Archive for August, 2010

Why You Should Use a Professional Photographer to Photograph Your Products

Monday, August 30th, 2010

By Sarah Reed

photoToday’s shoppers expect and demand that online stores provide the same realistic in-store shopping experience. The two best ways to do this is through video and photography.

Hiring a professional photographer to photograph your products may seem like too high of a cost for your budget, but in reality, it will save you money in the long run.

“The photograph is almost always the first element in any ad that connects with the buyer. It is the handshake, the first impression, the thing that cuts through the visual clutter to capture the buyer’s attention.” (Gar Benedick)

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The ABC’s of SEO: Part One

Wednesday, August 25th, 2010

seoSearch engine optimization, or SEO, is an important conversation every business owner should have with their web developer.  It’s not enough anymore to have a pretty site that functions well; websites have to be written and coded in a way that will make them findable by search engines.  Because once a search engine can find your website, your audience can and will find your website.

In the first part of this series on the basics of SEO, we’ll focus on Keywords.

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Content Management Systems Save You Time and Money

Friday, August 20th, 2010

cmstimemoneyBy Sarah Reed

Nowadays, most websites are built using a content management system, but not all. Content management systems are wonderfully convenient in that they allow a person who has no HTML knowledge to be able to make edits to their website easily and properly. Of course there are times when the system does not work perfectly, as I discussed last week, but for the most part, having your website in a content management system will not only save you time in making the edits yourself, but will also save you money if you are hiring a developer to make the edits for you.

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Public vs. Private Domain Registration

Saturday, August 14th, 2010

domainregBy Sarah Reed

Whether you are an individual looking to make a website for your business or a company making another website for a new brand or product, you have the choice to register your domain name publicly or privately.

The main factor to consider in this decision is the results of the “Who Is Lookup.” A “Who Is Lookup” is like a domain name search engine: you type in a domain name and it tells you if the domain name is registered, who it is registered to and when it will expire.

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.Com, .Net, .Biz… .What?

Sunday, August 8th, 2010

comnetbizBy: Christine Gratton

Selecting your domain name in today’s online marketplace can sometimes prove to be more challenging than you’d initially expect.  The reality is that with all the websites out there today, there is fierce competition among domain name selection.  This means that the domain name you want may not be available, or it may be too similar to another larger site’s name to really make for a logical choice.

In reaction to the short supply of domain names, many organizations have developed domain locations beyond the traditional “dot com.”  You may have seen some of these new additions recently:

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When to Peek Behind The Curtain of a WYSIWYG

Monday, August 2nd, 2010

By Sarah Reed

curtainIf you are using a content management system like Wordpress, Joomla or Drupal to manage your site, you will have noticed that you can make your edits through one of two views: the “visual side” or the “HTML side.”

When you use the “visual” tab to make your edits, you are in fact using a WYSIWYG, which is an acronym for What You See Is What You Get. It allows a person with no HTML or coding knowledge to easily edit the content and images in the body of their website. This is of course wonderfully convenient for anyone who is not a coder, but there are a few times when you may need to look behind the curtain of a WYSIWYG in order to properly make the changes you want.

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