions as well as last interaction conversions. A last interaction conversion is counted when a social referral leads to a conversion immediately while an assisted conversion is counted when a visitor referred by a social source is not converted until a later visit.

Using the data found in the Conversions view, you can watch changes over time and identify how those changes relate to your social media plan. You can then use this data to improve your marketing strategy.

Tracking Engagement

The Sources view offers an engagement summary including visits, page views, duration of visit, and pages per visit broken down by social network. This may offer little insight into goals and conversions, but it could be very useful in determining a direction to take with your social media strategy. For example, if the number of visitors to your website that are referred from Facebook is double those that are referred from Twitter, you may choose to alter your marketing plan accordingly.

Tracking Social Sharing

The Social Plugins view allows for an easy way to identify how your content is shared both on and off of your website. Onsite sharing includes social buttons within your website such as +1 or Like buttons. Offsite sharing includes tweeting, posting, or pinning of your content. The Social Plugins view also offers an activity stream including the URL of the shared content, how and where the content was shared, and what was said about it. By tracking social sharing using Social Plugins, you can discover what type of content is most popular with your audiences, allowing you to create ways of further stimulating social conversations.

Web Design and Color Psychology

Stephanie — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 15:00:00 GMT

The emotional impact that color can have is evident in everything from the clothes we wear to the cars we drive. A yellow room may cause you to feel anxious while a blue one might leave you feeling calm or relaxed.

When it comes to the branding of your business, it is crucial that you consider the emotions that are packed into the designs of your logo, your marketing materials, and your website in terms of how your clients will react to them. Defined as how color impacts moods, feelings and behaviors, color psychology helps to explain this phenomenon.

When you begin the process of designing or redesigning your website, it is important that you consider the implications of your color scheme on the users of your website. Below is a breakdown of warm and cool colors as well as an analysis of how we react to them.

Warm Colors

Warm colors can be found in the red area of the color spectrum and include red, yellow, and orange. Depending on the color and how it is portrayed, the emotions evoked by warm colors can range from warmth and comfort to anger and malice.

Red is often thought to produce the strongest emotional response in that it is symbolic of intense positive emotions such as love and passion yet it also has the power to evoke negative feelings of hostility and rage. In web design, red is often used most effectively as an accent color because of its intensity.

Orange is often thought of as an energetic and youthful color. It has the ability to evoke excitement and cheer, but it also creates a sense of warmth. Because orange is such a loud color, it also has a tendency to take away from colors that it is paired with. Orange is often used most effectively on the web when it is targeted at a younger audience.

Yellow can evoke the same cheery and youthful emotions that are produced by the color orange in some ways. However, yellow is also seen as the color of sickness. Too much yellow can be straining to the eye, but in just the right amount, it is the best color for grabbing the attention of users. Using yellow to highlight a call to action is often an effective way to incorporate a point of interest on your webpage.

Cool Colors

Cool colors can be found on the blue side of the color spectrum and include blue, purple, and green. These colors create often feelings of calmness and relaxation, but they can also be associated with sad or indifferent emotions.

Green is often thought to be the most pleasant color for visual receptors. It has the ability to create feelings of peacefulness, growth, and luck. It also symbolizes nature which can help it to relieve stress. In website design, green is used to create a sense of balance and harmony as well as stability.

Blue is a color of peace and serenity. It evokes emotions of calmness as well as confidence and credibility. It can be an effective color choice for financial institutions or law firms in that it may help to instill feelings of trust in potential clients.

Purple is the most spiritual color, but it is also seen as a symbol of royalty. Because purple does not often occur naturally in nature, it can appear to be exotic or artificial. In website design, it is often used to create feelings of luxury and wealth, but it can also be used to evoke feelings of freshness and romance.

4 Ways to Customize Your Facebook Timeline

Stephanie — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 14:02:00 GMT

This Friday, March 30^th, Facebook is making Timeline mandatory for all business pages. If you haven't updated your Timeline by now, you have probably at least seen a glimpse of how different it is from the old Facebook business pages. Although many of the favorite business page features are gone, Timeline has a lot to offer in terms of customization and branding. Here is an outline of four ways to customize your Business’ Facebook Timeline.

Custom Cover Image

Because your cover image is the first thing people will see when they visit your Facebook page, you want it to be eye catching and say something about your brand. Creating a custom cover image is a great way to introduce your Facebook page while engaging users. However, you will want to keep in mind that there are a few guidelines Facebook requires you to follow when it comes to your cover image. Be sure that you have the rights to the image you choose, and refrain from displaying promotions, prices, or calls to action.

Pin Featured Content

The new Facebook Timeline allows you to pin a post so that it remains at the top of your timeline for up to seven days. As you continue posting to your page, a pinned post will remain at the top until it expires or you feature a different post. You can use this feature to highlight promotions, upcoming events, or company news.

Reorder Your Apps

Directly below the cover image and to the right of the “About” section you will find a display of four apps. This is what replaces the tabs that were located along the left side of the screen with business pages. Here you can feature apps such as photos, events, or custom pages.

Create Custom Apps

Many businesses were concerned about Timeline doing away with the tabs and custom landing pages that were so popular with the old business pages. Custom apps, however, allow for similar functionality with much larger page availability. In addition, each custom app has its own URL, so while you can’t specify a landing page within Facebook, you can direct people to a specific landing page from your website, a QR code, or other advertising campaign.

5 Easy Ways to Improve Your Website’s SEO

Stephanie — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 13:32:00 GMT

Search Engine Optimization can be pretty overwhelming if you don't have any SEO experience. Here are 5 ways that you can dig into your website's SEO if you don't know where to start.

Update Your Page Titles

The <title> tag of a website is what appears in the title bar of a browser when you are viewing a webpage. This is arguably the most important aspect of any webpage when it comes to Search Engine Optimization, which is why updating your page titles is such an easy and effective way of improving your website’s SEO. Your page titles should be different on every page of your website and incorporate the specific keywords that a given page is targeting. Be sure that the keywords you use in your page titles also appear in the content on that page, and keep your titles under 60 characters.

Get Rid of Repetitive Content

Search engines are able to determine the context of your website based upon a number of factors, the most important of which is the content of your web pages. If there is not enough unique content on each page, Google may penalize you for having duplicate content. This ends up diluting the content that you do have, and can have an adverse effect on your website’s SEO. By getting rid of any content that shows up on every page, you give search engines a better idea of the content that is both important and relevant.

Add a Blog

The more often you update the content on your website, the more often search engines will have a reason to come back and index your content. By adding a blog to your website you create a convenient location to post company news or industry tips. In updating your blog regularly, you keep your content fresh. Not only does this give search engines a reason to come back to your site, but it will probably create more traffic from real people as well.

Optimize Your Images

Because search engines cannot index images the same way they can text, it is important to give them as much help as possible when it comes to determining how your images compliment your content. There are two main ways that search engines get information about your images. The first is through the file name of the image. If the URL of your image looks something like “DSC23940.jpg,” it gives search engines zero idea of what the image actually is. By naming your images with your keywords, search engines can better understand what your images are. The other way search engines get information about your images is through alternate text, or alt text. This is what would appear in place of the image if it is not loading properly and what would be read by a screen reader if someone were listening to the content of your webpage. The alt text goes inside of the image tag, as seen in the following example:

<img src=”/keyword-here.jpg” alt=”Keyword Here” title=”Keyword Here” />.

Add Footer Links

Because links are such a heavily weighted aspect of SEO, it is important to maintain strong cross-linking between the pages of your website. Adding links to the footer of your website is a quick and easy way to create a significant number of inlinks to every page on your site. You can further the effectiveness of this by including keywords in the anchor text of the links as well as by including a title attribute.

Making Mobile Friendly Websites

root — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 13:47:00 GMT

A simple example of making a mobile friendly website with responsive web design.

Think Insights with Google: Marketing Resources You Might Not Know About

Stephanie — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 19:08:00 GMT

By now it's pretty clear that Google has far surpassed the mere search engine that it once was. But with so many tools, it becomes hard to stay on top of everything Google offers. A few months ago, Google revamped its offerings for marketers and advertisers, adding some new resources while making others more publicly available and completely restructuring what already existed. Here is a list of five resources you can find within Think with Google.

Facts & Stats

Did you know? 57% of people talk more online than they do in real life; in 2011, the average shopper consulted 10.4 sources prior to purchase, twice as many as one year prior; and 88% of companies over 100 employees will use social media for marketing by the end of 2012.

The perfect statistic at just the right moment has the ability to make or break any pitch. But because resources across the internet are so vast, it’s often difficult to find the information that suits your situation best. Think Insights with Google offers a Facts & Stats section that organizes and visualizes all kinds of data for all sorts of circumstances. And whether you’re in need of a stat or not, it’s still worth checking out.

Google Trends

Have you ever wanted to examine keyword patters on more broad of a scale than is allowed by Google’s Keyword Tool? Google Trends is a great solution. It allows you to type any number of comma separated keywords into the search bar and see a graph comparing their popularity over time. You can also drill down your results by region, sub region, and time period. This tool works well for examining your branding efforts as well as your competition’s. It also offers great insights into keywords that are both rising and falling in popularity. Trends is only one of the many keyword tools that Google offers. For more keyword guidance check out the rest.

What Do You Love?

Ever heard of www.wdyl.com? It’s a search tool that pulls from just about every resource that Google offers. You just type in a keyword, and Google spits out a user-friendly dashboard with everything from YouTube videos and books to maps and search trends, all on one page. It’s a good place to look if you want to know where your keywords and your brand are popping up across the web. It’s not overwhelmingly interactive, but it does provide an easy way to see differences between blogs, news sites, images, and many other forms of media.

Research Library

According to Google, their Research Library is “designed to arm marketers and agencies with knowledge and proof points to move their businesses forward.” It essentially provides an awful lot of free resources that highlight research and case studies as they relate to internet marketing. With breakdowns by industry, media platform, audience, and marketing objective, the research library allows you free, on-demand access to Google’s data on everything from the ways your audience shops to the best ways to measure your success.

Search Stories

Google Search Stories is a fun tool whether you use it for marketing or not. It allows you to create a story by submitting a list of search queries. You can search different media such as news, images, or maps. Google then takes a screenshot of each query, lets you set it to music, and uploads your story to YouTube. You could create a story about how someone might interact with your brand and then suggest that your customers submit their stories about what your brand means to them. There are also some pretty cool examples you might check out for inspiration.

5 Ways to Boost Business with Pinterest

Stephanie — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 17:15:00 GMT

Introduced last summer, Pinterest is a budding social network and perhaps among the most memorable start-ups of the past year. If you have yet to check it out for yourself, it essentially lets you create categories or “boards” that you then fill with images or “pins,” allowing you to organize everything you find on the web, from design inspiration to recipes to wedding planning. You can then follow other users and “repin” to your own boards what they have posted to theirs.

With more than 10 million registered users and nearly 12 million unique monthly visitors, it’s hardly a surprise that Pinterest has already attracted over 100 brands to its unique new offerings. As it continues to grow, attracting record numbers of both new and returning users, marketers are seeking out ways to get their foot in the door. Here are five ways to use Pinterest to boost your business:

Focus on Branding

The way in which Pinterest allows you to display images is something unique from any other social network. Harnessing the power of this offering allows you to showcase your brand’s mission and message in ways that weren’t really possible before. You know what they say: “A picture is worth a thousand words.” This is where Pinterest gets its edge. It relies on visual stimulation, something that’s becoming increasingly important in today’s digital world.

Be Interactive

This tip goes for just about any social network, but it can go long way with Pinterest especially. You shouldn’t be creating your own original content for every one of your boards. Monitor ways that others are talking about your brand and respond. Repin and repin often. If users recognize that you are reaching out to customers, they will be more likely to follow and interact with you.

Make Pinterest a Part of Your Marketing Strategy

If you already have a significant following on other social networks, let your customers know about your newfound love for Pinterest. Chances are they share it with you. Use Facebook and Twitter as a means of pointing fans and followers to Pinterest, and use Pinterest as a way to point them in the other direction.

Get Product Feedback

The interactive nature of Pinterest makes it possible to get customer reactions in real-time. This means that your company can not only gain insights into current products, but you can also connect with customers on products that have yet to launch. On the flipside, you will want a plan in place for how to deal with those who aren’t so happy with your products. Customer service is a key part of any social media marketing strategy.

Give Your Company a Face

Using Pinterest for business doesn’t need to be solely about your brand and your products. Use it as a photo gallery to get the word out about what is going on at your company. Pin staff photos, show off your awards, and share company news. As with any social network, people will be more engaged if they feel like they are actually making a connection with real people behind your brand.

Social Search and Google Search Plus Your World

Stephanie — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 17:10:00 GMT

Earlier this month, Google made a pretty major update to its search engine results. You may have noticed something different when you were logged into Gmail, but what exactly has changed?

It’s something that Google is calling Search plus Your World, and it’s an expansion on a concept that Google introduced just over two years ago: social search.

The idea behind social search was originally to personalize search results, making them more relevant to the individual. Back before the days of Google+, Google’s social search was dependent upon things like Gmail contacts or your Google Reader.

When you were logged into your Google account while executing a search, Google would find relevant content from others that you were associated with through your account, highlighting that content at the bottom of your search results.

While it was an exciting idea when it was first introduced, for most people, the original social search did not have a major effect on the way we searched the web.

However, since Google introduced Google+ last summer, it has created a way for users to indicate not only relevant content, but also the nature of their connections with others who are sharing that content.

The announcement that Google made a few weeks back is about more than merely adding a few personalized hits to the results pages of the search engine we have always known. Search plus Your World is about an entirely new search platform designed around each user’s social graph.

When personalized search is turned on, search results will include Google+ posts and photos as well as profiles and pages of those in your circles or those Google thinks you may be interested in adding.

Google has built itself upon its ability to provide the most relevant search results to its users, but the new updates are raising questions about potential bias towards Google+ when compared with other social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. And that's not all people are complaining about.

There are serious privacy issues related to Search Plus Your World as well. For example, if you search the word "cat" on Google, the Wikipedia page for cat might appear alongside photos of your own cat that you have uploaded to Google+. Further, the same situation could be applied to the names of your family members or friends.

Only time will tell what the future holds for Google's Search Plus Your World. Will it drive you away from what has become the world's most popular search engine? Or is it really the wave of the future, with only a matter of time until it catches on?

4 Google Analytics Custom Alerts for SEO

Stephanie — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 17:05:00 GMT

Google Analytics has so much to offer that trying to get the most out of it can be pretty overwhelming. With so many options and so much data, it can be easy to overlook and miss out on some of its greatest resources.

One tool that’s relatively new to Google Analytics yet undeniably useful is Custom Alerts. Under the home tab and the intelligence events overview section, there are a number of automatic alerts as well as a place to create your own custom alerts.

Custom alerts are a great way to stay on top of your analytics without having to constantly monitor them. Simply set up a segment of traffic and a condition and Google Analytics will shoot you an email or a text whenever that condition is met.

This can be used to monitor site traffic, goal conversions, referrals, and more. Here is a list of four custom alerts that can help in your search engine optimization efforts.

Search Engine Traffic

Since the main goal of SEO is to gain more search engine traffic, setting up a custom alert for changes in search referrals is a must. Below is what your conditions should look like if you are setting up an alert for a decrease in referrals from Google. You probably want to add an alert for an increase in referrals as well.

Keyword Traffic

If you have a couple of keywords that drive a significant amount of traffic to your website, you can set up custom alerts to keep an eye on the traffic coming from them. If there is a significant increase or sizeable spike, an alert will let you know so you can identify the cause.

Goal Conversions

Because ROI is so important when it comes to any type of marketing, you want to stay on top of the number of leads or conversions you are getting. You can set up alerts for the total number of conversions or your conversion rate to notify you if the number of conversions isn’t lining up with the amount of traffic you are getting.

Brand Monitoring

Sometimes it can be difficult to monitor responses to your branding efforts, but there is an easy way to monitor how often your brand is being searched. Set up a custom alert for your brand name that will tip you off if organic searches for your brand increase or decrease by 20% from week to week or month to month. This will give you an idea of the effectiveness of your branding overall.

What's New With the New Twitter?

Stephanie — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 21:05:00 GMT

Earlier this month, Twitter introduced Fly, its latest version. Fly includes a new web interface as well as updates to the Twitter mobile application and TweetDeck. So what’s changed?

The Layout

The new Twitter introduces a layout in which your Tweets are seen on the right-hand side of the page while navigation links are seen on the left. While this is a more traditional layout in terms of web standards, it’s not what Twitter users are used to. In addition, there is no longer a change in background color between the right and left columns, leaving no clear focal point in the eye of users.

The Symbols

While Twitter may be known for its use of symbols such as @ and #, it has never made any steps to integrate them into its design – until now. The new Twitter features four tabs, all reliant on icons: Home, Connect, Discover, and Me. The Home tab, represented by the symbol of a house, is a typical feed of the Tweets of those you are following. The Connect tab, represented by the @ symbol, contains all of the interactions that other users have had with you, be it following, mentioning, or re-Tweeting. The Discover tab, represented by the # symbol, is a live stream of information that is customized to suit your current location, who you follow, and what is going on in the world at a given time. According to Twitter, the content this tab has to offer will only improve as you use Twitter more. Finally, the Me tab is where you can view and edit your own profile.

Brand Pages

In addition to the interface updates, the new Twitter also introduces new brand profiles. Allowing marketers to further personalize their pages, these new profiles feature space for a branded tagline as well as a bigger logo. They also include one free promoted Tweet that will appear at the top of the Tweet stream to allow for further branding and help to engage users.

The new Twitter is available on mobile devices as well as on the desktop devices of users who have logged in using a mobile device. Within the next few weeks, the new Twitter will be available to all users. Brand pages will begin to become publicly available in the coming months.

10 SEO Tips for Link Building

Stephanie — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 21:01:00 GMT

Obtaining high quality links to your website is vital to search engine optimization. Here are ten ideas for finding the links that will ensure your link building campaign is successful.

Write guest blog posts – there are quality blogs that exist for nearly any topic you could think of. Pick a few that relate to your industry and find out if they accept guest bloggers. Writing guest blog posts allows you develop content and links that relate to the search terms you are focusing on.
Become a sponsor – there are probably some events in your area that relate to your industry and are always looking for sponsors. Becoming a sponsor is an easy way to get these events to link to your website.
Join relevant organizations – many organizations will link to members from their website. Joining organizations that relate to your industry will allow you to get quality 'back links' from quality websites.
Announce job postings – if you’re hiring, there are so many options for getting great links. Let people know about the openings you have, and they will spread the word for you. Also, posting to job websites is quick, easy, and can be very rewarding in terms of links.
Examine past links – take a look at the links you have gotten in the past and where they are coming from. Links from blogs, news sites, or other websites that are frequently writing new content are great places to look for obtaining new links.
Write newsworthy press releases – news websites are generally pretty reliable, making them a good source for back links. By producing newsworthy content, you can influence the media to talk about you, generating quality links back to your website.
Submit to award websites – nearly every industry has awards that relate to it. Often times, winners, runners up, and nominees are linked to from the award websites. Submitting yourself to award websites will help you to get public recognition as well as links.
Post to forums – contributing to reputable forums will allow you to build your brand name and your expertise while allowing you to toot your own horn with a link to your website in your signature. You could also try to answer some questions in a FAQ section on your website and then link to relevant answers in forums.
Contribute to social networks – the idea behind social networking relates significantly to the sharing of information. Active involvement in social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn will allow you to distribute your content and make it easy for others to share it.
Write content that’s worth sharing – great content will not only help with on page SEO, but it also has the potential to generate a lot of links. Content that contains statistics, quality videos, or just good information is content that people will want to link to.

Google+ Business Pages

Stephanie — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 20:07:00 GMT

Earlier this month, Google introduced its addition of the long awaited Google+ Pages to its budding social network. By expanding the ability to connect strictly with other people to connecting directly with local and global businesses, Google+ is building a community with the capacity to drive social interaction as it takes place online. Similar to Google+ user profiles, Pages offers features such as Circles and Hangouts that make it easy for users to feel connected to the businesses they follow. By creating a Google+ Page for your business, you open up a new line of communication with your clients and consumers and a new way of interacting with them.

Getting Started

Before you can create a Google+ Page, you must first have a profile of your own. This is easy to do with any Google account. From your Google+ user profile, there is an option to create a Google+ Page in the right-hand menu. One issue you may want to consider is that there is currently no way to add multiple administrators to a Google+ Page. This means that the Google+ account the Page is created on is the only account with the ability to post as the page or edit it.

Circles

The original idea behind circles with Google+ user profiles is that you can create niche groups to categorize the types of people you want to follow and share your posts with. Any user can add any other user who may or may not add them back.With Pages, the difference is seen in that a user must add your page to his or her own circles before you can add that user to your page’s circles. Once you begin to rack up your followers, however, you can categorize them and target each of your circles with different marketing materials that might appeal to them. For example, Web Ascender’s clients would be interested in much different information than someone who works in the industry. Using circles, we can ensure that the information we post applies to those who are adding us to their circles.

Hangouts

Hangouts are also a feature available to both Google+ users and Pages. They allow you to communicate directly with users via group video chats. While the number of users that can be involved in one hangout is limited, this feature offers many possibilities including planned sessions or spontaneous discussions. Hangouts can be used to put a face to your brand and give users a sense of who you are. You may want to use them to provide consumers with valuable information or to get customer feedback.

Ripples

Ripples are a new feature that allows you to examine the sharing patterns of posts throughout Google+. These diagrams indicate how publicly shared posts are shared and re-shared, giving you a peak at what content is popular and who it’s popular with. An interactive timeline displays trends in sharing over time. Information on people with the most re-shares, the number of shares per hour, the languages in which each post was shared, and more are also available. To get started, simply select "view ripples" on any public post.

Using Google for Advertisers: Insights

Stephanie — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 19:15:00 GMT

Google for Advertisers offers countless tools for every aspect of internet marketing. The Insights section of Google for Advertisers is the perfect place to explore your marketing options and develop the plan that is right for you. Below is an outline of some tools with the most potential and ideas for using them to grow your online presence.

Insights for Search

Google Insights for Search allows you observe changes in search patterns by time period and location as well as niche categories. Using Insights, it is easy to identify how people search for your keywords throughout different times of the year as well as across the globe.

For example, the graph below indicates that the word Christmas is gradually searched more each month starting in September until it falls off at the end of December. The graph also indicates that searches for Christmas overall are on a downward trend.

This information can be used to determine which direction your targeted keywords are headed, helping you to focus only on those which appear to have a positive trend.

Google Insights for Search also suggests the top related search terms as well as search terms that are on the rise and includes categories such as shopping or entertainment which relate to why people are searching for each term.

Ad Planner

Ad Planner is a great source for those using Google AdWords, and specifically the Content Network. While the general Content Network may eat up your AdWords budget in a hurry, Ad Planner’s Search for Placements section allows you to pick niche audiences and filter them out to reach only your most probable customers. With the Search by Site section, you can see the age, gender, education, and income of your visitors as well as other sites they tend to be drawn toward. You can then use this information to determine where your AdWords budget would be most effective.

Google Alerts

This tool can be used to keep up to date with news and blogs related to your keywords. In terms of SEO, Google Alerts can be used to find potential linking opportunities as they become available. Simply enter one of your keywords to receive immediate, daily, or weekly emails concerning web pages relevant to your keyword. This tool can also be used as a PR resource in keeping tabs on what is being said about your company or your product.

Meritor iPad App Launched

root — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 10:35:00 GMT

Web Ascender launches the iPad app for Meritor (NYSE: MTOR)!

We're Hiring!

Ryan Doom and Kevin Southworth — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 17:51:00 GMT

Web Ascender is looking to expand our team of web experts. If you have some experience building amazing websites with Drupal or writing slick Ruby code, then check out our Jobs page.

We're also looking for an Office Manager to help with our day-to-day operations.

Facebook Timeline for Business

Stephanie — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 16:32:00 GMT

While the idea of having your personal life story on a single page for the whole world to see may seem a bit invasive, the ability to create such a story about your brand may mean a lot for your business. The new Facebook Timeline was created to prevent your Facebook wall from falling off the edge of the Earth and features an easily navigated timeline of every post, tag, and like since the day your Facebook Page was created.

What this could mean for your business in the future is that customers will be able to see how your brand and its connection to the public have evolved over time with just a few clicks of the mouse. Not only could Timeline make the history of your business more accessible, but it could also make branding your page more customizable and visually appealing.

The saying a picture is worth a thousand word holds true here in that rather than being limited to a single profile photo and five customizable shots at the top of your page, Timeline introduces a “Cover” photo in addition to your profile picture as well as unlimited customizable boxes throughout your timeline. These boxes can allow you to create more engaging posts than ever before, drawing in your users and giving them more of a reason to interact with your page.

Timeline will become available to the public early this month, but it may be a while until it is available for business pages.

Networking with LinkedIn

Stephanie — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 16:27:00 GMT

What is LinkedIn?

The great thing about LinkedIn is that it’s one of the easiest social networking sites for anyone to use. Because it requires very little knowledge of social media, it can be a great marketing tool with much less of a time commitment than some of its alternatives. Here is a look at some of LinkedIn’s best features for networking online.

Joining LinkedIn Groups

LinkedIn groups allow you to connect directly with professionals in your field and your location. Joining groups is a great way to reach the specific audience that you are targeting with your LinkedIn campaign. You probably want to join enough groups that you can reach out to a diverse audience, but not so many that you can’t remain active in all of them. For groups to be an effective means of reaching your audience, you should try to participate regularly in discussions, not only by offering content of your own, but also by discussing the posts of other group members.

LinkedIn Question & Answer Forums

LinkedIn Answers is a great way to build your credibility on LinkedIn. By regularly answering questions that are related to your field, you can share your expertise with others and give them a reason to contact you. Aim to answer at least one question a week, but more is always better.

Asking for Recommendations

When you are trying to reach out to potential clients on LinkedIn, it is important to have some credibility behind your name. An easy way to establish this is by asking past employers and clients to recommend you on LinkedIn. You may want to make it into a contest where people have the chance to win a discount or a prize for writing a recommendation.

Checking your progress

The easiest way to check how effective your LinkedIn efforts are in the short term is to examine the types of responses you are receiving from your group discussion posts and the questions you have answered. In the long term, watch how your contacts and connections grow as well as how this relates to your clients.

What's New With Google Analytics 5

Stephanie — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 19:46:00 GMT

If you aren’t already using Google Analytics for your website, you’re missing out on a lot of potentially game changing information. By simply adding some code to your website, Google Analytics will track each visitor that comes to your site, where they came from, and where they went next. Using Google Analytics, you can begin to grasp the thoughts of your customers, clients, and prospects. While Google Analytics has been around for years, it hasn’t always been the most user-friendly of web tools, and updates have been few and far between. Last March however, you may have noticed a link to the “New Version” of Google Analytics that appeared in the upper right hang corner of your screen. At a glance the new version, dubbed Google Analytics 5, can be a bit overwhelming. So here’s a look at what’s new in Version 5 to help you get the most out of your data and your website.

Improved Navigation

The first novel idea: navigation that makes sense. With Google Analytics 5, there are 5 tabs. A Home tab, which contains navigation to each site within your account; a new and improved Dashboards tab; a My Site tab, containing information on visitors, traffic sources, etc.; a My Conversions tab; and a tab devoted to Custom Reports. The left-hand menu has also undergone some pretty major changes, fortunately for the better as well. Now that you aren’t driving around with a blindfold, you might find it easier to put Google Analytics to work for you.

Multiple, Widget Based Dashboards

For most people, the dashboard is the first thing you’ll see when opening up your Analytics account. Previously, Google Analytics only offered one, standard dashboard as the main page for each website. With Google Analytics 5, you can now have up to 20 dashboards, allowing you to create and customize individual dashboards for a variety of purposes. In addition to being able to create multiple dashboards, Google Analytics dashboards are now entirely widget based, making them highly customizable and easier than ever to use.

Event Goal Tracking

The new version of Google Analytics also offers opportunities for goals and tracking that were previously only available with the use of JavaScript. Earlier versions of Google Analytics allowed you to create URL goals for tracking conversions, but there was no way to drill down to conversions within a unique URL. With Google Analytics 5 and the introduction of Event Goals, you can now track events that take place on individual pages. This becomes useful in tracking events like file downloads or video views. You can also add values to these goals, making our ROI calculations all the more accurate.

Intelligence Reporting

Google Analytics Intelligence has the capability to search your website traffic for irregularities and alert you whenever it finds something that’s out of the ordinary. With Analytics 5, you can now organize and sort through these events using tables. From there you can drill down into the details of individual events, explore each event, and create custom intelligence alerts.

There’s a lot more to discover and a lot more to enjoy with Google Analytics 5, so try it out, and don’t forget to let us know what you like and what you don’t!

Social Media News

Stephanie — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 19:36:00 GMT

As the business of social media is built upon the idea of instantaneous news and updates, it comes as little surprise that the news specific to social media itself never seems to stop. Unfortunately, this makes it impossible to keep up with the near constant changes in the field. In an attempt to consolidate the recent updates across major social media platforms, here is a look at what’s new in the worlds of Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Google+.

Facebook Video Chat, Calling & Group Chat

You may have noticed a recent change in the structure of Facebook Chat. What you may not have noticed is that the look of Facebook Chat isn’t the only thing that’s changed. In addition to being able to see the friends you interact with most, you can now engage in group chats by simply clicking on the + button on the top of your chat screen to add another friend to the conversation. With the introduction of group chat, Facebook also announced the coming of video chat and video calling. While these services aren’t available to everyone quite yet, Facebook plans to roll them out within the next few weeks.

Twitter’s Timely Tweets

Timely Tweets from Twitter are expected to make their debut within a week or two. These real time versions of Twitter’s Promoted Trends will display advertisements directly in users’ timelines. The new Promoted Tweets will appear at or near the top of a user’s timeline only once before scrolling through the timeline like a normal Tweet as a way to ensure users have access to the “most important Tweets,” according to Twitter. A limited group of advertisers have been selected by Twitter for the initial stage of Timely Tweets including Gatorade, Dell, and Starbucks. Users will only see Promoted Tweets from advertisers they are following.

YouTube and Cosmic Panda

In the past, YouTube’s minimalist design may have been something we all took for granted, but that was before the introduction of Cosmic Panda. That’s what YouTube is calling its new look. It’s a bit darker and a bit more dramatic, but that’s not all that’s changed. The new look also presents some new layout changes to playlists, videos, and channels as well as a number of new customization options. Try out Cosmic Panda for yourself, and let us know what you think.

Introducing Google+

Google+ may be the new kid on the block, but that doesn’t mean it’s not catching on. By now you’ve probably heard the buzz around Circles, Sparks, Hangouts, and Huddles. Add the people you know to Circles to allow them to see your posts. Join Hangouts to take part in live video chats. Use Sparks to receive news and updates about topics that are important to you, and make use of Huddles to start group chat sessions via text messaging. It’s been a month since Google+ was introduced, and only time will tell what the future has in store for this budding social network.

Google +1 for Business

Stephanie — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 19:32:00 GMT

If you’re on top of your marketing efforts when it comes to the internet, you likely have active business pages on Facebook, Twitter, and perhaps a few other social networking sites, but with the buzz surrounding Google +1, you may find yourself wondering what comes next. While the future of Google +1 and businesses is uncertain as of yet, there are a few things that we know we can expect, mainly relating to what Google does best: search engines.

The idea behind Google +1 as it relates to search engines has to do with the concept of social search. Users can “+1” search results that they deem important, helpful, or just plain interesting, and it is only a matter of time until these recommendations become a big player in Google’s algorithm. Not only does the +1 phenomenon have the potential to impact the order of search engine results on the whole, it also presents the idea of personalized search results. Using the concept of “circles,” or groups of friends within the Google + network, individual search results can be tailored to suit each user.

In addition to recommending your page via search results, users can also recommend your page via a +1 button on your actual website. According to Google, it may crawl or recrawl your site in response to +1 impressions or clicks, all the more reason to jump on board.

Add Google +1 to Your Website

Web Design and Typography

Stephanie — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 19:12:00 GMT

The evolution of fonts in web design has been a slow and steady one. In the early days of the internet there was Courier, then Times New Roman, followed by Arial and Verdana. For years, the list of “safe” fonts available to web designers was less than extensive. If you wanted to get creative with your typography, your only option was to use an image, a choice that is anything but search engine friendly.

With the introduction of CSS2 in 1998, the @font-face embeding technique sparked excitement about the possibilities of fonts and the web. Unfortunately, browser support was hardly satisfactory and concerns about infringement and illegal use of fonts resulted in it being removed in CSS2.1. After a number of encrypted font formats fixed the infringement problem, CSS3 reintroduced the idea. But the problem still remained that no two browsers are alike.

TTF (True Type Font), OTC (Open Type Font), WOFF (Web Open Font Format), and EOT (Embedded Open Type Fonts) are the most widely used font formats. While TTF/OTF and WOFF are supported by recent versions of Firefox and Chrome, all versions of Internet Explorer up until version 9 only support EOT, a format not supported by any other browser.

By the time Internet Explorer joined the ranks of modern browsers with the release of version 9 in 2011, fairly widespread support for TTF/OTF had made fonts more consistent for most users.

Last year, Google introduced their own Google Font API in an attempt to ease the chaos of web design typography. With a good selection of high quality, open source fonts, Google Fonts allows designers to use a variety of creative fonts while maintaining a consistent user experience across browsers. This free service is easy to use by adding a brief link that Google provides to your website’s HTML. The font will be displayed to users on any of the following browsers:

Google Chrome: version 4.249+
Mozilla Firefox: version 3.5+
Apple Safari: version 3.1+
Opera: version 10.5+
Microsoft Internet Explorer: version 6+

How to Write Web Content

Stephanie — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 13:03:00 GMT

Before you even start thinking about writing content for the web, be sure you know what you are trying to get out of it. Do you want to persuade customers to buy your product? Would you like to convince visitors of why you are better than the competition? Are you just trying to improve your search engine rankings? Your purpose may be one or all of these, or any number of other things, but whatever your case may be, don’t start writing until you have an end goal in mind. Here we will discuss the basic concepts of three distinct purposes: education, conversion, and SEO.

Writing to Educate/Answer Questions

The purpose of your web content likely varies depending on the type of page you are writing for. You probably have pages on your website that aim at educating visitors and answering their questions. On these types of pages it is important for your content to be user-friendly, easy to navigate, and to the point. Consider adding a Frequently Asked Questions section or some way for visitors to navigate the information you provide. On pages that aim to educate visitors, bullet points are often your best option. When users are looking for an answer, they want to find it quickly and without a hassle, they won’t be willing to read through paragraph after paragraph of information they didn’t come searching for.

Writing to Create Conversions

No matter what type of website you are writing for, you need to have an idea of what you would like your visitors to do. Whether you want them purchase something from your online store, share something with their friends, or contact you directly, be sure you keep your goal in mind when you are writing your content. Every page on your site should present visitors with a next step. When you are writing content to create conversions, you need to tell your visitors what this step is. Be persuasive, provide testimonials, and give visitors a sense of what you are about. If you have any hope of getting your visitors to do what you want, you need to give them a reason to trust you.

Writing for SEO

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is vital to the success of any website. Fortunately, if your content is well written, you should already be in decent shape. There are plenty of articles out there that go into much depth about the workings of search engines and writing content for them, but here I will just mention few important aspects of writing content for SEO. Before you begin, know your keywords, and write your content accordingly. Use keywords in H tags, crosslinks (links across different pages on your site), bullet points, and bolded text. Each of these are indicators to Google regarding your page is about. If you want to write content that will improve your rankings in search results, you should be sure you are giving Google every clue you can about the purpose of your website.

Google Search Tips

Stephanie — Mon, 02 May 2011 16:52:00 GMT

Perhaps the biggest reason for Google’s overwhelming popularity relates to its accessibility. While the search engine that has come to dominate its market is both easy to find and easy to use, using Google well is something that can only be accomplished by those who understand how it works. Fortunately, it can be easy to obtain accurate and targeted information from the search engine with the use of a few basic techniques. Here we discuss five of the most important techniques you can use to ensure you get the most out of Google.

Quotation Marks and Plus Signs – Quotation marks are useful if you are searching for either a quote or words in a specific order. Google will not rearrange the words and will only return results containing the exact phrase used within the quotation marks. A plus sign immediately between two words serves the same function as quotation marks. Example: A search for “To be or not to be” will return results containing that quote exactly as it appears in the search bar. Similarly, a search for tomato+soup will return results containing the words tomato soup in that order.
“Link” – Search for all of the links of a webpage using the word link followed by a colon and the URL. Example: A search for link:webascender.com will return results containing all of the websites that link to webascender.com.
Domain or Website Name – Use a colon to separate your keyword from the website you would like to search to return results only from that website. Example: A search for web design:webascender.com would display results for web design from webascender.com.
Minus Signs –A minus sign will exclude a specific word from appearing in your search results. Example: A search for tomato soup -recipes will return results that contain tomato soup but do not contain the word recipes.
“OR” – Using or in your searches will return results that contain one key phrase or the other. This allows you to search for two keywords on one results page. Example: A search for web design or web development will return results containing either web design or web development.

4 Secrets to Better Blogging

Stephanie — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 13:12:00 GMT

If you aren’t writing great headlines, why write?

Perhaps the most important part of any blog post is the headline. Your headline should do more than reiterate word for word the mundane content of your post. If you want me to read your article, you have to have to tell me why and you have to do it in a sentence. While that may sound like a tall order, consider the fact that no one will read your content if your headline isn’t interesting. In a sense, if you let your headline fall by the wayside, you might as well not write your post at all. Unique headlines are what stand out to readers in search engine results, and relevant headlines are what get readers to click.

Killer content doesn’t have an expiration date.

The key to a great blog post is content that doesn’t get old. It takes time to rack up a good ranking on Google and it takes time for your content to go viral. If you’re writing about a topic that is only relevant for a day or two, by the time I actually find it, I likely no longer have any interest in it. Rather than writing strictly about news or to-the-minute updates, write something that has a message, something that I’ll want to share, and something that I’ll want to come back to and read again down the road.

What do readers really want?

Give your readers what they want. And what your readers want is something they can relate to. If you can solve my problems and give me peace of mind, there is no reason why I won’t read what you have to say. Know what I’m passionate about, and show me that you share that passion with me. After all, your blog isn’t about you. It’s about your readers. If you can relate to me on any level, I’m that much more likely to buy not only what you have to say, but also whatever products or services you are trying to sell me.

Boss your readers around.

If you are putting a significant amount of time, money, and effort into a blog, you are probably looking to get something out of it. Well, if you aren’t telling me what you want from me, how should you expect me to know? If you want me to buy what you are selling, tell me! If you want me to share what you have to say, let me know! Do you want feedback from me? Do you want me to sign up for something? If you have any hope of getting what you want, don’t be afraid to be bossy.

How to Add Facebook Comments to My Website

root — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 13:10:00 GMT

With the recent introduction of Facebook’s new and improved social plugin Comments Box, third party websites can not only add Facebook comments to their website, but they also have the option to sync comments directly to user Facebook pages. While in the past, the Comments Box served merely as a static addition to third party sites, it now has the capacity to provide direct communication between a website, a Facebook user, and all of his or her friends.

Using the new Comments Box, if you were to comment on a website such as Web Ascender, you would be given the option to post both to WebAscender.com as well as to your Facebook wall and the newsfeeds of all of your friends via the checkbox seen above. In addition, if a friend of yours were to comment on your wall post, that comment would also appear on WebAscender.com. What’s more is that not only can you comment on third party sites using your personal Facebook username, but you can also leave comments under the name of a Facebook Page.

Also included in the new Comments box is a feature intended to increase quality of the plugin for users. Using social signals such as friends, friends of friends, and most liked or most active discussion threads, the Comments box will personalize results for each user.

How to add the Facebook Comments Box to my website

Facebook offers a simple and easy to use Comments Box code generator which looks something like this:

Insert the URL you want Facebook to link to, the number of posts you would like displayed be default, and the width you want your Comments Box to be, then click “Get Code.”

Or, add the Facebook Comments Box using the following code:

Attributes

Href – the URL for the specific Comments plugin. Newsfeed stories on Facebook will link here.

Width – the width of the plucin in pixels (minimum width: 350px)

Num_posts – the number of comments to show by default

Moderation

Before adding admins to your comment box, you must first locate the ID of the user you wish to add. To do so, hover over a link to the user’s name on Facebook, and a URL will appear in the lower left hand corner of your browser. Toward the end of the URL, you will find “id=” followed by a set of numbers. Those numbers make up the user ID.

Now that you have found your ID, you can add admins to your Comments Box by inputting the user IDs of each admin, separated by commas, into the following tag:

You can also associate a Facebook app with your Comments Box, automatically making all admins of the app admins of your Comments Box as well. Do so using the following tag:

Web Ascender Wins Greater Lansing Entrepreneur Award

root — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 13:58:00 GMT

Web Ascender was recently recognized by the Lansing Business Monthly at the 17th Annual Greater Lansing Entrepreneurial Awards (GLEAs). Web Ascender’s Ryan Doom and Kevin Southworth were announced as the winners of the Interactive Services Entrepreneur award on Thursday, March 10, 2011.

Since Web Ascender was founded in 2005, the company has rapidly grown into a leader in the field of web design, development, and internet marketing. Specializing in creating custom websites, functional mobile apps, and practical online systems, Web Ascender strives to suit the needs of both local clients and clients across the globe.

The annual GLEAs recognize business owners and managers who have created and developed prospering companies in the Greater Lansing area. Web Ascender was one of twelve local businesses to be recognized.

What is Facebook Open Graph?

Stephanie — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 16:57:00 GMT

The Like button is one of the most popular ways to integrate Facebook into your site. It is thankfully one of the easiest as well. From personal blogs to corporate websites, the Like button can act as a personal gateway between your site and Mr. Zuckerberg’s. And now, thanks to the Open Graph, it is easier than ever to let Facebook work its magic and market for you.

What is the Open Graph?

Based upon the idea of mapping out all of the connections between one person and his or her Likes to create a “graph,” the idea of the Open Graph is to connect everyone from across the web based what each person deems important, or “Likes.” Ultimately, in providing a link between one’s social interactions with Facebook and one’s social interactions with the rest of the web, the Open Graph protocol enables any website to achieve the same functionality as a Facebook page.

What does this mean for the Web?

The implications that the Open Graph may have on the web as a whole relate significantly to the idea of search engines. While currently Google still attracts more traffic than any other website, Facebook is a close second. Even without a good internal search engine, Facebook already drives more traffic for some searches than Google itself. And in attempting to link Facebook with the rest of the web, the Open Graph is creating Facebook’s own extensive and highly interactive version of a search engine. It is important to note, however, that Google still holds significant importance in the large scheme of things, and even if Facebook does surpass Google, Google will likely continue to warrant enough traffic to play a large role in the online world.

What does this mean in terms of marketing?

First off, the implications of the Open Graph when it comes to SEO are significant. Social influence now officially plays a role in search engine results, and if you are not taking advantage of the Open Graph, you are missing out on a big slice of the SEO pie. The number of Likes your website receives directly relates to how popular Google assumes your site to be. The more Likes you boast, the higher Google ranks your page. Also, without the Open Graph, only your website’s Facebook page can appear in a user’s news feed or wall posts. However, the Open Graph allows an actual link to your website to appear throughout Facebook. If you aren’t using the Open Graph, you may be losing a good portion of traffic to your site.

How do I add a Facebook Like button?

Simply point your browser over to http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/like/,

Add your site url,
Click ‘Get Code’
Select your embedding method

Embed your code from Facebook and reload your page. Viola! Users can now Like your page. Page details will be posted on the user’s wall and news feed.

Advance Like Button Features - Open Graph Protocol

Facebook’s Open Graph Protocol (http://developers.facebook.com/docs/opengraph ) allows you to add additional meta data to your site which Facebook will interpret and include in the Like details. Facebook provides a number of meta properties which help distinguish your content posted on Facebook.

<meta property="og:title" content="The Rock"/>
<meta property="og:type" content="movie"/>
<meta property="og:email" content="me@example.com"/>
<meta property="og:phone_number" content="650-123-4567"/>
<meta property="og:fax_number" content="+1-415-123-4567"/>

These are a few examples of meta properties.Use Facebook’s URL Linter (http://developers.facebook.com/tools/lint/) to insure you’ve added everything correctly.

QR Codes as a Marketing Tool

Stephanie — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 17:09:00 GMT

If you haven’t heard, there is a new marketing phenomenon and it looks something like this:

Known as a QR code, short for Quick Response, the image seen above is a barcode that can be read by mobile devices. The codes can store a variety of information such as phone numbers and URLs. When scanned, this image will link you to the URL for the Web Ascender website.

Before your phone will be compatible with QR codes, you may need to download a barcode scanner application, but after doing so, simply hold the camera on your mobile device over the image to decode it.

You can download ‘Bakodo’ free on the iPhone and ‘Barcode Scanner’ by ZXing Team for Android.

Created in Japan in 1994, QR codes were originally used for vehicle manufacturing as a way to track parts. While today they are still used commercially as tracking devices, they have also taken on a new application.

In the marketing world, the idea of a QR code is to the ease the divide between traditional and new media. The draw of the codes is that they more or less act as real life hyperlinks.

Print advertisements that contain QR codes may store product details, coupons, or a URL for an online store while business cards with the codes might contain contact information allowing clients to scan a code to add you to their address book.

Google’s “Favorite Places” campaign puts QR codes that link to their listings in the windows of local businesses, and some fast food restaurants use QR codes on their packaging with nutrition information.

The possibilities with QR codes are endless, and not only are their benefits seen in the convenience they provide consumers, but also in their ability to make marketing more efficient and effective. Using QR codes allows advertisers to measure response rates fairly accurately, ultimately improving return on investment calculations.

Another marketing advantage that QR codes may have in the future relates to search engines. Currently, if you have a QR code on your website, Google will index it as an image, but the time is sure to come when Google will recognize the image as a QR code and index its content as well.

The benefits of integrating QR codes into your marketing campaign are evident, so if this leaves you wondering how to get started, it’s probably easier than you think. There are a number of free QR code generators available online as well as more specialized tools that will allow you to track the activity of your codes.

The rapid increase in popularity of QR codes over the past decade shows no sign of slowing down, so don’t wait to take advantage of such an innovative technology. It’s here to stay.

Is your website getting old? 9 ways to give it a boost!

Stephanie — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 19:51:00 GMT

The average life span of a website design is about 3 years. Does that mean you then have invest a bunch of money to build a new one? Not necessarily. If your website was built using a content management system (CMS), virtual includes, properly organized HTML/CSS, or a similar strategy to separate your website’s content with the look and feel then it may be easier than you think to get that brand new website.

For example, Web Ascender often uses the content management system DotNetNuke to build our clients’ websites. Using this CMS, all of the actual site content and information is stored separately from the design files in a database. Therefore, if you wanted to make your website look different it would be a pretty painless endeavor.

If it has been over a year since you had your website developed, here are some ideas or features you could add to bring in some new life!

Get an Updated Design

You may not have to re-build your entire website, but review it for ways that it can be improved upon. This industry moves fast, changes can be made to your site to perform better on different screen resolutions and mobile devices. Even the best practices for the web have changed since last year, so spending some time to review the look of your website and how it positions your company is a good idea every year or two.

Review Your Sitemap and Content

If your website was built using a CMS it should be easy to rename pages, update content, and continue to add value to your visitors with pretty minimal effort. Take the time to walk through your site, review each page, and see what other services you now offer, what new products you have, or what additional information you can offer to your visitors.

Add a Blog or News Section

Create a way to provide information to your current customers or prospects.

Do a Search Engine Optimization Review

Unfortunately, your website won’t magically show up for the search terms you want. If you are noticing that your website isn’t showing up for the terms you would like it to, work with your developer or a company to review this quarterly or annually. Putting a long term strategy into place can ensure that you continually improve your search engine position.

Review your ‘Call to Action’

On each of your websites pages, do you have a clear next step? Maybe it is to pick up the phone and place a call, perhaps it is to buy a product or fill out a contact form? Make sure there is something the user can do next. Sometimes it’s as simple as making sure your phone number and address are visible and easy to access.

Add a Shopping Cart to Your Website

If you sell products in your store and you don’t already sell them online, consider starting an online store. The cost of adding e-commerce to a website is easier than ever before. Especially with new checkout options like PayPal and Google Checkout this can often be added without having to do a lot of work with your bank.

Add a Client or Member’s Only Area

Can you offer additional content on your website that only existing clients or members should be able to access? This could be useful files to download, exclusive access to education materials, documents specifically for them, or ways for them to ask questions or get additional support.

Add a Mobile Version of Your Website

How many of your visitors are accessing your website from their mobile device? Sure it may only be 1% – 5% today but this market will continuing to grow.

Integrate Social Media

Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, FourSquare, and other social media outlets are not a good fit for all businesses. However, you should evaluate at what level you should start to get involved with these online discussion and communication platforms. Lot’s of conversations are happening, probably some about services or products you provide. If you start listening and get involved with discussions, it could open you up to a new market and additional opportunities.