At first glance, learning to program a circle in a browser is a task that to many would seem senseless. But believe it or not, creating a circle in a browser is a task that offers a lot of value to web designers of all skill levels. Why take the time to render a circle with code, when we could simply use an image editing program like Photoshop to create the circle? By rendering the circle in-browser, as opposed to embedding an image or coding it … Continue reading →
Social media scoring is the practice of measuring people’s online influence, which is calculated using data from social networks. There are a few popular social scoring tools, including Peerindex and Kred, but the most popular and widely used is Klout. Like Google, which ranks the relevance and authority of websites using a proprietary algorithm, Klout ranks the influence and authority of people online using an algorithm. Klout gives users a score that “measures influence based on your ability to drive action.” The Klout score is … Continue reading →
Negative SEO is the malicious intention to decrease or penalize a site’s visibility and rankings in the search results. It is considered to be a “black hat”, or unethical technique- as opposed to “white hat”, ethical SEO. While this practice is highly frowned upon, it is good to understand these techniques as a precaution to prevent your site from being manipulated. Businesses need to know what to avoid, but also how poorly performing competitors are outranking their site. A high search ranking can depend on … Continue reading →
Today, DBS>Interactive announces its expansion to the West Coast, with new offices located in Burbank, California to serve the Los Angeles region. DBS is spreading excellence in innovative design, quality programming, and proven online marketing strategies by expanding our territory. DBS>Interactive’s CEO, Cyndi Masters is enthusiastic about the potential of the new Los Angeles office. “From our Louisville base, we’ve helped major brands and multinational corporations distinguish themselves within a crowded online marketplace. Our new Los Angeles office enables us to provide more personal contact … Continue reading →
Google’s Matt Cutts announced a new algorithm change at the SXSW conference when responding to a question about regular websites competing with over optimized sites. The algorithm change was described by Cutts as one that will penalize sites that are over optimized, and level the playing field in the results. SEO can go beyond making sure pages are as useful as possible for the target audience and that the site is crawlable by search engines- that is what this change is targeting. This algorithm change … Continue reading →
Recent reports suggest that marketers intend to spend 10.8% of their budget on social media this year. To justify this significant investment in social media, CMO’s will without a doubt rely on reporting tools to assess the effectiveness of their social media campaigns. The ability for online marketers to assess social media campaigns does not come without its fair share of challenges. Even though social media is no longer a new frontier, measuring the effectiveness of a social media campaign still represents one of the … Continue reading →
WordPress is an amazing blogging platform that provides a solid foundation for over 20% of active websites. However, every WordPress site is not a personal blog. Many sites powered by WordPress use plugins to customize and extend the functionality of their installations. WordPress.org currently hosts almost 20,000 WordPress plugins for download, but how can you find a reliable solution for your website’s needs? Below we breakdown one of the most popular plugins on WordPress.org by critiquing it’s performance in three general areas. Overview The Advanced … Continue reading →
Since its launch in June 2011, Google+ has attracted over 90 million users (about 10% of the amount of Facebook’s active users). Despite the preliminary fast growth, (Google+ gained 20 million users in the first 3 weeks) numbers imply that users aren’t spending much time on Google+. Wall Street Journal recently called Google+ a “virtual ghost town” in its article the Mounting Minuses at Google +. Google+ has an average use of just 3 minutes per month- lower than MySpace! Without active engagement, Google+ is … Continue reading →
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past few months, you’ve likely heard of Pinterest — the latest and greatest craze sweeping the Internet. To put it’s rapid growth into perspective, one must only look to it’s closest competition. Throughout the history of the Internet, the only website that has grown at a faster rate than Pinterest is a little website by the name of Facebook. If that isn’t impressive enough, consider this fact. Pinterest is not a novel idea. Why has Pinterest … Continue reading →
The need for businesses to invest in a proper mobile website has never been stronger. Recent statistics suggest that businesses who choose to forego this advice may quickly see their market share diminish. According to the Internet Advertising Bureau, 61% of customers who visit a mobile unfriendly site are likely to go to a competitor’s site. With mobile Internet usage scheduled to surpass desktop Internet usage by 2014, businesses must consider implementing a mobile site to continue to be relevant. But the ways in which … Continue reading →
