Archive for the ‘Web Tips’ Category
Description of ‘Web Tips’ Category:
These articles are tips and tricks to keep in mind while you surf the Internet. They could be helpful websites, ideas on how to use your current favorite sites, and lots of other things.
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 »
Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010
 Hey, Josh here from the Internet Beacon. We are a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) firm located in Reisterstown, Maryland. What we do, SEO, is a subcategory of Internet Marketing. Similar to traditional advertising, SEO is all about getting your Brand out there. In this case, we´re working to get your website in front of customers through search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing. For more quick, useful information, check out our SEO Answers page, our SEO Glossary, and our blog posts on SEO.
There’s no denying that Google is the most powerful search engine in the market right now. There are several other places you can go to find content on the Web, but at this moment, Google stands above them. Because of this, Google is a great tool for promoting your business. One tool that they offer, specifically targeted at business owners, is Google Places.
Google Places allows you to create a home for your business within Google. This then gets linked to Google Maps, as well as everywhere else in Google’s kingdom. The benefit here is, I believe, that you are one step closer to Google when it comes time for searches. Local results, which are probably what you want if you are a small business, are almost always returned first via Google Maps in a Web search. By having a Google Places listing, you increase your chance of being seen dramatically.
Another great feature of Google Places is the ability to show your area of service. This is incredibly handy for those companies offering services and products to a very specific area. Restaurants who deliver are the first to come to mind. Customers can see your delivery area, so that cuts down on wasted calls and wasted time. In addition to this, Google Places supports QR codes. They look like square barcodes, of a sort. Customers can scan the tag with their smart phone and get data on your establishment.
Google Places is a great tool for small businesses looking to start a presence online or extend their current reach. In addition to your website, your Google Place can be another source of contact in a world constantly built on making connections. I recommend at least checking it out.
-Josh
Internet Beacon
SEO Maryland
Tags: company, Google, Google Places, Internet Marketing, places, seo
Posted in Internet Marketing, Web Tips | 1 Comment »
Thursday, April 8th, 2010
 Hey everyone, Josh here from the Internet Beacon.
The Internet Beacon is a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) firm located in Maryland. What we do, SEO, is a form of Internet Marketing. Much like traditional advertising, SEO is all about getting your name out there. In this case, we’re working to get your website in front of customers through search engines like Google and Yahoo. For more information, check out our SEO Answers page, SEO Glossary, and our blog posts on SEO.
Internet Media
Getting to media online is a bit of a tricky matter. Sure, you can find it anywhere, but that isn’t the problem. The problem is the legality of the source. Today, I’m going to give you some links to websites that offer access to your favorite television programs and music that are 100% legal and mostly free.
LaLa
LaLa is a music service that offers cloud (Internet only) storage of music from your favorite artists. They have a large online selection. You can stream the music to your computer, so that means no hard drive space taken up. All you need is a solid internet connection. You can purchase songs for about $0.10 each, provided you can’t download them. MP3 versions costs a bit more, between $0.80 and $1.30. I’ve used this service for about two months now and am very pleased with it.
Hulu
Lots of people are getting to know about Hulu. Hulu is similar to Lala in that you can stream media to your computer over an Internet connection. In this case, Hulu offers television programs and some movies. All of this is free. This may not be true in a year, but for now, just about every TV show from the major networks is on offer. You can use their service without making a free account, but if you choose to register, you can sign up for notifications about shows you like and when new episodes are available. I’ve used this for over 2 years now and am quite pleased with the service. I wholeheartedly recommend it
That’s all for this week! Now you know a little more about where to get your favorite entertainment WITHIN the bounds of the law.
-Josh
Internet Beacon
Tags: internet, media, music, television programs
Posted in Web Tips | 1 Comment »
Friday, February 12th, 2010
 Hey everyone, Josh from the Internet Beacon here. We’re a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) firm located in Finksburg, MD. SEO is a form of Internet Marketing. For a more detailed explanation, you can check out my blog post about it here. Today, I’d like to talk to you about privacy on Facebook.
We all like to think we’ve been especially careful when putting our information online. We take steps to ensure that we don’t put information like our credit card numbers, home address, etc where everyone can see. However, there are other ways for people to get a hold of your information.
Since Facebook is all about connecting with other people, usually friends and family, information gets shared with them. They have access to whatever you post. And why shouldn’t they? You’ve given them the okay. What you haven’t allowed, however, is the applications they use.We are going to prevent whatever goofy program your relative installed in their Facebook from accessing your name and address. This is incredibly easy to do.
First, login to Facebook. Then, go to the top right portion of the window. Click “Account” and then “Privacy Settings.” From here, you’ll see a link called “Applications and Websites”, click it. Of the several options here, you want to locate “What your friends can share about you” and then click on Edit Settings.
Welcome to your application privacy settings, at least concerning your friends. This screen will have a list of checkboxes detailing different facets of your account information. From here, you can now determine what exactly you want to share with your friends’ and family’s applications. Just make sure to save your changes!
That’s all for this week’s post. Be sure to check back for more every Friday.
-Josh
Internet Beacon
Baltimore SEO
Maryland SEO
Tags: Facebook, fan, information, seo
Posted in Web Tips | No Comments »
Friday, February 5th, 2010
 Hey, everyone! It’s Josh from the Internet Beacon. We’re a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) firm in Finksburg, MD. Our business focuses on getting your business’ name out there on the Internet. Essentially, we work so that popular search engines like Google or Yahoo are more likely to display your site when potential customers search for keywords related to your business.
This week I’d like to talk about Passwords. We all have them for various areas of our electronic lives. We all need them, and too often we are not as careful as we should be when choosing them. In choosing a password there are several things to consider.
An important part of choosing a password is the length. Certainly a lot of website give us guidelines when setting the password length, but they are often the minimum requirements. A good thing to keep in mind for password length is making them longer than 8 characters. This is because of the way that different operating systems interpret them. Without getting too technical, passwords are harder to break them if they are over 8 characters.
Another “best practice” is to include special characters and number in your passwords. This can turn something like “baseball” into b4s3ba!!”. Someone could easily guess your password if they know you well or your interests. However, simply knowing you like baseball will not be enough if you add in these steps. Someone could spend days trying to figure out the combination, and more often then not, they would be locked out before actually cracking your password.
Well, that’s all for this week. Hopefully, you now have a better idea of how to keep your personal accounts a little safer online. If you have any questions, feel free to email me!
-Josh
Internet Beacon
Baltimore SEO
Maryland SEO
Tags: password, passwords, search engine optimization, seo
Posted in Web Tips | No Comments »
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