Author Archive
Tuesday, November 23rd, 2010
 Hello there! Welcome to the Internet Beacon’s awesome weblog. If you’re here for SEO tips for small businesses, you’ve come to the right place
<>Twitter is a powerful tool of social media interaction. It allows you to connect with people all over the world in tiny little blurbs. Many companies are utilizing its power to help spread their influence and awareness of their products and services. As an Internet Marketing company, this is part of our focus. Today, we’d like to go over one of Twitter’s many interesting facets, Groups.
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<>Similar to lists of friends in your address book or on Facebook, Groups on Twitter allow you to create lists of people online. This can be used for many reasons, from simple organization to ease the process of following others. The latter is why we’re discussing this.
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<>Groups on Twitter can be made public. This means that if all of your employees have Twitter accounts, they can be pooled together into “Company X’s Hardworking Employees” and posted online. Then if someone is a fan of your company or organization, they can simply follow the list, instead of adding each person individually. This also makes for greater recognition, when people notice their friends following your list.
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<>All in all, Twitter groups are a great addition to the service. The savvy user will take advantage of this free tool and use it to their advantage
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<>-Josh
<>InternetBeacon
Tags: Groups, marketing, Twitter, www
Posted in Twitter | 2 Comments »
Friday, November 19th, 2010
 Hello there! Welcome to the Internet Beacon’s awesome weblog. If you’re here for SEO tips for small businesses, you’ve come to the right place
Alright, people. You need hits on your website and there are ways to get it. SEO, like most things, has two sides. Classic programming lingo refers to these as White Hat and Black Hat. The former is the kind of SEO that a reputable firm will offer you. However, there are plenty of companies that will push your website using the latter’s illicit tactics. Here are three Black Hat techniques to avoid
Article Spinning
Article Spinning takes several forms. One of them is respinning articles from either your own blog or someone else’s blog. You take bits and pieces and change them to make it seem like they’re different. This gets around the duplication rule, but means that you’re offering up no new content. You’re tricking people into finding your site, but what happens when they get there?
Keyword Stuffing
This one is an old tactic that is starting to disappear. Essentially, search engines would use keywords plugged into your META description to help find the site. The only problem is that people were jamming their description full of words that might not even apply to their site. This made for inaccurate search results and irritated web users.
Spamdexing
This is one of the worst offenders, in my opinion. Spamdexing happens when you fill a website with repeated keywords and phrases to the point where it becomes ridiculous. Paragraphs make little sense and the whole text body is designed to be a cheap marketing tool that only serves to frustrate the visitors.
All in all, Black Hat tactics are not worth the price. Sure you might get a brief spike in traffic, but once the search engines catch you, it’s over. Your site gets blacklisted and now you aren’t getting any hits at all. This is all on top of the sloppy mess of a website you’ll be running.
-Josh
InternetBeacon
Tags: Black Hat, Internet Marketing, seo, Tips
Posted in Search Engine Optimization SEO | No Comments »
Friday, November 5th, 2010
Hey everyone! We thought it would be a good idea to tell you that we’ve added Skype support to the site. You can see our phone number (800-876-1398) on the homepage and click it to launch a Skype call. As some of you already know, Skype is a free Internet-based calling system that also offers cheap phone service, too. Now if you have any questions or want to get ahold of us from your PC or Mac, just click the link on the homepage! If you don’t have Skype, click here to get it.
-Josh
Tags: Call, Communication, Phone, Skype
Posted in Web Tips | No Comments »
Thursday, November 4th, 2010
Microsoft Silverlight from www.microsoft.com Nov 2010
Hello there! Welcome to the Internet Beacon’s awesome weblog. If you’re here for SEO tips for small businesses, you’ve come to the right place. If you’ve used any Microsoft backed site in the past two years or so, you’ve no doubt had to install their Silverlight plug-in.
Indeed, Microsoft was pushing to get Silverlight installed and in use everywhere they could. However, after years of attempting to make it an industry standard, Microsoft recently admitted that they are changing their focus for Silverlight.
A representative has told news sources that they are pushing to embrace HTML5, the upcoming programming standard for websites and backed by the W3C. This is a surprise, but certainly a good move on Microsoft’s part. Big companies like Apple and Google are already backing the open standard for the Web. In fact, the representative confirmed that because of mobile devices that use Apple’s iOS, they are pushing for HTML5. Microsoft confirmed that Silverlight will play a big role in their own upcoming Windows Phone OS.
What does this mean for the Web? It means that one less standard competing for dominance. The Web is going mobile, and has been for years. More and more it is becoming a utility with applications inside the home, but with large importance on the go. By choosing to back HTML5 instead of a fledgling language, Microsoft is hedging its bets.
-Josh
Internet Beacon
Tags: HTML5, IE, Microsoft, Programming
Posted in WWW | No Comments »
Friday, October 29th, 2010
 Hello there! Welcome to the Internet Beacon’s awesome weblog. If you’re here for SEO tips for small businesses, you’ve come to the right place.
Everyone will tell you that the mobile web is the future. Devices like iPhones and tablet PCs are giving people more and more access to the Internet on the go. However, these devices are not always equipped with what they need to view the Web as you do on a home PC. To this end, a lot of websites will make a mobile version of their site. Here are some questions to ask yourself about whether or not YOU need one.
Does your current layout rely on Flash or some other plug-in?
Flash is great for everything from online videos to creating a stylish menu. However, if you only use Flash for your site, then people with smartphones and some tablets won’t be able to read it. This denies them access to your page, and denies you a chance at their business.
Do you deliver content that could be viewed on the go?
Blogs are a great example of this. Lots of us commute long distances to work. If you’re on the train or in a carpool, you might want to check the news or read your favorite blogs while you wait. Blogs that are text and images can translate well into a mobile version and can offer you another outlet for your audience.
Do users need to interact with your site regularly?
If you provide a forum or interactive service, you might want to consider making a mobile version. For the most part, this isn’t a huge consideration, but if your interactivity is dependent on Flash or Silverlight, you are preventing users from contributing when they can.
-Josh
Internet Beacon
Tags: internet, Mobile, seo, web, Web design
Posted in Web Development | 2 Comments »
Friday, October 22nd, 2010
 Hello there! Welcome to the Internet Beacon’s awesome weblog. If you’re here for SEO tips for small businesses, you’ve come to the right place.
Keeping people coming to your site is key in this industry. You don’t want them to visit once and then forget about you. That doesn’t do you any favors and it keeps your website from gaining influence on the web. Now, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), is something we here at the Internet Beacon specialize in. However, once you get people to your site, you need to give them a reason to keep coming back. Now, this where your content comes into play. The only thing is, don’t let your content get stale. There are three major forms of communication used today in the blogosphere.
Audio – Listen Up
Today’s Internet user is doing multiple things at once. They might be shopping while listening to the news. Or checking their bank account while playing their favorite music. The common thread here is that the audio provides the user with content, without demanding their absolute attention. Providing content like podcasts or even streaming sound clips can get your audience’s interest, while still giving them freedom.
Video – Catch their Eye
Now, if you really want someone’s attention, video is a great way to do it. Video allows for massive amounts of data to be exchanged. The combination of audible and visual means creates an opportunity to share tons of information with your users. Some great video ideas are reviews or answers to popular questions about your products/services.
Written Word – Worth “X” Amount of Pictures
Ah, the classic standby. Text was the first form of communication on the Web and is easiest to post. A solid blog or post can inform users of your products and services, all while representing it an easy to handle format. PC processing power doesn’t come into play and text is easily managed on mobile devices as well.
-Josh
Internet Beacon
Tags: content, Presentation, Repeat Customers, seo, Video
Posted in Browser, Search Engine Optimization SEO, Web Development | 1 Comment »
Friday, October 15th, 2010
 Hello there! Welcome to the Internet Beacon’s awesome weblog. If you’re here for SEO tips for small businesses, you’ve come to the right place.
When you think of social media, what comes to mind? Well, for most people, it’s Twitter and Facebook. While the latter has been around for a few years more than the former, Twitter has rapidly made a name for itself. Now that Twitter has become such a huge part of social media, the question that arises is where does Twitter place in the ad game? Apparently, very high.
According to recent studies, Twitter ads are doing exceptionally better than Facebook ads. Specifically, the average amount of links clicked on Twitter is 19 per user whereas Facebook comes in at a measly 3. But why? A good guess is that Twitter is simply easier to use. It allows for quicker communication, despite that communication being limited to 140 characters. Another reason could be URL shrinkers. They make the links easier to post and quicker to access.
The take away here is that Twitter is currently outpacing Facebook for shared links. This means that if you want to get people clicking links to your site, Twitter is the place to be. Make your tweets fun, interesting, and relevant and you should have no problem getting people to notice them.
-Josh
Internet Beacon
Internet Marketing Maryland
Tags: Facebook, marketing, seo, Social Media, Twitter
Posted in Advertising, Internet Marketing, Search Engine Optimization SEO | 1 Comment »
Friday, October 8th, 2010
 Hello there! Welcome to the Internet Beacon’s awesome weblog. If you’re here for SEO tips for small businesses, you’ve come to the right place.
Ah, the World Wide Web. It’s come a long way from AOL and Geocities blogs with looping MIDI music. We have social networking sites that keep us in touch with friends, family, coworkers, and even complete strangers. We can post what music we’re listening to and others can stream the same song. Now, as the Web has grown, a sort of version number has been attached to it.
At first, there was the World Wide Web, or Web 1.0. It consisted of a lot of static web pages serving identical information to all visitors. There was very little customization and user interaction.
Now, after a while, developers started making sites that would display dynamic content. Once we reached a point where there could live interaction with the Web, Web 2.0 was born.
Well, there is a new kid in town named Web 3.0. Now, before you get in an uproar about how much you love Web 2.0, let me explain a little about it. Web 3.0 is described as a persistent experience online that removes the borders between the Web and us by obviating the need to sit at a terminal or handheld device. Devices that provide things like Augmented Reality, adding computer generated data as an overlay to the real world, will be part of this. Imagine seeing directions through your glasses instead of a GPS. Devices that interact with real time data, say, where you’re eating lunch at the moment, will also be a part.
Web 3.0 is still in its infancy and should by no means be taken as an apocalyptic end to life as we know it. We don’t have to worry about being left in the dust of society unless we “plug in”. That sort of dystopian future is best left to Science Fiction.
-Josh
InternetBeacon.com
Tags: Browsing, internet, web, Web 2.0, Web 3.0, www
Posted in Browser, WWW | No Comments »
Friday, October 1st, 2010
 Hello there! Welcome to the Internet Beacon’s awesome weblog. If you’re here for SEO tips for small businesses, you’ve come to the right place.
Getting in touch with your user base is vital to any business looking to prosper. You want to make sure that you are meeting the needs and desires of your users, and that means getting their feedback. Now, there are several ways to get in touch with your users.
As with getting feedback from employees, polls are a valuable tool in gathering data. People are usually pretty open with polls, especially when the results are anonymous. They can feel free to express their opinions, and you should be glad to get them. This information will be valuable in making important choices in the future.
Giveaways are a great way to drive up traffic and boost interest in your site. People love free stuff, and so entering for a chance to win draws people in. You can start small, say with discounts off of work/services provided by your site and go up from there.
Forums are a powerful tool for creating community interaction. Giving people a place to engage in meaningful conversation about a topic that interests them is always a winner. By setting up a place to discuss your product or services with other users, people will be much more likely to get involved.
Example Online Polling Resources:
ITLpoll.com (open source), MicroPoll.com, QuestionPro.com, SurveyMonkey.com, Zoomerang.com
-Josh
Internet Beacon
Tags: blogs, Community, Forums, people, Polls, Users
Posted in Blog Hints, Web Tips | No Comments »
Thursday, September 23rd, 2010
 Hello there! Welcome to the Internet Beacon’s awesome weblog. If you’re here for SEO tips for small businesses, you’ve come to the right place.
Marketing is something that all businesses need. Whether you use flyers to notify people of your awesome new lemonade stand or skywriting to attract people to the sweet new laser tag center you’ve opened, you need to get people to notice your business. Here at the Internet Beacon, we specialize in Internet Marketing. Now, that means we focus on how to get people to see your website. From there, we then need to convert them to leads. Post Click Marketing comes into play here.
PCM is an emerging trend in Internet Marketing that focuses on turning those visitors into valuable customers. This is done through constant analysis of site visitor data. There are several ways to do this. Keywords are a great place to start. You can track who is coming to your site and, importantly, what keywords they are using to find it. This lets you know how your SEO is working and what needs to be tweaked.
Another focal point of PCM is
Marketing is something that all businesses need. Whether you use flyers to notify people of your awesome new lemonade stand or skywriting to attract people to the sweet new laser tag center you’ve opened, you need to get people to notice your business. Here at the Internet Beacon, we specialize in Internet Marketing. Now, that means we focus on how to get people to see your website. From there, we then need to convert them to leads. Post Click Marketing comes into play here.
PCM is an emerging trend in Internet Marketing that focuses on turning those visitors into valuable customers. This is done through constant analysis of site visitor data. There are several ways to do this. Keywords are a great place to start. You can track who is coming to your site and, importantly, what keywords they are using to find it. This lets you know how your SEO is… Read the rest
Tags: get people, Internet Marketing, marketing, PCM, seo, Small Business
Posted in Internet Marketing, Search Engine Optimization SEO | 1 Comment »
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